An Iowa businessman know for donations to athletic programs and other causes is donating 100-million dollars to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Richard Jacobson, a native of Belmond, founded the Jacobson Companies that are headquartered in Des Moines.
Jacobson’s donation will help establish a Proton Beam Therapy Program, which is a new alternative to radiation treatment for cancer patients. “I’ve always wanted to do something for Mayo Clinic and I spent many years trying to find a project that would be a good fit for Mayo and a good fit for myself,” Jacobson said. “This Proton Beam Project would help probably millions of people throughout the world.”
Jacobson’s donation will fund one quarter of the cost of the project. “I always wanted to do something in a fairly major way and this Protein Beam project came up and I said that’s it, I want to do that,” Jacobson says, “And I hope we find some sort of cure that this process obsolete in a few years during my life time. But, I don’t think that is going to happen.”
There are only six Proton Beam facilities in the nation. Mayo Clinic plans to open a new facility in Rochester, Minnesota in 2016. Jacobson started a warehouse company in 1968 and grew that into a trucking and logistics firm that the company website says now operates in 35 states.