Right after graduation, Skip Jacobsen joined the U.S. Navy, rising to the rank of lieutenant. Since then Skip, who is partly retired, has been an entrepreneur who ran the family business, Sterling Cleaners and Textile Services. In 1983 he participated in the Harvard Smaller Company Management Program. In 2005 he sold it and converted its 100,000-square-foot building into a self-storage facility.

His wife, Lisa, went to Georgetown, and they were married in 1978. They have three children: Christine, 28, who attended the University of Dayton and works with Ackridge Realty in Washington; Kirk, 26, who went to the University of South Carolina and is now a policeman in Charleston; and Kevin, 22, a Tulane graduate who is assistant dean of students at Gonzaga College High School in Washington. Skip and Lisa live in Potomac, Md., and have a second home in Hilton Head, S.C., where Skip has plenty of opportunity to indulge himself by playing golf.