A memorial service was held Saturday for the CEO of a Philadelphia tech company who was killed in Tuesday’s train derailment.
The service was held at 11 a.m. for Rachel Jacobs, 39, at the Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion on West 4th Street in New York City.
Jacobs, a leader in the worker training and development industry, was one of eight people killed when a New York-bound Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia Tuesday. She was commuting home to New York from her new job as CEO of the Philadelphia educational software startup ApprenNet.
The 39-year-old mother of a 2-year-old son previously worked at McGraw-Hill, leading the expansion of the company's career-learning business into China, India and the Middle East, and Ascend Learning, another education-technology firm.
Jacobs is the daughter of Gilda Jacobs, a former Michigan state senator and current chief executive of the Michigan League for Public Policy.
The family said in a statement that Rachel Jacobs "was a wonderful mother, daughter, sister, wife and friend" who was devoted to family and social justice.
She was a founder and board chairwoman at Detroit Nation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting startups in her Michigan hometown.
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Through the organization, Jacobs helped bring the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to New York for its first concert at Carnegie Hall in 17 years.
She attended Swarthmore College and Columbia Business School. She joined ApprenNet in March and had planned on moving to Philadelphia.
A wake is also being held for another victim killed in the derailment, 47-year-old Laura Finamore, at the Fairchild & Sons Funeral Home in Manhasset, New York. READ MORE ABOUT FINAMORE AND THE OTHER VICTIMS OF THE DEADLY DERAILMENT HERE.
