Prominent Sarasota civic leader, lumber entrepreneur dies at 95

G.W. Jacobs had long admired what his friend and longtime fellow FCCI Insurance Group board member Charlie Stottlemyer had pulled off when it came to big family trips. Stottlemyer, with more than a dozen grandchildren and even more great-grandchildren, put together a big family adventure once a year. Destinations included Colorado and other places out West. 

Jacobs, CEO of FCCI from 1999 to 2011, often told Stottlemyer how much he admired that, hearing the stories and memories. “If anybody deserves the title patriarch,” says Jacobs, “it was Charlie.” 

So when Jacobs turned 60 in 2004 he got his brood — 15 people — together and paid for the crew to go to a ski resort up north. He took the family on trips like that for the next decade, culminating with a European vacation. “Charlie did the same thing,” Jacobs recalls with a chuckle, “but he didn’t have to bribe his family to come. They always wanted to be together.”