Meet Our Board Members: John Jaeger

December 8, 2019

Ambassadors of Mercy

Born: Milwaukee, WI

College and major: University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, marketing

Position: Principal at One Digital Health and Benefits

“I manage our Des Plaines office, and then I’m also the regional retention leader for all of Chicago – so I’m responsible for making sure that our existing clients stay with us, that they’re happy, and that we retain their business.”

Passions outside of work:

“I enjoy running, golfing, and family time. In 2013, I ran my second Chicago Marathon, and I ran as part of the Mercy Heroes team. When I was training, I saw two guys running with t-shirts that said ‘50 marathons 50 states’ and I asked them about what they were doing, and I was pretty interested. So, I thought, ‘why not run a marathon in every state and raise $50,000 for Mercy Home?’ And then as I opened up my network, I realized $50,000 was going to be nothing. So, I raised it to $100,000. And then shortly thereafter, I realized I’m on pace for $250,000 – let’s just set the bar at that level, and that’s where the bar is set right now.

Favorite travel destination:

“Probably the trip my family and I took to Jamaica. The day of the trip everyone was up at the crack of dawn and found out that due to weather the flight was cancelled, so it was pushed back a day. But we ended up having great family time – we went to this really cool dog show at McCormick Place and we ended up getting a dog shortly thereafter. And the following day we finally made it to Jamaica and just had really good family time with the kids. Just the whole experience from something that started trending kind of negatively because our flight was cancelled to becoming a very positive experience and eventually getting a dog out of it – the whole thing worked itself out very nicely.”

Most influential person growing up:

“When I was very young, my father passed away and my mom remarried just a wonderful guy. And seeing how he dealt with people, respected people – he’s the type of guy who would take the shirt off his back for anybody – and then seeing his work ethic as a blue-collar worker who was working to support his family – I’d say his work ethic and his character probably shaped me the most.”

Favorite part about Mercy Home’s mission:

“The fact that they help children that could be trending towards a way in life that isn’t very successful and giving them the love, guidance and support they need to become productive people – just like my father did for me. I think it’s a great mission and I’m a firm believer that it creates a snowball effect. And people that find the Home, they’re going to pay it forward for the next person, and I really believe in that snowball effect.”

Mercy Home legacy:

“Here’s this dude that ran a marathon in every state, raised a quarter of a million dollars or more, but then also hopefully found other people to jump on, so that essentially I can hand the baton to them and hopefully we can have a 50-state marathon club.”