Legacy of generosity: Meet family gifting downtown’s ice ribbon, playground

Jodi Schwan

April 19, 2021

Garry Jacobson and his family would just as soon no one write a story about them.

But the story is too good for that.

“I’d really rather not,” Jacobson said, when the prospect of a profile was mentioned.

Leaders in the Sioux Falls business community are familiar with the Jacobsons and the significant success of their company, Malloy, which specializes in rebuilding the largest sizes of electric motors and industrial equipment.

But until earlier this year, many people in Sioux Falls probably never had heard the family’s name.

That’s by design.

“We’ve always been very humble,” Jacobson said.

But he and his family are generous too. And thanks to that, the Jacobson name now appears positioned to live on in a powerful, public way. Jacobson and his wife, Dianne, have proposed partnering with the city to help create an ice skating ribbon and fully accessible playground at Falls Park West.

The final City Council vote on it is Tuesday.

“This isn’t Garry or Dianne Jacobson Park,” he said. “This is Jacobson family park. It’s not named for any one individual but for our family.”

If approved, Jacobson Family Plaza will help fulfill some long-held dreams for many in Sioux Falls – a place to ice skate downtown and a plaza designed to make play accessible for all kids.

“Sioux Falls has been a phenomenally good city for me to grow up in,” Jacobson said.

“I was born in Sioux Falls very poor, probably one of the poorest kids in town growing up. But because of the opportunities and the wonderful people who lived in the neighborhood where I grew up and good luck from God, we were able to benefit. And this is one of the ways we want to give back.”

Growing up, home was in the area of 28th and Main, not far from where he attended Mark Twain Elementary.

At USD, he met his future wife during their freshman English class. She was the second woman ever admitted to the business school.

“My parents were raised in two very different worlds,” said their daughter Robin Houwman.

Dianne was raised in the small town of Summit in northeast South Dakota, the daughter of a banker and a baker.

Garry was raised in Sioux Falls by his single divorced mother, who often worked double shifts as a nurse to support her family.

“Although their backgrounds were different, life lessons brought them to similar values,” Houwman said.

“My mother learned about giving to others through her father, who served everyone as the town’s elder statesman and lay minister, and her mother, who at the time of her death was the longest-serving school board member in South Dakota history. My father learned about giving because this community helped raise him and his sister by providing meals and jobs and guidance.”

Garry, a business major, and Dianne, an accounting major, married in 1966 and settled in Sioux Falls. They became business owners 50 years ago last month when they used a small loan from family and a contract for deed to purchase the motor repair and electric construction business founded by Emmett and Mary Malloy.

At the time, there were five employees. Dianne ran the office and managed accounting, and Garry managed the shops. It wasn’t uncommon for them to work all day, go home for dinner and then come back to work with their two young daughters. Dianne even owned a women’s clothing store, Karen’s, at the Park Ridge Galleria for 30 years while helping run Malloy at the same time.

“Because of the tremendous support they received from so many in this community, they began giving back, at first with their time by serving on boards at schools, banks, community organizations or hospitals or the Minnehaha County Commission,” Houwman said.

“They wanted to pay their blessings forward.”

When they were able to pay it forward financially, their first major endeavor was to establish a scholarship for single mothers who were going to nursing school that has no grade point requirement.

“That way, single mothers could make a better life for their families,” Houwman said, adding their philanthropic efforts continued with Sanford Children’s Hospital, the YMCA, First Congregational Church, the Arc of Dreams and many other causes and organizations.

Sioux Falls-based Malloy has grown to 250 employees, with seven offices in four states. A key player in the motor, control and power transmission industry, its highly skilled employees test, repair and rebuild rotating equipment, electric motors and industrial equipment. Customers include power plants, wind farms, oil and gas, food, mining and renewable energy industries.

Houwman’s husband, Chris, serves as Malloy’s president.

“We’ve been blessed with such tremendously wonderful people,” Jacobson said. “That’s why the company has grown.”

For more than a decade, a Jacobson family tradition has been built around giving back.

Garry and Dianne, their daughters Dawn and Robin, their sons-in-law and four grandchildren present ideas for how best to invest their philanthropic dollars.

Each family member does research and puts together a presentation pitch for a nonprofit or cause worthy of support from the family foundation.

“We normally always do it on Christmas Day. We usually have Christmas dinner around 1 p.m. Then, we’ll go around and open some family gifts. When we’re done with that, I always say ‘Now it’s our time to give back,’ ” Jacobson said in a piece published by the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation.

“So we adjourn to the family room, and Dianne and I sit and listen to the kids’ presentations. This is the best thing we’ve ever done. It’s really heartwarming to see our family come together to support our community. And someday, when we’re long gone, this foundation we’ve built — through philanthropy — will continue to be something our family comes together around.”

The gift to Falls Park West was born out of “wanting to do something significant,” Jacobson said.

He didn’t want to build a building, he continued.

Those last a few decades and can be torn down.

In working with the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation, Jacobson was connected with Mayor Paul TenHaken, who learned the family wanted to make an investment in the city park system.

“I have always felt the need for a handicap-accessible playground and thought it would be so cool for the city,” TenHaken said.

“But also, if you put a playground like that by itself, it becomes a playground where only people with disabilities go. And I knew the Jacobsons had an ice rink on their mind. So I had my team combine these two concepts into one, a place where people of all abilities could gather as one community.”

They met for lunch – it was the first time they had ever met – “and I pitched the idea to him and told him it was a $4 million project and would be honored to have their involvement,” TenHaken said.

“It was a very enjoyable meeting,” Jacobson said. “I said how about we look at Falls Park and the handicapped playground and the ice skating rink.”

On the spot, he committed to donating $2 million.

“My jaw dropped,” TenHaken said. “He was so bought in to the vision and the idea of how it would bring people of all abilities together. I was so humbled by his generosity and was not expecting such a gift from a man I had just met an hour earlier.”

The mayor “seemed pretty happy,” Jacobson smiled.

TenHaken said the city would put a contract together. Jacobson said it wasn’t needed.

“He and I shook hands, and my handshake is my contract,” he said.

That “was all I need to know about what kind of person he was,” TenHaken said. “Giving begets giving. And this will inspire many people to get involved, including the next generation of givers.”

Jacobson Family Plaza “would be the capstone of their lifetimes,” Houwman said. “They want this effort to support everyone in this community – those who are young and those who are not so young. Those who are able and those who are differently able. Something new and unique to our community to bring the community together in new ways.”

Assuming the project is approved, it will be matched by a $2 million contribution from the city.

The Jacobsons also plan to create a fund within the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation that is available to replace anything that becomes obsolete and can’t be repaired, as well as to expand what is going to be designed and built initially.

“It’s very humbling to be able to do it,” Jacobson said. “I’ll be the happiest person in the world when I see my granddaughters skating on the ribbon and some kids playing on the playground.”

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