Healthcare Executive Rick Jackson Announces Run for Georgia Governor

Rick Jackson held a press conference on February 3 at his company’s headquarters in Alpharetta to announce his candidacy for governor of Georgia. The 72-year-old healthcare executive has a net worth estimated by Forbes at $1 billion or more.

Jackson has spent at least $50 million on campaign ads and says he will spend double that amount. He won a spot in the June 16 Republican runoff on May 19. Jackson Healthcare operates 22 healthcare companies and places thousands of doctors, nurses, and anesthesiologists in hospitals nationwide.

The company has $3 billion in annual revenue and is the nation’s second-largest medical staffing company behind AMN Healthcare. Cross Country Healthcare agreed in May to a $400 million buyout. The company had $1 billion in revenues.

Deutsche Bank analyst Pito Chickering estimates Jackson Healthcare is likely worth around $1 billion based on Cross Country Healthcare’s multiple. Jackson’s father abandoned the family when Jackson was 9 months old. His mother was an alcoholic with a 6th-grade education who worked as a cocktail waitress.

Jackson grew up in Techwood Homes, a public housing project near Georgia Tech. At age 13, Jackson convinced an uncle to spend $66 of welfare money to send him by taxi to the Methodist Children’s Home in Decatur. He graduated from Greater Atlanta Christian School and attended Lipscomb University in Nashville for two quarters.

In 1974 Jackson got his first job in staffing at Perimeter Placement. In 1977 he took a job with physician recruiter Jackson C. Coker. He bought Jackson C. Coker under a 5-year payout and renamed it Jackson & Coker.

Jackson split with founder Coker in 1987 and kept the Jackson & Coker name. In 2000 he consolidated his businesses, which had $20 million in combined revenue, under Jackson Healthcare. Jackson bought a bankrupt, shuttered antibiotics plant in Bristol, Tennessee during Covid and restarted it as USAntibiotics.