History

A descendant of nineteenth century German and English immigrants, Jacob France (1882-1962) attended Catonsville, MD public schools and the City College of Baltimore and received an LL.B. degree from the University of Maryland in 1903. He was founding director of The Equitable Trust Company and served as chairman of the Company’s board from 1929 to his death. He also served as chairman of the board of Mid-Continent Petroleum Corporation, 1946-1955.

Mission

The Jacob France Institute (JFI) serves as a leading source of high quality statistical information and research covering the interaction of business, worker, and government investment decisions. Analysis of trends in the location and quality of employment along with continued education and training opportunities and outcomes are of particular importance in our current portfolio of research.

We manage and participate in alliances with research partners in other states to further discovery of new information that shapes important business and government policy decisions. In conducting our research we respect privacy, protect confidentiality, and shun partisanship.

To Accomplish this Mission

• The JFI: Defines critical research questions that respond to customer problems and assembles research teams to provide answers.
• Delivers high quality information and research findings that inform issues faced by businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies.
• Supplies key economic indicators and innovative studies of economic impact, training, and economic development to support effective decision-making.
• Manages alliances with research partners to develop databases of comparable statistics and pioneering analyses of the new statistics that demonstrate the utility of the information.
• Provides information tools and training to maximize competitiveness and enable economic growth for Maryland’s businesses, workers, and people.
• Designs and implements telephone, mail, and internet surveys and analysis of survey results.
• Maintains quality standards, objectivity, utility, and integrity of the information we supply.