From swarthmore.edu, 2021:
ABOUT JONATHAN R. LAX ’71
Jonathan's interest in founding companies began while he was a high school student, when he started Haddonfield Research and Manufacturing Company, a corporation registered in the state of Delaware. While at Swarthmore, Jonathan followed his entrepreneurial spirit and created a mutual fund that he ran from his Hallowell dorm room, one of many businesses he would start, and run, successfully. After working for several years running his family's manufacturing business, Jonathan founded The Marketing Audit, a market research and consulting firm in Philadelphia. The Jonathan R. Lax Fund, an endowment created by his bequest in 1996, provides annual support for programming focused on entrepreneurship.
From the 25th Reunion book, 1996:
After graduating from Swarthmore, Jonathan Lax joined and ran the family firm, SL Industries in Marlton, NJ. In 1980, while still with SL, he invented the surge protector strip for computers -- a now widely-used device that few of us knew to credit to him. After leaving that firm, he founded his own market research and consulting business, the Market Audit, in Philadelphia. He described its niche as providing competitive intelligence for clients specifically about the other players in their industries. Jonathan's business occupied the ground floor of a lovely Philadelphia townhouse dating from the early-mid 1800s. He lived upstairs and took great delight in renovation and improvement projects. He enjoyed showing visitors around his bustling office and was very proud of the solid growth of his business.
Despite the demands of Market Audit on his time, Jonathan was a tireless volunteer for causes he cared about, Swarthmore included. He enthusiastically volunteered to lead our 25th reunion fund raising effort, as long as he was assured that he wouldn't have to plan an event. His obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer called him a "leading AIDS activist." He cenainly was that. As a founder and board president of Philadelphia FIGHT, he negotiated with corporations and pressured the government to intensify their work on AIDS drugs and to speed up the availability of novel therapies. As a faculty member at both the Pennsylvania AIDS Education and Training Center and at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, he fought to break down stereotypes and taught medical students and other health-care professionals how to gather information from patients in ways that would enhance their care. He wrote one of the nation's first standard of care documents for AIDS patients. His colleagues respected him for his skill at both street-level demonstrations and high-level negotiations with drug company executives, and they and his friends loved him for his gentle humor, exuberance, and love of life.
Jonathan loved to travel and when he died in January of this year had only recently returned from a trip to Paris. He hoped to live a long life, but had given careful thought to and generous provision for people and institutions that would go on after him. He was very proud of the Jonathan Lax Scholarship Program he endowed for gay high school and college students at the Bread and Roses Community Fund in Philadelphia. At his memorial service, his friends said that Jonathan regarded the scholarship recipients as his legacy.
(5ubmitted by Martha Meier Dean)