Don M. Jackson Jr., PhD, attended William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri on both athletic and academic scholarships. He graduated with an A.B. degree in Physics. 

He graduated from Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa with an M.S. degree in physics. While at Iowa State, he worked for the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission where he was honored to work with several scientists from the Manhattan Project. He later worked at the Ames Laboratory doing research in solid state physics. He then joined the staff of General Electric's Advanced Electronic Center in Ithaca, New York. He later joined Motorola Inc. in Phoenix, Arizona. 

He received an MBA and a PhD in electrical engineering from Arizona State University. 

Over the years he was a named inventor on eight U.S. patents and was an author of more than 30 technical publications, primarily on semiconductor wafer fabrication. He was a founder and president of ASM America. He later formed a venture capital firm and became involved over the years as an investor, board member, advisor, and executive officer with several high-tech companies in the Phoenix area, California, Canada and Asia. 

He was also a member of the adjunct staff at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management of Technology at ASU. 

Upon retirement in his early seventies, he enjoyed teaching as an adjunct professor at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.