John M. Templeton, Jr., M.D., was president of the John Templeton Foundation from its founding in 1987 until his passing in May 2015. Previously, he was a pediatric surgeon and director of the trauma program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Jack, as he was familiarly known, retired from his medical practice in 1995 to manage the Foundation created by his father, Sir John Templeton, the pioneer global investor and philanthropist who established the Templeton Growth Fund in 1954. After growing this single global mutual fund to a multi-billion dollar firm with $13 billion under management, Sir John sold the family of Templeton Funds to the Franklin Group in 1992 and devoted his fortune to the Foundation, now based in West Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. During Jack’s 20 years at the helm of the Foundation as president and also as chairman after the death of Sir John in 2008, its endowment grew from $28 million in 1987 to $3.34 billion.
Jack was born on February 19, 1940 in New York City, the eldest of three children of John Marks Templeton and Judith Dudley Folk, an advertising executive who died in 1951. He was raised in Englewood, New Jersey, where his family lived, and spent many summers in Winchester, Tennessee, the birthplace of his father.
He received a BA in History from Yale University in 1962. He began considering a career in medicine during a summer internship in 1960 at a Presbyterian medical mission in Cameroon. He received his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1968 and completed his internship and residency in surgery at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond in 1973.
During his time at the Medical College of Virginia, Jack met the former Josephine Gargiulo, known as Pina, who was training as a pediatric anesthesiologist. They were married in 1970.
He subsequently trained in pediatric surgery at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia from 1973 to 1975 under the hospital’s surgeon-in-chief, Dr. C. Everett Koop, who later became U.S. Surgeon General from 1982 to 1989. After two years as a physician in the U.S. Navy stationed in Portsmouth, Virginia, he returned to the Children’s Hospital in 1977 where he served as pediatric surgeon, director of the trauma program, and, later, as professor of pediatric surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. After retiring in 1995 he continued to serve as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
During his time at the Children’s Hospital it gained an international reputation for the evaluation and management of patients with conjoined twinning. Throughout his career Jack performed numerous surgeries on conjoined twins under the direction of Koop and Koop’s successor, Dr. James A. O’Neill, Jr. Many of those surgeries were undertaken with Jack’s wife Pina as lead anesthesiologist.
Jack was the recipient of numerous awards including the National Courage of Belief Award from the American Jewish Committee in 2010, the Heroes of Liberty Award (jointly with Pina) from the National Liberty Museum in 2006, and honorary doctorate degrees from Buena Vista University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Alvernia College. The John Templeton Foundation received a National Humanities Medal in 2008 under his purview. He was also a member of Proclamation Presbyterian Church in Bryn Mawr since its founding in 1989.
Jack and Pina had two children: Heather Templeton Dill, who served as president and CEO of the John Templeton Foundation from 2015-2025, and Jennifer Templeton Simpson, who has served as board chair and board member for the Foundation.
Photo Credit: Ed Wheeler
