Eckerd was born in Wilmington, Delaware, and graduated from Culver Military Academy and the Boeing School of Aeronautics.

After serving as a pilot in World War II, Jack Eckerd started a phenomenal expansion of the chain by buying three stores in Florida in 1952.

The chain was later sold to J.C. Penney, who built the number of stores to 2,600 before selling to rivals CVS and Jean Coutu.

President Ronald Reagan later named him to the Grace Commission's private sector panel on government cost control.

In 1970, Eckerd entered the Republican gubernatorial primary to challenge incumbent Governor Claude R. Kirk, Jr. A third candidate, State Senator L. A.

In a primary endorsement, the Miami Herald depicted Eckerd as "an efficient campaigner with the ability to bring people together constructively.

"[6] William C. Cramer, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in 1970, was also at odds with Kirk but was attempting to preserve party unity at the same time.

Grady ran again in 1976 as the Republican nominee but lost to the Democratic incumbent Lawton Chiles of Lakeland, who had defeated Cramer in 1970.

In 1978, Eckerd defeated U.S. Representative Louis Frey, Jr., of Winter Park to win the Republican gubernatorial nomination, but he lost in the fall to the Democrat Bob Graham of Miami, later a U.S. senator.