Condolences on the death of James LeVoy Sorenson and memories of his life began to pour in Sunday almost as soon as news broke that he had died.
These include comments by:
• Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and his wife, Mary Kaye Huntsman, who extended most sincere condolences to Sorenson's family.
"Jim Sorenson was dedicated to making people's lives better," says the statement. His entrepreneurship and creativity in medical fields and business "were made only more impressive by his philanthropic endeavors, which have served to greatly benefit our state."
• Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah: "I was truly sorry to see him pass away, but he lived a long and fruitful life. He was one of my friends. He was one of the great entrepreneurs in Utah history. He was a genius. ... Almost everyone in this world who has had a serious operation has benefitted from his genius in developing medical devices. He did landmark work in the field of genetics, which was his great love at the end."
• Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and his wife, Joyce Bennett: "Utah has lost one of its outstanding entrepreneurs. Jim created quality products and a large number of quality jobs, both of which brought great credit to him and benefit to the state."
• Larry H. Miller, businessman and owner of the Utah Jazz: Sorenson's death "really took me by surprise. ... I knew him for about 20 years and we actually interacted quite a bit the last 15 of those on different projects. But rather than just working on projects, we talked to each other about ideas ... I found his mind to be fascinating, how it worked, how quickly it moved from one item to another. It was very typical of a creative mind, and very etherial."
Years ago, Sorenson worked with Teddy Kollek, the former mayor of Jerusalem, to set up a recreation facility that would serve youngsters of different ethnic backgrounds in that city, Miller recalled. "He specifically designed a recreation center with soccer field, swimming pool ... with the notion that they would have youth leagues there."
• Jack Brittain, vice president of the University of Utah's Technology Venture Department and dean of the U.'s David Eccles School of Business: "When you're involved with the technology arena in Utah, Jim Sorenson has been such a big part of it, you get to know him. He continued to pursue major technology breakthroughs. Some of his ideas are still being pursued, especially in the genetics area."
The university is working on some of these, including trying to develop a genetics test that would cost only $100. "His companies will continue as his legacy of innovation," Brittain said.
Sorenson was the founding donor of the University Venture Fund, which leverages the inventions of students. The fund's annual conference ended Saturday, and it attracted more than 200 students from 20 colleges and universities around the country.
Sorenson loved to be around students and was phenomenal with genetics ideas, he said.
When a person thinks about Sorenson, Brittain added, "you start thinking of Thomas Edison and other people who have hugely inventive minds."
• Scott R. Woodward, director of the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation: "He was a great guy. He's really going to be missed." The foundation is creating a database of correlated genetic and genealogical information about people around the world. Woodward worked closely with Sorenson for the past eight years on the project.
Through the foundation's work, Sorenson hoped to demonstrate how closely people are related to each other. He wanted to "change the way people think about each other," Woodward said, which could prompt them to treat each other better.