SALT LAKE CITY — Karen Huntsman remembers when she and her future husband, Jon Huntsman Sr., were in their Palo Alto, California, high school at an assembly to honor those who had made a difference during that school year.
While Palo Alto was a well-to-do area, Jon’s family was one of the least well-to-do, Karen Huntsman said.
Still, he had used his own money to buy ties for two of the custodians and recognized them for their work, she said.
“He has it in his DNA to make a difference,” Karen Huntsman said of 77-year-old Jon Huntsman at a recent press conference about her husband’s recently published autobiography, “Barefoot to Billionaire: Reflections on a Life’s Work and a Promise to Cure Cancer” (Overlook Press, $35). Both Karen and Jon Huntsman are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he has previously served as an Area Seventy and a mission president.
“He’s driven to make money and put it back into the community and around the world,” she added. “I’m grateful that I’ve been able to stand by his side.”
Huntsman divides his story into two parts — earning money and giving it away.
The book
Jon Huntsman shares the story of his birth — when he had to be coaxed to breathe — his parents’ hard work and struggle to survive, starting his company and reflections on life and his faith as a member of the LDS Church.
“I’ve tried to tell it as frank and straightforward as possible,” said Huntsman, adding that it is likely some of the best stories ended up being trimmed by editors.
“It’s my story. Some of you may agree and not agree with what I’ve said and how I’ve said it,” he said. “It’s from my viewpoint, and I’ve not let anybody else dissuade me and alter the expressions of my heart and my feelings.”
He shares his Mormon pioneer roots and is honest about his family’s financial situation as they started in a home without indoor plumbing and worked together.
About 30 years ago, he started writing his memoirs after being asked to share his experience with starting a business. He hired authors to help document and record information about the Huntsman Corporation, a worldwide chemical business that contributes to “everything you see, feel, wear or touch” that isn’t wood, glass or steel.
“I had the good fortune to be raised in the 1940s and the 1950s. As I entered business in the late 1950s and 1960s, America was just coming into its own as a great industrial power,” he said. “It allowed young entrepreneurs to start their engines, to start their businesses, to borrow a little money and to leverage what they had.”
He describes his family growing up as being near poverty. They all worked to help support each other.
“I was honored to start a small business, and to borrow an enormous amount of money and to build piece upon piece, place upon place, building upon building and product upon product, throughout the United States and eventually Europe and facilities around the world,” he said.
But his life — and the book — reflects on more than just the successes.
“We’ve had some lucky breaks in life and we’ve had some tragedies in life, just like each of you have had,” Huntsman said.
The Huntsmans said talking about being on the brink of bankruptcy four times, and sharing emotions about the time one of their sons was kidnapped, the death of a daughter and other family challenges were some of the more difficult chapters to write.
“It’s a book about life," Karen Huntsman said. "If you are going to write about your life and you want to express your feelings in what you’ve gone through, not everything is roses every day.”
“We try to share the fact that nobody goes through life without tragedy and heartache,” Jon Huntsman said. “It’s not a matter of the problems we confront, but how we handle the problems.”
Curing cancer
“In the back of my mind, all this travel, all this effort and this risk-taking has been to be able to do something with the money — to do something meaningful to make a difference,” Jon Huntsman said.
The Huntsmans contribute to helping the homeless, to scholarships and education, and to shelters for abused women and children. About $1 billion of the $1.4 billion they have given to charitable causes in the past 20 years has ended up in Utah, he said.
But it’s finding a way to cure cancer that stays in the forefront.
“We’re going to solve it,” said Jon Huntsman, a cancer survivor whose mother, father, stepmother and brother all died of the disease.
Huntsman said he was determined that a facility be built in Utah that not only treats people with cancer but also does research to find ways to stop the suffering it causes.
“I really believe in my heart that Utah will be the research capital of the world,” he said, adding that groups and people from around the world come to the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah to use their research.
“Our key destination for our funding is to keep fighting the war on cancer and to be sure we are victorious in this fight,” Huntsman said.
He shares the successes and tragedies in this cancer fight in his book, the proceeds from which go to the Huntsman Cancer Institute.
“The cancer facility is far more than what I dreamed it or hope could exist, and it’s only beginning,” he added.
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