Jon Huntsman, Sr. speaks about Idaho roots and funding fight against cancer

He was born in Blackfoot and raised in Eastern Idaho. He started his own international chemical company and eventually went on to become one of the richest men in the world. Huntsman, Sr. tells me how he got there and why he wants to give it all back to those who need it most.

“I have many memories of Idaho. I love Idaho very, very much,” said Huntsman.

I asked him what is his fondest memory of growing up in Eastern Idaho.

“I loved working out in the potato fields. I mean, they let school out for two weeks every year during harvest time and we worked hard, but my brother and I always got in potato fights with everybody. We had a lot of fun. We worked really hard. We’d do 50 sacks a day at 6 cents a half sack, that’s 50 pounds. That’s 3 dollars a day we’d earn, and they’re fond memories because it taught us how to work,” he said.

That work really paid off for the Idaho boy. He was top of his class at the Wharton School of Business and later the founder and chair of the Huntsman Corporation. He married his wife, Karen, in the summer of ’59 and served two years in the U.S. Navy. Huntsman didn’t stop there. Awarded honorary doctorate degrees at various universities, he was tapped by the Nixon administration to be the administrator of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and later he was special assistant and staff secretary to President Nixon.

“Here’s a copy of the Book of Mormon I gave President Nixon,” he said.

Huntsman would leave the administration before Watergate and set his firm, Huntsman Container, in motion with his brother Blaine. The company is most noted for creating the Styrofoam clam-shell container for McDonalds’ Big Mac.

“This is a company in England and this is one in Germany. This was in France when we opened our operation there,” said Huntsman, as he pointed to three of dozens of framed photos.

I asked him about Switzerland.

“Switzerland is now our largest employment country outside the United States,” he said.

Throw in China, Australia, and the United States, and Huntsman now has more than 3,000 chemical engineers working for him all over the world.

“They all ask me about my education in chemistry and I say ‘That is why I’ve hired you,'” he said.

Huntsman has held a spot on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest billionaires in the world. Some would argue that he has had more resources available at his disposal.

“Well in my mind, it has never mattered what the amount of money somebody desires or has available to donate to charity or to some worthwhile and worthy cause. What matters is the feeling in one’s heart that they are doing the best of their capacity to give whatever their means allow them to give. Everywhere I go, I talk about money for cancer research because that’s what’s going to end this, the most formidable disease ever known on the face of the earth,” said Huntsman.

Where does a lot of that money end up? It goes to the Huntsman Cancer Institute here in Salt Lake City, where thousands of people are treated for cancer every single day. In fact, he plans on doubling the research staff. The Huntsman Cancer Institute was founded in 1995. It is now the fastest-growing cancer center in the United States according to Huntsman. About 2,000 people are currently employed there.

“We’re the only major research center for cancer in the seven Western states. So all of the serious cancer cases from Idaho Falls or Boise or Cheyenne, or Denver or Phoenix or Las Vegas come here and we take the worst of the worst,” he said.

I asked him if he thinks they’ll discover the cure.

“Well, I think we will for some diseases,” he said.

The people working at Huntsman Cancer Institute really do miracles. “They really do,” he said.

Huntsman himself is a four-time cancer survivor. He has gone on record as saying he wants to die broke.

“Well, it’s pretty simple. I was born broke, as most people in Idaho were. You know, I think life is a journey that one must enjoy and feel a sense of giving unto others. We take what we have and bring joy into the lives of others. I’ve sent over 5,000 young people on scholarships to different universities because when I was a young man out of Idaho, somebody sent me on a scholarship. My parents couldn’t afford it. I couldn’t afford it. They sent me to one of the finest schools in the world and I have looked back on that and tried to repeat it now, thousands of times over and over and over again. And I look at these people at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and put my arms around them and tears come to their eyes. And I say ‘Thank you, Lord, for allowing me the privilege. I don’t know how I deserved it. It should have gone to somebody else, but You gave me the means,’ and I was simply a transfer person, to transfer that wealth from me to them. And that’s all we are in life, is we are transfer agents. I love the fact that, little by little, I dropped of the billionaires list, and a couple years ago dropped off the Forbes 400 list. I’m dropping off all the lists now, as we give more and more to charity,” he said.

Everybody is trying to go up the ladder and Huntsman is passing everybody going down.

“Well, I’m doing it intentionally. And I developed those feelings as a young boy in Idaho and it has never occurred to me that I should keep one cent of the money that is entrusted to me by the Lord, but I should pass it on to make somebody else’s life a little bit better and that’s as simple as life can be,” said Huntsman.

These days, you can find Jon Huntsman where he is happy the most, back in the Teton Valley of Idaho.

“And I will always be grateful to Idaho and the people and to the ethics and to the sense of brotherhood and sistership that I felt in Idaho. I think I am a true Idahoan through and through,” he said.

Last October, the Huntsman Cancer Institute opened the largest chemotherapy center in the world. Huntsman has written two books, and all royalties go to the Huntsman Cancer Institute.