Jon M. Huntsman*

Jon Huntsman was born in 1937 in Blackfoot, Idaho. His rural home had no indoor plumbing, and Huntsman was raised learning to fish and hunt to put meat on the table. When he was 13, his father, a public school music teacher who had fought during World War II, decided to use the GI bill to return to college to get his master's degree and doctorate at Stanford. The Huntsmans moved to Palo Alto, California, and lived in a World War II Quonset hut, which they shared with eight other families separated only by cardboard walls.

As a youth, Huntsman worked as a dishwasher, waiter, and a janitor. In high school, he worked at J. C. Penney. His excellent grades earned him a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance. After college, he married his wife, Karen, and then served in the U.S. Navy until 1961. He earned his master's degree from the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business.

Following his naval service, Huntsman entered the egg business with his wife's uncle in California. Looking for an egg container that was stronger than cardboard, Huntsman pursued the idea of a plastic carton. By 1967, he was made president of the carton venture, which included Dow Chemical as a 50 percent partner.

In 1970, Huntsman formed his own company, mortgaging his home for seed money. Once his company was up and running, he took a break from his business to serve the Nixon administration as an associate administrator with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Seven months later, he was invited to work for the White House as Nixon's staff secretary. A year later, exhausted from his long hours of work and worried about his ailing company back home, Huntsman left Washington two months before the Watergate scandal broke, and he returned as CEO of Huntsman Container Corp.

Under his guidance, the company developed a plastic clamshell container that was sold to McDonald's to package hamburgers. Huntsman's company went on to develop about 70 other major packaging products, including the first plates, bowls, dishes, and carry-out containers made from plastic. He then bought companies that manufactured the basic raw materials used in his products. Huntsman Corp. became the largest privately owned chemical concern in the world.

A strong believer in giving back to his community and a cancer survivor, Huntsman has given $225 million to fund medical research for the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, Utah.