He won that incredible race fair and square, fulfilling his dream with moral principles intact, his word being kept, dealing above board and fairly with colleagues and competitors alike, and displaying a demeanor of decency and generosity.
All this, to me, is the essence of Jon Huntsman. It is why he has written this book and why it is worth your time to read it.
His career was launched with an undergraduate degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, an education made possible by a chance scholarship from someone who already had it made. Jon went on to build an empire and render an accounting for the favors and breaks he received along the way.
You may not have heard of Jon Huntsman, but the folks he has assisted over the years sure have.
Ask patients at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and Hospital, a world-class research and patient facility in Salt Lake City exploring how we might prevent and control the dreaded disease, especially hereditary cancers. The Huntsman family has given a quarter of a billion dollars so far to that effort and vows to double that amount in the coming years. Jon lost his mother, father, stepmother, and grandparents to the disease. He himself has had cancer and beaten it. Twice.
Ask students and faculty at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, where he became chairman of the Board of Overseers. His gift of $50 million made possible Huntsman Hall, a state-of-the-art business school complex, and the nation’s leading international undergraduate program. Remembering what the chance for a college education meant to him, he has awarded several million dollars in scholarships over the years to employees’ children and random students.
Ask the people of Armenia. Now there’s a story worth telling.
On the evening of December 7, 1988, Jon and Karen Huntsman were watching the news in the living room of their striking Salt Lake City home. He was chief executive officer and chairman of Huntsman Chemical Corporation—an upstart in the stodgy and traditional chemical industry.
The lead story on that nightly news was unsettling: An earthquake had devastated much of Armenia. Jon was riveted by the scenes of destruction unfolding before him: factories and apartments in rubble, roads and railways little more than twisted pretzels of concrete and steel, school buildings flattened, frantic survivors clawing through debris for loved ones.
A year earlier, Jon Huntsman probably could not have located Armenia on the map, but in the six previous months, he had negotiated with Aeroflot, the airline of the old Soviet government, to manufacture in a new Moscow plant plastic service ware for in-flight meals. In the process, he became the first American permitted to own a majority interest in a Soviet business. He had become fascinated with the USSR bear, and now disaster had struck one of its satellite states.
“We have to do something,” he said to Karen that night. He was taking the suffering before him personally. That’s how Jon Huntsman is.
The aid that followed ranged from expertise and resources for a modern cement factory that would produce concrete that could withstand most quakes to food and medical equipment to apartment complexes and schools—all as gifts to a grateful, battered nation.
Before he was finished 15 years later, the Huntsman family had infused $50 million of its money into Armenia, visiting the nation two dozen times. Yet, on that December 1988 night, he had no ties to that region of the world. He didn’t know the name of a single victim. But the name Huntsman is not unknown in Armenia today, where Jon is an honorary citizen and recipient of the nation’s highest award.
Who is Jon Huntsman? Ask those who have been helped. Ask the communities around the globe where Huntsman Corp. does business. They will tell of the deep, personal interest he has in their fortunes, their families, and their futures.
Perhaps that generosity is the residual of growing up on the other side of the economic tracks. If so, it is only part of his philanthropic equation. Jon also subscribes to the obligation of everyone to be generous. Throughout the ages, charity has been a cornerstone of most world cultures.
The Gospel of Giving according to Jon holds that every individual—whether financially stretched or of means, but especially the rich—is duty-bound to return a portion of his or her blessings.
Jon Huntsman is a different breed. He believes business is a creative endeavor, similar to a theater production, wherein integrity must be the central character. Notwithstanding what you hear on the nightly news or read in newspapers, decent and ethical behavior is not a moral heirloom of the past. He believes in being honest, fair, and gracious—even when it costs him several million dollars.
This book isn’t simply a marketplace catechism for moral behavior. In every chapter, there are nuggets of good management techniques for those who run companies or organizations, solid instructions for those in mid-management, and a bigger picture for employees and memberships. With an MBA from the University of Southern California, Jon is not only an entrepreneur extraordinaire but also an experienced CEO who has seen it all.
For the past 35 years, his business has gone from scratch to annual revenues of $12 billion. It wasn’t all smooth sailing. He was on the verge of bankruptcy twice, but his reputation for tough-but-fair negotiations, a gracious and sensitive demeanor, an entrepreneurial sense, and a remarkable philanthropic commitment give him a unique perspective from which to offer these rules of the road.
Jon Huntsman is living proof that you can do well by doing right. Leo Durocher was quite wrong when he said, “Nice guys finish last.” Not only can nice people finish first, they finish better. Jon has little patience for situational ethics in the marketplace or life. He paints proper behavior in bold, black-and-white strokes. He believes in the adage that if you have one clock, everyone knows what time it is. If there are two, no one knows the precise time.
In 2002, I named him the Humanitarian of the Year because of his generosity to others. (Business Week ranks him among America’s top philanthropists.) He even surprised me with a large, unexpected contribution to the Larry King Cardiac Foundation to help those who suffer from heart disease. My spouse, Shawn, and I count ourselves fortunate to have been friends of the Huntsman family for many years. I enthusiastically recommend his take on life.
Perspective
From Neil Cavuto
Managing Editor,
Fox Business Network
I know all about Jon Huntsman and the way he views life. I wrote the book on him.
In More Than Money, published in 2004, I featured Jon and some 20 other individuals who understand the value of meaning over money and, to me, represent the inspirational people of this world who continually turn personal challenges into a positive element of living. What you have just read is a basic blueprint of not only doing good but also being good.
Jon Huntsman’s own life and personal values lend credence to his words. He walks his ethical talk and has done so in the face of incredible obstacles that at times surely must have made moral shortcuts tempting. Jon has no secret formula; it ought to be familiar to anyone with a conscience. But knowing what behavior is proper and what is not is the simple part. Living those principles requires commitment, integrity, and courage.
As a journalist and host of Fox News’ Your World, cable TV’s most-watched business show, I see it all. I, too, know of marketplace problems and of rotten apples in the business barrel, but in Your World, I attempt to go past the potholes. I go behind profit-and-loss ledgers to the individuals who make things happen.
In so doing, I have found many inspiring models who dispel the notion that what’s good for business can’t be good for me; men and women who are catalysts for wondrous endeavors, who know not only how to play by the rules but embrace ethical conduct. Genuinely successful business executives know there can be no dissonance between society’s values and corporate operations.
In my book, More Than Money, I define those who have gained fame and fortune not so much by their achievements as by how they got there—the enormous odds they overcame, the dignity and courage they disp
layed in the process, the way they treated people ethically and fairly along the way.
These heroes learned to train their eyes on the possibilities, not the odds. They made bumps in the road to success fodder for motivation—a motivation, incidentally, that is not solely centered on profits and power but also on making a difference in the lives of others.
A born philanthropist and self-made multibillionaire, Jon Huntsman is a textbook example of what I am talking about. Notably, he turned personal cancer setbacks—holding his mother at her death, watching his father waste away, being informed one year to the day that doctors told him he had prostate cancer that he now had an unrelated cancer—into a beacon of hope for others who find themselves with this dreaded affliction.
With nearly a quarter of a billion dollars of personal funds as seed money, and the promise of more where that came from, Jon launched a cancer research institute a decade ago and followed up with an accompanying research hospital seven years later. Together, they are the centerpiece of his search for controlling, if not curing, cancer.
The Huntsman Cancer Institute and Hospital is a scientifically and architecturally stunning complex. The research into identifying inherited cancer genes and controlling the disease with early intervention is breathtaking. The hospital has the patient’s comfort and dignity foremost in mind. It reminds you of a four-star hotel rather than a place where sick people are housed. And it is about to double in size.
Given my own experience with cancer, I am in awe of Jon’s indefatigable crusade to conquer this insidious disease. He shakes down pharmaceutical companies, federal agencies, and wealthy colleagues; makes political donations to Republicans and Democratic members of Congress who vote for cancer-fighting appropriations; and personally visits patients undergoing chemotherapy. When the chemical industry took a nosedive in 2001, he took out a multimillion-dollar personal loan to cover his philanthropic pledges until the bottom line rebounded three years later. He took his family-owned petrochemical empire public in early 2005, in part, to raise additional hundreds of millions for his cancer institute.
(Incidentally, Jon is routing his royalties from this book to the Institute, and I know he would most gratefully accept additional donations. The address, should you be so inclined, is: Huntsman Cancer Institute, 2000 Circle of Hope, Salt Lake City, UT 84112.)
In Jon Huntsman’s world, giving is a sacred duty. He doesn’t think much of billionaires who wait until they are dead to give away their money. I sometimes think Jon would be happiest if he could coincide his final breath with giving away his last dollar to someone in need, thus allowing him to leave this world the way he entered it.
But the thrust of More Than Money went well beyond identifying philanthropic stars. My heroes are those who squarely faced life’s hurdles, overcame them, and did so with class, high principle, and a sense of decency.
Thanks to Winners Never Cheat, we have been reintroduced to our values roadmap. It gives each of us simple directions on how to become a hero.
Perspective
From Wayne Reaud
TRIAL ATTORNEY
I’m a trial lawyer, and this book could put me out of business. Nobody would be happier about it than me.
Over the past 30 years, I have taken some of America’s biggest corporations to court, calling them to task for behavior that threatened people’s health and livelihoods. From asbestos makers to tobacco purveyors to computer manufacturers, I have fought to make big companies more accountable in their business dealings.
Ordinarily, you would not expect a trial lawyer to be particularly close with the CEO of a big corporation. So when people hear that Jon Huntsman and I are good friends, and have been for 15 years, they tend to scratch their heads. In the ecology of the business world, aren’t we natural enemies? Don’t our respective jobs put us at odds with each other? The answer to both questions is no. And the reason is simple: Jon Huntsman is not your average CEO.
Jon is a true rarity in the corporate world: a hugely successful entrepreneur whose conscience is as sharp as his business sense, whose word is known as an unbreakable bond. From his very first job, picking potatoes in rural Idaho at age eight, to his current position of running one of the world’s largest chemical companies, he has always put ethical concerns on equal, if not greater, footing than his business concerns.
I could give you a laundry list of things Jon has done—donating record-setting amounts to cancer treatment and research, tithing to his church, giving millions to colleges and universities—but that still wouldn’t give you a clear idea of why he’s so unusual. His ethics go far deeper than simply making donations and glad-handing for good causes. They are at the core of his being. They are, for him, a way of life.
In Plato’s seminal work, The Republic, he gives us the notion of the ideal leader: the “philosopherking.” This is the man who possesses the perfect marriage of a philosophic mind and an ability to lead. As Plato wrote: “I need no longer hesitate to say that we must make our guardians philosophers. The necessary combination of qualities is extremely rare. Our test must be thorough, for the soul must be trained up by the pursuit of all kinds of knowledge to the capacity for the pursuit of the highest—higher than justice and wisdom—the idea of the good.”
Jon Huntsman has pursued “the idea of the good” all his life and, as his corporate track record underscores, he’s more than able to lead. But the true test of ethics comes not when a person gives with nothing to lose. It comes when he gives with everything to lose. That’s why Jon Huntsman is the right man to do this book. And there’s no question that he’s doing it at just the right time. In this age of Enron, Tyco, insider-trading scandals, and rampant corporate malfeasance, we need Jon Huntsman’s voice and leadership more than ever.
I hope Jon’s book will remind us all that, like him, you can do well and do good at the same time. As a trial lawyer, I want every businessperson in America to read this book and take to heart Jon’s example. Maybe then my fellow trial lawyers and I would have nothing left to do.
There’s nothing I’d like better.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Glenn Beck
Introduction Good Times, Bad Times
Chapter One Lessons from the Sandbox
Chapter Two Check Your Moral Compass
Chapter Three Play by the Rules
Chapter Four Setting the Example
Chapter Five Keep Your Word
Chapter Six Why We Cross the Line
Chapter Seven Pick Advisors Wisely
Chapter Eight Get Mad, Not Even
Chapter Nine Graciousness Is Next to Godliness
Chapter Ten Your Name Is on the Door
Chapter Eleven The Obligation to Give Back
Chapter Twelve The Bottom Line
Perspective from Larry King
Perspective from Neil Cavuto
Perspective from Wayne Reaud
Winners Never Cheat: Even in Difficult Times, New and Expanded Edition Page 12