By SHANDA MURRAY
The BYU Center for Entrepreneurship honored Jon M.Huntsman as Entrepreneur of the Year Thursday night.
Huntsman is chairman and chief executive officer of Huntsman Corporation and Huntsman Chemical Corporation.
The award was created to recognize an entrepreneur who demonstrates high ethical and moral standards and who contributes his or her money to worthy causes, as well as maintaining a successful business.
Recognized as a leading philanthropist, Huntsman recently donated $100 million to establish the Huntsman Cancer Institute dedicated to finding a cure for cancer based on genetic research.
“Wealth handled appropriately is a great, great blessing,” Huntsman said.
At the end of the day, revenues aren’t what matter, it is the people that say they want to work for you because of your integrity and honesty.
It’s sad when people say that wealth is evil, Huntsman said, wealth is not bad, wealth used rightly helped the pioneers cross the plains and helps build temples.
“(If) used in a dignified manner (wealth) brings relief to people who might be suffering,” Huntsman said.
Huntsman asked his wife, dubbed “chairman of the chairman,” by Forbes magazine, to say a few words.
Karen Huntsman paid tribute to her husband, pointing out his incredible heart, vision, work ethic, good judgement and the way that he is proud to hold the priesthood.
The first important ingredient to becoming to becoming a successful entrepreneur is love, Huntsman said.
“The opportunities in life are not limited to the field of business…wealth…capital…must be terribly sensitive to people around you,” Huntsman said.
Special recognition was also given to student entrepreneur, Vincent Musaalo, an MBA student from Uganda, for a business plan that will make the world a better place.
The goal of Musaalo’s business plan is to restore protein to his people in Uganda, who were weakened due to a severe drought. He worked as a janitor at BYU to save up $400 to send home to his mother and asked her to start a chicken farm.
Musaalo said he wants to give back to his community by sharing what he has learned at BYU.
“Uganda has 20 million people. My goal is to sell eggs to half of the population in the next ten years,” Musaalo said.
Huntsman encouraged young entrepreneurs like Musaalo to stick to their big dreams. “If you’re aggressive and believe in yourself and a dream…a person who says no eventually will say yes.” Huntsman loved it when a bank would say no to a loan for him. It was just an opportunity to get them to say yes.
Creating a business ethically is even more important than huge success, Huntsman said. “Business is not worth doing unless a person has integrity and honor…(I) would rather raise 500 chickens in Vincent’s country than own a multi-billion dollar company unethically.”
Huntsman lives by a quote hanging in his office that says, “No exercise is better for the human heart than reaching down and lifting up.”
