Jon Huntsman Sr., styrofoam tycoon, dies at 80
Huntsman began his career working at an egg company. Born in poverty in Idaho, he married into a wealthy, well-connected family after attending college. As the story goes, when the company was sustaining losses because of poor packaging, Huntsman contacted Dow Chemical, the maker of Styrofoam, and conceived the modern egg carton. In the 1970s, he founded his own company, the first incarnation of the Huntsman Corporation, which likewise specialized in plastic and foam products (and became somewhat infamous for the McDonald's burger containers that were popular through the 1980s until environmentalists raised a stink); after selling that company, he established another one with the same name in the early 1980s. With a net value of over $9 billion, Huntsman Corporation survives today, and he served as chairman until his death.
As is typical of members of the Mormon faith, Huntsman had a large family. Of his nine children, his son Peter now serves as President of the Huntsman Corporation, and his other son Jon Jr., became a prominent politician, currently serving as the U.S. ambassador to Russia. The elder Huntsman himself briefly ran for governor of Utah in 1988, but dropped out before the primary election.
Obituary from The Salt Lake TribuneWikipedia
