NORTH SALT LAKE — Jack Johnston had been laid off from his job as a vice president of Sea World in Orlando, Fla. His 5-year-old son had just been diagnosed with leukemia. "I was left without income, insurance and very little money in the bank," he says.

In fact, he was so broke, he went to a local supermarket to see if he could buy old hamburger before it was thrown away. It was illegal for the store to sell it, he found, but through the kindness of the butcher he received enough meat once a week to feed his family.

That year the one thing his wife wanted for Christmas was a one-of-a-kind Santa doll. Johnston knew there was no way he could afford to buy one, "so I decided to make one myself."

Johnston, who now lives in North Salt Lake, came away from that bleak period in his life with two ideas firmly in place. First, "I knew that if ever I was in a position to reach out and help others, I would." Second, he knew doll-making was his destiny.

Some 18 years later, Johnston has risen from an unknown to one of the doll-making industry's brightest stars. He is passionate not only about making dolls himself but also teaching others how to do it. He has formed a nonprofit guild for professional doll makers. He has developed a polymer clay that has revolutionized the industry.

For those achievements, and others, Johnston has been named as the 2008 recipient of the Crystal Award for Industry Leadership, sponsored by Jones Publishing Inc. and considered the highest honor in the doll-making world.

He does feel honored to get the award, not only for what it represents in the industry but also for what it represents in his life. "Making dolls has taken me in great directions," he says.

He hardly could imagine what that journey would be when he made his first doll.

Johnston did graduate from Brigham Young University with a degree in fine arts before he spent 25 years as a marketer in the resort industry. He did spend a lot of time as a boy studying the illustrations of Norman Rockwell and drawing similar characters. But dolls were a whole new world.

"When I decided to make a doll for my wife, I got a magazine that told how to do it. That first one turned out pretty good, so I decided to make some more. I took them to a craft show and they sold."

One of the first people to buy his dolls was Paula Hawkins, then a senator from Florida. "She wanted 18 of the Santas." That commission earned him "enough money to get by. I realized that maybe I could make a living making dolls. I started doing it, and I've never stopped."

His first dolls were Santas, but he has since branched out into all kinds of character dolls. Artdolls, he calls them. There are violin players and cowboys. There are aviators and warriors. There are Victorian ladies and fishermen. There are Inuit sledders and teddy bear-makers. He was asked by Bob Marley's mother to make a doll of her late son.