Anderson, a liberal Democrat and non-Mormon, is an example. Anderson, a noted trial attorney before entering politics, was Huntsman's personal lawyer in the early 1980s. They've stayed close ever since.

"I was impressed with Jon from the first, when he told me he lost respect for Richard Nixon (Huntsman served as a special assistant to then-President Nixon in the early 1970s) when he learned that Nixon had not given anything to charity one year he was president," Anderson said.

He got to know Huntsman in the early years of Huntsman Chemical, when the young firm was noted for making plastic egg cartons and Big Mac hamburger containers. "Yet even then it was clear to me that Jon's real motivation in his work and accumulation of wealth was to give much of what he has to make people's lives better," Anderson said.

Said Huntsman about his desire to help others: "It's a very, very deep-seated situation that's very hard to explain to a person who doesn't understand that our sole mission and objective in life is to lift the hopes and dreams of others."

In fact, when in town Huntsman often visits his cancer institute and sits, talking, with patients as they get their doses of chemotherapy.

His charity work "sounds to some people artificial. But I don't care. That doesn't matter to me one iota what others think. It's what I believe."

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E-MAIL: bbjr@desnews.com ; lucy@desnews.com