Challenges ahead, Peter Huntsman says

Peter Huntsman gazed into the proverbial crystal ball Tuesday, looking a decade into the future.

And he liked what he saw.

Acknowledging the current economic "dark days," Huntsman said people 10 years from now will "see that it was this generation of leaders that perhaps circumnavigated one of the most challenging economic times in American history."

Speaking to a crowd of about 300 at the ACG Utah Growth Conference and Capital Connection, the president and chief executive officer of chemical company Huntsman Corp. said the next 10 years require sound management, the implementation of an ethical management system and style and continuing rewards for human creativity.

"And I believe that they will look back on what we've done today and what we've endured today and what we forge today, and they will thank us for the decisions that we made and the sacrifices that we made…." Huntsman told the crowd, which included his famous parents and a brother, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

Peter Huntsman predicted 2009 will be "a tough year" but that by year-end, "you'll start to see light at the end of the tunnel."

"I believe that the U.S. economy will continue to bump along here," he said. "I'm not sure that it's going to get materially worse."

But Huntsman discounted comparisons of today's situation to the times of the Great Depression, common among many economists.

"I see very, very little comparison between this and the Great Depression. I see some statistics that might look somewhat similar, but we're taking many actions that are 180 degrees different than what we did 70, 80 years ago, thank goodness," Huntsman said.

Moreover, he rebuffed the idea of the U.S. returning to the economic glory days of the mid- to late 1900s. The nation's rise to prominence at that time came on the heels of World War II, "and we ought to be happy we're not going to be returning to those days," he said.

But in the decades since then, democracy and self-determination have won throughout the world, and globalization and free trade will be the key to growth in the future, he said.

"The battle of the future is going to be won around trade. It's going to be won around education and innovation. It's going to be won around technology. It's going to be won around how do we view ourselves in a global arena in which we are a major player and not necessarily always a dominant player," he said.

As for the short term, Huntsman called on business leaders to work with government "to properly sustain what we have built over the last 200 years." He believes the federal government has done "a fair job" the past 50 days. "I don't think that anybody can overestimate the size of the problem that we have created over the last eight years in particular," he said, blaming both political parties for overspending and "fiscal irresponsibility."

More broadly, he urged businesses to continue to foster an economic system that will "recognize, capitalize and ultimately reward creativity, ingenuity and free enterprise" and be mindful of improving the world.

"Don't look backwards. If your strategy as a business is to batten down the hatches and weather the storm, I will promise you, you will sink," Huntsman said. "Be bold, be aggressive, be innovative, and at the same time remember what you owe society."

E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com