His net worth is estimated at over one and a half billion dollars. Forbes 400 once had him ranked as the 47th richest American alive. He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of the world’s largest petrochemical companies in the world. And he graduated from Palo Alto High School.

Jon Meade Huntsman, Sr. was in the Paly class of ’55, and is arguably the most successful businessman that has ever graduated from Paly. Huntsman is the founder of Huntsman Corporation, a petrochemical company with revenues that reached $13 billion in 2005. In 2000, Time Magazine recognized Huntsman as the sixth largest philanthropist in the United States.

Huntsman was born in Blackfoot, Idaho in 1937, but his family moved to Palo Alto in 1950 when his father decided to enroll in Stanford for graduate studies. Huntsman attended Paly High School, where he met the woman who later became his wife, Karen Haight.

Huntsman currently resides in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah. He is the father of nine children, and has been married to Paly graduate Karen Haight for close to 50 years. His oldest son, Jon Huntsman, Jr., was elected governor of Utah in 2004.

A proven philanthropist, Huntsman has given hundreds of millions of dollars to various charities. In 1995, Huntsman pledged $151 million dollars toward a cancer-treating center and created Huntsman Cancer Institute.

Huntsman Corporation has over 14,000 employees and operates in 24 countries, and has been on the New York Stock Exchange for almost three years.