Elder Robert Gay of the Seventy, in his keynote address to the Brigham Young University Hawaii 2008 International Business Conference on November 12, urged Latter-day Saint entrepreneurs, business owners and donors to use their wealth to lift others and find security in challenging economic times through faith and commitment.
Elder Gay, who recently returned from serving as a president of the Ghana, West Africa Mission, is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the new Huntsman-Gay Capital Partners private equity firm of Palo Alto, California. He is also the former Managing Director for 16 years of Bain Capital, one of the world's leading equity firms with over $70 billion under management.
Speaking in the Polynesian Cultural Center's Hale Aloha amphitheater, he cited President Lorenzo Snow, who said the mandate of businessmen is to "use our riches to give employment to the laborer, to take the idle from the crowded centers of population and place them on the untilled areas that await the hand of industry, to unlock our vaults, to unloose our purses and embark in enterprises that will give work to the unemployed and relieve the wretchedness that leads to the vice and crime that curse our great cities, that poison the moral atmosphere."
He noted the Doctrine and Covenants (82:17, 19) includes a similar statement: And you are to be equal, or in other words, you are to have equal claims on the properties, for the benefit of managing the concerns of your stewardships, every man according to his wants and his needs, inasmuch as his wants are just...Every man seeking the interest of his neighbor, and doing all things with an eye single to the glory of God.
"Sadly as a business community and a nation, we are far removed from these prophetic charges," Elder Gay continued. "We have done this by allowing the nihilistic voice of self, with its language of fear and greed to supplant the voice of the Spirit. As President [Spencer W.] Kimball once said, too many people spend most of their time working in the service of self-image. That includes sufficient money, stocks, bonds, investment portfolios, property, credit cards, furnishings, automobiles and the like to guarantee carnal security."
"Forgotten is the fact that our assignment is to use these many resources to bless others in every way. Security is not born of inexhaustible wealth, but of unquenchable faith."
Elder Gay urged the conferees to avoid the "mindset of fear and pessimism. Our dialog today speaks little of hope, but rather of impending disaster." He also pointed out the Industrial Revolution "opened the gates to lifting the world out of economic poverty, but as it unfolded, it was immediately met with the doctrine of scarcity, fear and doom that has become the mantra of our day."
"Today, we live in a world where Satan is literally laughing at us. We have allowed his darkness to cover light and let our faith become secondary to the reasoning of man... To revolutionize things in the Lord's way, we have to hear Him in our own voices," he said. "Truly, ours is a mission of faith and not of money management."
To illustrate, Elder Gay said that in forming his recent partnership when "the financial markets were wobbling — and to put together a new fund would be very difficult, if not remarkable," Jon Huntsman Sr. required that they do three things: put their reputations on the line, put significant personal capital on the line — approximately 15% of the $1.25 billion fund, and commit any earnings to charity.
"Jon said, in essence, you don't need to make any more money. I don't need to make any more money. What we need to do is give it away. He asked me to become an example of consecration, and I embraced that challenge." Elder Gay added that "our success in raising the fund startled many people in this turbulent market."
Elder Boyd K. Packer of the Twelve, who recently gave Huntsman a priesthood blessing for his health, told him, "At the end of the day, it's all about doing God's will. That is what the Savior did at Gethsemane, and that is what He expects of you and I."
"To this let me add my belief, that you and I in our chosen fields are called truly to astonish the world. We are to show them that there is no need to fear, that the underlying fabric is one of abundance — not scarcity, that the minds and self-reasoning of man can and will not protect nor save."
"This task alone falls to those who have faith, and are willing to use that faith to consecrate both time and money in humanitarian effort as well as in the ever-requisite risk-taking of new business formation," he added.
"To such the Lord has made this promise: For by doing these things, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you; yea, and the Lord shall disperse the powers of darkness from before you, and cause the heavens to shake for your good and His name's glory" [D&C 21:6].
Elder Gay also delivered a BYU-Hawaii devotional address during his visit to Laie.
— Photos by Mike Foley. (Top) Elder Robert Gay; (Bottom) The BYU-Hawaii International Business Conference meets at the Polynesian Cultural Center