Inventor James Sorenson dies at 86

James LeVoy Sorenson, whose success as an entrepreneur, real estate magnate and inventor of numerous medical devices made him Utah's richest man, died of cancer Jan. 20, at a Salt Lake hospital. Sorenson, whose wealth was estimated to be $4.5 billion last year by Forbes magazine, was 86. He was listed as the 68th richest American in September 2007. But what few know " other than longtime locals " is that Sorenson had deep ties to Lincoln.Sorenson, who was born in Idaho, moved with his family to Yuba City during the Depression. Eventually, the family relocated to Lincoln, where Sorenson attended grammar school and where he graduated from Lincoln High School in 1940.I was a good friend of his, said Noble Ballew, a former Lincoln resident who now lives in El Paso. In those years he lived near the old grammar school, on the corner. We would walk from school down to his house and we would talk.Ballew, who was an Assemblies of God minister for 30 years, remembers Sorenson as a good Mormon boy " he took it very seriously.Ballew recalled stopping by the Sorenson house after World War II to see him.We went into his bedroom and we were talking about God and spiritual things. When it came time to leave, he said, Let's pray.' We knelt by the side of his little bed " it was more of a cot " and we prayed for each other.Ballew and Sorenson kept in touch through the years, he said.Within the last year, I thought to call him, but he had just died. I couldn't believe it, he said.I remember them when they ran the ice department, he said. They would put the ice in different sizes on the truck and go up and down the town and ring a bell. Jimmy helped his father out like that.Ballew said Sorenson showed evidence early on of his concern with health, which eventually would translate into the patents that made him wealthy.In seventh grade, he got up and started talking about people keeping themselves in health, he said. They ought to exercise and so on.Like many of the other town children, Sorenson found work during the summer at the Lincoln cannery.We all worked there in the summer, starting when we were 10, Ballew said. One day, I'm on my way to work and Jimmy is setting under a great big eucalyptus tree. ˜Noble, you're my buddy,' he said. ˜Look at my feet. I forgot to take my sandals off. I've got to go home and get my shoes. I'll give you 50 cents if you will take and run home and get my shoes and bring them back.' I said I would be late for my own job. I took that very serious, we all did.Roberta Babcock was two years behind Sorenson in school, but remembers him well.One of the last times I saw him, it must have been 1954, he came over to where I was living, and said, ˜If you have a couple of thousand dollars, I can turn it into six in a few weeks.' I told him it was out of the question, Babcock said. I didn't have the money.That was a financial decision Babcock probably regrets.When Sorenson came back to Lincoln in 1997 for his induction into the Lincoln High School Hall of Fame, he was quick to correct a classmate who referred to him as a millionaire.He said, ˜Pardon me, I'm not a millionaire, I'm a billionaire, Babcock said.Babcock's brother, James Ragsdale, was a year ahead of Sorenson in school and played basketball with him.Ragsdale said no one would have known Sorenson was destined for brilliant success.He was kind of a dreamy guy, he said. There was probably a lot going on in those dreams.One of Sorenson's inventions that impressed Ragsdale was the plastic venous catheter.When they first started doing heart surgery, they used to use stainless steel equipment, he said. They used flexible stainless steel tubing. Those things had to be sterilized very carefully, and this was very, very expensive. He got these plastics engineers to produce disposable tubes in plastic. He was just doing the right thinking at the right time.Sorenson held more than 40 medical patents during his lifetime and is perhaps best known for co-developing the first real-time computerized heart monitor. He also invented the disposable paper surgical mask and a blood recycling system for trauma and surgical procedures, as well as many other medical innovations. I think success in his mind was someone that had ideas, that had a strong work ethic and a tenacity, son James Lee Sorenson told the Deseret Morning News. As you look at examples in the world today, those are important attributes. I think Dad was a calculated-risk-taker, and successful people generally are.The younger Sorenson said his father's legacy will be as a great American inventor, a man with a tremendous amount of innovation.Among his philanthropic endeavors was Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, which is creating a worldwide, correlated genetic and genealogical database used in ancestry research. After the tsunami of 2004 hit Thailand, he donated DNA testing kits to assist in identifying the dead, and Sorenson Genomics " one of his companies " analyzed their DNA, matching some victims with their relatives. He and James Lee Sorenson reached out to help Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.; together they donated $5 million to the country's largest university for the deaf and hearing impaired. After beginning his career selling pharmaceuticals to physicians for Upjohn Co. in Salt Lake City, Sorenson started buying real estate in the Salt Lake area. In 1957, he co-founded Deseret Pharmaceutical, and the company became the foundation for the establishment of Becton Dickinson Vascular Access. In 1962, he founded Sorenson Research, which was sold to Abbott Laboratories, a Fortune 100 company, in 1980. He founded LeVoy's, a company that made lingerie for modest women and used Tupperware-style marketing with parties hosted in homes. He also owned and developed thousands of acres of commercial, residential and agricultural properties throughout Utah. Sorenson is survived by Beverley Taylor Sorenson, his wife of 60 years, and two sons, six daughters, 47 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren.