Henry B. Eyring - Biography

Biography

Eyring was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the second child of Henry Eyring, the dean of the graduate school at the University of Utah and president of the American Chemical Society, and his wife, Mildred Bennion. His father's sister, Camilla Eyring, married Spencer W. Kimball, making Henry B. the nephew of Kimball, who was the 12th president of the LDS Church.

Henry B. Eyring lived in Princeton until his early teenage years. Until the start of World War II they attended LDS meetings at the branch in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but with the gasoline rationing of the war they received permission to hold meetings in their home, which often only consisted of the Eyring family. As a teenager Eyring and his family moved to Salt Lake City when his father took a post at the University of Utah.

He spent two years in the U.S. Air Force, stationed at Sandia Base in New Mexico. He received a BS degree in physics from the University of Utah. He went on to earn both Masters and Doctoral degress in Business Administration from Harvard Business School, before embarking on a career in academia.

Eyring has served twice as Commissioner of Church Education, from September 1980 to April 1985, and from September 1992 to January 2005, when he was replaced by W. Rolfe Kerr. Eyring was an associate professor of business at the Stanford Graduate School of Business from 1962 to 1971. He was also a Sloan Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Eyring served as president of Ricks College from 1971 to 1977, as a counselor to Presiding Bishop Robert D. Hales from 1985 to 1992, and as a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy from 1992 to 1995.

Following the death of Church President Howard W. Hunter, Eyring was sustained to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the church on April 1, 1995 and ordained an apostle later that same week.

Eyring was sustained as Second Counselor in the church's First Presidency on October 6, 2007, filling the vacancy left by the death of James E. Faust on August 10, 2007. He was called and set apart as First Counselor in the First Presidency of the church on February 3, 2008 when the First Presidency was reorganized following the death of Gordon B. Hinckley. The new First Presidency, with Thomas S. Monson as president, was announced on February 4, 2008..