Rich Jutkins: producing products that brighten lives.

• Author: Creager, Janine S.
• Position: Around Utah

To some, the decades-old baseball may not look like much. But to Rich Jutkins, newly appointed president of Stampin' Up, that baseball symbolizes leadership skills that are as relevant today as when he first received it. The ball came from Jutkins' childhood baseball coach, a man who knew as much about boys as he did about the game.

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"He had a real profound effect on me in the way he taught and the way he coached," recalls Jutkins. "He told us that no team would ever become great until they love themselves first."

The coach exacted four promises of those young boys: never injure another person on the team; if a teammate falls down, be there to pick them back up; never say anything negative; and if you make a mistake, apologize sincerely and quickly.

Jutkins was devastated when he caught chicken pox and couldn't play for several games. But after one of those games, the coach and team showed up with celebratory pizza and the game ball with the players' signatures and those four simple promises written all over it.

"It hit home," he remembers. "It really showed that [those promises] weren't just a motivational tool. It was something that was really his and he gave it to us."

Jutkins has traveled a unique road to where he is today. He worked for more than a decade in manufacturing with Smith's Food and Drug...