On May 4, 2016, surrounded by his wife and children, former U.S. Senator Robert Foster Bennett passed away peacefully at his home due to complications from pancreatic cancer and a recent stroke. He was 82 years old.
Born on September 18, 1933, Bob Bennett grew up in Salt Lake City and graduated from the University of Utah, where he was elected Student Body President. He served as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the British Isles Mission as president of the Scottish District, and he was later a member of the Utah National Guard. He married the former Joyce McKay on December 27, 1962, and he is survived by his wife, their six children, and their 20 grandchildren.
Bob was first elected as a United States Senator from Utah in 1992. Before that time, he earned many distinctions in both the public and private sectors. As the first Chief Executive Officer of the Franklin International Institute, the company that would later become FranklinCovey, he was named Inc. magazine's "Entrepreneur of the Year" for the Rocky Mountain Region. He worked as chief congressional liaison at the U.S. Department of Transportation and was given the Secretary's Award for Outstanding Achievement, the department's highest civilian award. He was later public relations director for billionaire Howard Hughes's holding company, Summa Corporation.
He was elected to the United States Senate for three full terms and served as a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he secured federal funding to create both the TRAX and FrontRunner public transportation systems. He was the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, and he served as Chairman the Joint Economic Committee. He was widely respected by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
After leaving the Senate, he took a position as Senior Policy Advisor for Arent Fox, a law firm based in Washington, DC that works with a wide range of international clients. He also served as a Senior Fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a member of the Board of Trustees of the German Marshall Fund, the Honorary US President of the Transatlantic Policy Network, and as Resident Scholar at the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, which inducted him into their Hall of Fame four months prior to his passing. In addition, Bennett set up his own consulting and government relations firm, the Bennett Group, which will continue its operations in his absence.
Bob was an active and committed Latter-day Saint throughout his life and held a number of callings, including bishop and temple worker. In 2009, his book "Leap of Faith: Confronting the Origins of the Book of Mormon" was published by Deseret Book Company, and his unwavering testimony of the Book of Mormon was the subject of an hour-long fireside he conducted one day prior to his stroke.
Services will be held both in Virginia and in Utah. In Virginia, the family will be available to greet visitors at a viewing from 6-8 PM on Monday evening, May 9, at the LDS Chapel on 2034 Great Falls Street, Falls Church, VA 22043. There will also be a viewing on Tuesday, May 10, at 10:00 AM at the same location, with funeral services to follow at 11:00 AM.
There will be a viewing in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Friday, May 13, at Larkin Mortuary, 260 East South Temple, Salt Lake City, UT, 84111 from 6-8 PM. There will also be a viewing on Saturday, May 14, at 9:30 AM at the Federal Heights Ward Chapel, 1300 East Fairfax Road, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84103, with funeral services to follow at 11:00 AM. Interment will be at the Salt Lake City Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that people donate to the Humanitarian Fund of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. https://www.ldsphilanthropies.org/humanitarian-services/funds/humanitarian-general-fund.html.
