Obert Clark Tanner (September 20, 1904 – October 14, 1993) was a University of Utah professor of philosophy, philanthropist, and founder of O.C.
His mother Annie was his father's second (polygamous) wife, and they spent their wedding night apart because of the Federal government opposition to polygamy.
felt a responsibility to contribute financially from an early age, doing odd jobs that included stoking furnaces at the university to pay his tuition.
One of the persons whose fires he maintained showed him how to enter the jewelry business, and he started selling seminary graduation pins and class rings from the back of his car.
The family foundation endowed the University of Utah Obert C. and Grace A. Tanner Humanities Center.
Tanner took an interest in Mormon studies and once offered Fawn Brodie, famous for her psycho-biography of Joseph Smith, $10,000 for a similar biography of Brigham Young.
In 1978, he permanently endowed the Tanner Lectures on Human Values, which are presented annually at several universities in England and the United States.
His daughter, the Rt Rev'd Carolyn Tanner Irish, converted to Anglicanism and was the 10th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah.