Before finding success in the Atlanta real estate scene, Johnny Hunsinger found it in the classrooms and on the field at Georgia Tech.
Mr. Hunsinger made the dean’s list each year and sported a Yellow Jacket jersey during some of the most glorious years of Tech football. He was a member of Bobby Dodd’s undefeated 1952 championship team as well as the 1953 and 1954 teams that won a Sugar Bowl and Cotton Bowl, respectively.
John Stewart “Johnny” Hunsinger, IE 54, MS IE 55, president of John Hunsinger & Company and a member of the Georgia Tech Sports Hall of Fame, died Oct. 24. The lifelong Atlantan was 79.
Mr. Hunsinger began his real estate career as a salesman with Pope and Carter and Company of Atlanta in 1961. In his third year there, he received the Atlanta Board of Realtors Million Dollar Club Award for selling $1 million worth of property in a year. He was named a lifetime member of the club after three consecutive wins.
In 1967, he became vice president of the firm and president of its development, construction, leasing and management of industrial warehouses and office parks in the Southeast. He left two years later to start his own real estate brokerage and development company.
Mr. Hunsinger once told the Alumni Magazine that he applied lessons learned from playing football in overseeing his firm.
“I train my people pretty much the way I was coached,” Mr. Hunsinger said. “There is nothing that beats hours of preparation, organization and enthusiasm. That’s part of a winning program. In sports, you practice your plays, you build in the mechanism in your body and mind to succeed, and when you get in a pressurized situation, you do what needs to be done and you hardly think about it.”
In 1980, Mr. Hunsinger was elected as a charter member of the Atlanta Board of Realtors Phoenix Million Dollar Club, which recognizes 10 years as a million dollar producer. He was elected president of the Atlanta Board of Realtors two years later.
His beginnings were much humbler. Mr. Hunsinger was raised in a one-bedroom house, which he shared with his mother, grandparents and two uncles.
Mr. Hunsinger told the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering’s Engineering Enterprise publication that he could not remember “ever not playing” football. As a child, he played the sport at his Howell Park neighborhood in southwest Atlanta. And playing Georgia Tech football was in his blood. His father had played football at the Institute as well as his great-uncle, George “Pup” Phillips, who played under coach John Heisman.
During his time at Tech, Mr. Hunsinger also was a member of ANAK, the Glee Club, Tau Beta Pi, Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the student council and the chapter of the American Institute of Industrial Engineers. He served as president of Omicron Delta Kappa and Alpha Pi Mu.
Mr. Hunsinger served two years as an officer in the Army. He was awarded three patents while working as an industrial engineer at Chemstrand in Pensacola, Fla., before leaving the nylon company to enter the real estate business.
Mr. Hunsinger’s numerous civic activities over the years included serving as president and chairman of the Atlanta Union Mission; a trustee for Scottish Rite Hospital; and a board member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He also sang in the symphony. He was a longtime member of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, the Martin Luther King Historical District, the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Atlanta, the Atlanta Urban League and the Atlanta Touchdown Club, which named him an honorary lifetime member.
Mr. Hunsinger was an emeritus member of the advisory board of Tech’s School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and a recipient of the school’s distinguished alumni award.
Memorials in Mr. Hunsinger’s name may be made to the Alexander-Tharpe Fund at Georgia Tech.
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