THE FLATS – Georgia Tech director of athletics Todd Stansbury has been named one of the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s 2021 Most Admired CEOs, the publication announced on Thursday.
Stansbury is one of 39 Atlanta-area CEOs to receive the prestigious award, and one of only two executives recognized in the sports and entertainment category.
In his fifth year as the director of athletics at his alma mater, Stansbury has overseen one of the most successful years in Georgia Tech history in 2020-21. Despite the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Yellow Jackets had 11 of 17 teams participate in NCAA postseason play this year (up from three in 2017-18) and have seen 19 student-athletes earn a total of 26 all-America honors (up from a total of nine all-America honors in 2017-18).
Tech’s student-athletes have also excelled academically under Stansbury’s watch, with six-straight semesters of a 3.0 mean grade point average or higher, including a department-record 3.23 mean GPA during the 2020 spring semester. Last fall, Georgia Tech matched an all-time high with an 89% NCAA Graduation Success Rate and, in 2019, Tech was the only institution from a Power Five conference (Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, Southeastern Conference) with a multiyear NCAA Academic Progress Rate higher than the national average in each of its sports.
Georgia Tech has received a slew of department-wide awards since Stansbury’s arrival in 2016. The most prestigious recognitions include the ACC Game Changers Award in 2018-19, which honored the Jackets Without Borders international service program that Stansbury introduced at Tech in 2017, and the 2021 N4A Model Practices for Academics Award, which lauded GT’s JumpStart Jackets “Virtual Edge” program for first-year student-athletes.
With Stansbury at the helm, Tech athletics has also enjoyed great fundraising success. The Alexander-Tharpe Fund, Georgia Tech athletics’ fundraising arm, has set records in consecutive years with $58.3 million in gifts and commitments in the 2020 fiscal year and $53.3 million in FY 2019. Most notably, Athletics Initiative 2020, Tech athletics’ three-year initiative to raise $125 million from 2018-20, far surpassed its goal by raising a total of $175.39 million. State-of-the-art facilities projects that have already been completed during Stansbury’s tenure include new locker rooms for Tech football and women’s basketball, Phase II of renovations at Mac Nease Baseball Park, which included the construction of Champions Hall on the facility’s third-base side, and the installation of new videoboards at Bobby Dodd Stadium’s Callaway Plaza, Mac Nease Park, softball’s Mewborn Field, the Byers Tennis Complex and volleyball’s O’Keefe Gymnasium.
Stansbury officially began his tenure as Georgia Tech’s director of athletics on Nov. 28, 2016. The Oakville, Ontario native originally came to Tech as football student-athlete in 1980 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering in 1984. After a stint in the Canadian Football League, he returned to Atlanta and worked in the banking industry before returning to GT as an academic advisor for the Yellow Jackets’ football program in 1988. He was promoted to assistant athletics director for academics in 1991, a role that he held until 1995.
After leaving Georgia Tech in ’95, Stansbury’s career included stops at Houston (associate A.D. – 1997-2000) and Oregon State (executive associate A.D. – 2003-12), as well as three stints as an athletics director at East Tennessee State (2000-03), UCF (2012-15) and Oregon State (2015-16), before he became A.D. at Tech in 2016.
To be considered for the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Most Admired CEOs Awards, an individual must be an established leader with a strong record of innovation in their field, outstanding financial performance, a commitment to quality, a strong vision, a commitment to diversity in the workplace and significant contributions to the metro community. Stansbury and the other recipients will be recognized during the 2021 Atlanta Business Chronicle Most Admired CEOs Awards dinner on Aug. 19 at the Coca-Cola Roxy Theater in the Battery.
Alexander-Tharpe Fund
The Alexander-Tharpe Fund is the fundraising arm of Georgia Tech athletics, providing scholarship, operations and facilities support for Georgia Tech’s 400-plus student-athletes. Be a part of developing Georgia Tech’s Everyday Champions and helping the Yellow Jackets compete for championships at the highest levels of college athletics by supporting the Support The Swarm Fund, which helps Georgia Tech athletics offset the significant financial challenges associated with Covid-19, and the Annual Athletic Scholarship Fund, which directly provides scholarships for Georgia Tech student-athletes. To learn more about supporting the Yellow Jackets, visit atfund.org.
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