George “Geordy” Dean Johnson III

Eagle Scout: January 9, 2001

George “Geordy” Dean Johnson III is the grandson of Dr. George Dean Johnson, Sr., a charter member of Troop 1 and the first Eagle Scout in Spartanburg County. Geordy earned his Eagle rank on January 9, 2001.

A National Merit Scholar and 2001 graduate of Spartanburg High School, Johnson earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Washington and Lee University in 2005. He began his career in Charlotte as an investment banking analyst in the defense and aerospace group at Wachovia Capital Markets, then joined Black Creek Group’s real estate private equity practice in Denver and Mexico City. He came home to Spartanburg in 2008 as an associate at Johnson Management, left in 2011 for the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, and earned an MBA in real estate and entrepreneurship in 2013, spending a summer on BlackRock’s securitized investments team. After a year at AvalonBay Communities he returned to the family firm in 2014.

Johnson became president of Johnson Management that year, CEO of Johnson Development Associates in 2015, and CEO of The Johnson Group in 2022. He serves today as CEO and a director of the group, the Spartanburg family of companies founded by his father, George Dean Johnson Jr. Its development arm has built more than 34 million square feet of industrial property, thirty-three multifamily communities, and eighty-five self-storage facilities, and operates from eight offices nationwide.

His service to Scouting did not end with his own Eagle award. From 2008 to 2011 he sat on the board of the Palmetto Council of the Upstate, and from 2011 to 2016 on the advisory board of Trout Unlimited’s Headwaters Youth Program, which involves young people in conservation work in their home waters. He has also served on the boards of the Children’s Shelter of the Upstate and the United Way of the Piedmont.

In 2026, the Charlotte branch board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond selected Johnson as its chair; the branch boards seat seven directors and are appointed by the Richmond bank’s head-office board and by the Board of Governors. He is a director of the Real Estate Roundtable and sits on the advisory board of the Wood Center for Real Estate Studies at Kenan-Flagler. He served nearly a decade as a trustee of Washington and Lee University, including a term on its presidential search committee, and is now a trustee emeritus. He co-chaired the steering committee for the OneSpartanburg Vision Plan 2.0.

Under his leadership, The Johnson Group undertook Project Core, a redevelopment of roughly three city blocks representing more than $500 million in private investment. Its first phase, the 3,600-seat Fifth Third Park, opened in April 2025 as home of the Hub City Spartanburgers, a few blocks from Morgan Square, with a hotel, apartments, and offices to follow. Johnson lives in Spartanburg with his wife and children. Of the family’s investment in the city, he has said simply that Spartanburg is their hometown and they want to make an impact here.

Sources: Johnson Development Associates; Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, including its February 2026 announcement of director appointments; Washington and Lee University; Upstate Business Journal; Post and Courier Spartanburg; Geordy Johnson’s LinkedIn profile; Troop 1 records.

Can you add to this record? If you have photographs, letters, newspaper clippings, or family recollections concerning this Scout, we would be grateful to hear from you. Corrections are equally welcome. Please contact us.