Sam and Vicky Hunt of Burlington, N.C., will receive the Frank S. Holt Jr. Business Leadership Award during a special luncheon at noon, Tuesday, March 29 in the Woods Center, located at Rhodes Stadium on the Elon University campus.
The award was established by Elon’s Martha and Spencer Love School of Business to recognize a local citizen whose contributions to business and the community reflect the same progressive, visionary leadership exemplified by the award’s namesake. The late Frank S. Holt Jr. was president of Holt Manufacturing Co., and an active civic leader.
Sam Hunt is chairman and CEO of Hunt Electric Supply Co., which was started by his father, Rector S. Hunt Jr., in 1970. Vicky Hunt began working at the family-run business in 1977 as administrative manager and was named senior vice president in 1990 and president in 2001. The company has grown from its original Burlington location to eight offices in the Triad, Triangle and eastern North Carolina. An Army veteran who served in Korea, Sam Hunt is also chairman and CEO of Atlas Lighting Products. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from East Carolina University in 1965.
The Hunts have worked tirelessly on behalf of the state of North Carolina and the Burlington community. Sam Hunt served four terms in the N.C. House of Representatives from 1985-1992 before being named transportation secretary by Gov. Jim Hunt in 1993. As a legislator, he led the effort to increase the interstate speed limit from 55 mph to 65 mph, and played a key role in the passage of a $9.2 billion highway construction program in 1989, which was the largest in state history.
As transportation secretary from 1993-1995, Sam Hunt launched rail service between Raleigh and Charlotte with the Piedmont Train. In 1997, in recognition of his service to the state, a portion of Interstate 85/40 in Alamance County was named the “Sam Hunt Freeway.”
In addition to her work with the family business, Vicky Hunt serves on Elon’s Board of Trustees and is a former member of the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business Advisory Board. She has served as chairman of the N.C. Film Commission and is a former board member of the Alamance Community College Foundation, American Red Cross and North Carolina Zoo.
Vicky Hunt earned an undergraduate degree in American studies from Mary Washington College in 1972 and a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1974.
-30-