HOF 6.8.25 - Flipbook - Page 17
The Baltimore Sun | Sunday, June 8, 2025 17
GEORGE L.
BUNTING JR.
For a man who has been a high-flyer in the corporate world, George L. Bunting Jr. is extraordinarily down to earth, say those who know him.
Bunting spent two decades expanding Hunt Valley-based Noxell Corp., the family company started by his grandfather, and then negotiated its sale to Procter &
Gamble in a $1.3 billion merger.
Since then, he has focused on applying his money, skills and connections to build up efforts to improve health care, education, religious understanding and the
arts in Baltimore and across the nation.
Bunting is the kind of person who notices everyone — “the person who opens the door, the person who is easily overlooked,” said the Rev. Christopher Leighton,
founding executive director for the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies, a Towson-based nonprofit that aims to dismantle religious bias. “No one is
invisible to George’s sight; there are no little people or insignificant people in George’s approach to the world.”
Born in Baltimore, Bunting grew up worshipping at
the recently shuttered Shrine of the Sacred Heart in
Mount Washington. He credits his upbringing with
instilling values like honesty and trust.
His worldview expanded while he attended
Columbia Business School. It wasn’t the marketing
curriculum but his experience living at International
House, home to students studying at various New
York universities. Amid a “melting pot of different
disciplines,” Bunting hung out in Harlem, scarfed
down late-night pizza, and had deep conversations
with friends from Germany and Australia.
“I think I learned more living there than I actually
did at business school,” he said of the now 101-yearold International House. “That’s where I began to
realize the world is a lot bigger and there were different viewpoints.”
Training as an Army reservist medic also fostered
a service-oriented mindset.
“I think we should have (compulsory) national
service,” he said. (It) doesn’t have to be the military,
could be the Peace Corps or other service, to bring
everybody together at an early age from all different
walks of life and backgrounds so we wouldn’t have so
much division today, perhaps.”
Bunting hadn’t set out to follow in his family’s footsteps. “My father never, never put any pressure on me
about that,” he said, “and I sort of gravitated toward
it over time in my educational career.”
Bunting returned home in 1966 as a product
manager at Noxell Corp., famed for its Noxzema
cleansing cream and other skin care products. He
joined the board of directors, studied under his father
as executive vice president, rose to become president
and CEO, and finally, was named chairman and CEO.
The company kept expanding — CoverGirl cosmetics grew into a large part of the business. But it still
Name: George L. Bunting Jr.
Age: 84
Hometown: Baltimore
Current residence: Monkton
Education: Loyola Blakefield; Loyola College;
Columbia Business School, MBA in marketing
Career highlights: Product manager, president,
CEO and chairman of the Noxell Corp.
Civic and charitable activities: Chairman of
the board of trustees for the Abell Foundation
in Baltimore; lifetime trustee of the Institute for
Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies;
trustee emeritus of Johns Hopkins Medicine
and Johns Hopkins Health System;
trustee emeritus of Maryland Institute
College of Art; created the BHA Automobile
Museum, a collection of classic cars
Family: Married to Anne Bunting; three
children; seven grandchildren
felt like a family to Bunting.
“It had a very excellent culture, which I inherited
and nurtured along the way,” he said. “Public companies today have changed, and there are different pressures, but it was almost fun, going to work, and we
loved the products we sold.”
Two years after Procter & Gamble’s purchase,
Bunting retired from business but kept his sleeves
rolled up.
In 1996, he oversaw the merger of the “complicated” governing structures of the Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine and the Johns
Hopkins Health System Corporation into one unified
Johns Hopkins Medicine board of trustees. Different
priorities between the two entities were leading to
conflicts, such as concerns that the hospital would
dominate decision-making. Finding resolution was
rewarding for Bunting.
He’s chairman of the board of trustees of the Abell
Foundation, which has applied proceeds of the 1986
sale of The Baltimore Sun to improve educational,
health and economic outcomes in Baltimore. President Robert C. Embry Jr. praised Bunting’s brains,
honesty and enthusiastic support for initiatives such
as grant donations and lawsuits to promote equity —
“somewhat unusual” for foundations.
“He’s very ethical and concerned about reducing
the inequities in our society,” Embry said, recalling
Bunting and the board’s work to increase funding for
Baltimore public schools.
Bunting enjoys material trappings — his car
collection formed the basis for the BHA Automobile
Museum — but he can apply the blessings of wealth
and access to more elevated realms. He’s a lifetime
trustee of the Institute of Islamic, Christian, Jewish
Studies. Leighton recalled early efforts to raise an
endowment for the institute, saying that Bunting’s
leadership, in part due to a substantial donation, challenged the community to step up by example.
“There was no way that I could go and knock on
their doors and get any kind of reception,” he said
of trying to drum up support. “But when George
knocked on the door and said, ‘We’d like to meet
with you and tell you about the work we’re doing,’
the response was, ‘Well, if George Bunting is behind
this venture, then we know it has integrity.'”
“I don’t think he really knows or realizes just how
powerful a force he is in doing good for others,” Leighton said. “He just goes about that business as though it
was the most natural thing in the world to do.”
—Natalie Jones
