Joe Hunsaker
Joe Hunsaker has been around swimming pools ever since his freshman year at
Cleveland High School in South St. Louis.
With a newly discovered talent in competitive swimming, Hunsaker pursued his
flourishing interest, proceeding to win four State Championships and a swimming
scholarship to the University of Illinois.
He competed in collegiate and non-collegiate meets, setting a World Record in
the individual medley and several National records along with three National
Championships. Consequently, Hunsaker majored in landscape architecture,
presuming that in the future he would utilize his education to design
residential pools.
After a stint in the army as a company commander, Hunsaker returned to St.
Louis, where he joined a design/build pool company. With the rapid expansion of
the St. Louis suburbs in the 1960s, he became involved in building, and later,
the management of public swim facilities. His pool management company, Midwest
Pool Management, operated 66 pools when he sold it in 1975, leaving five summer
swim and tennis clubs, under his ownership.
An attempt at semi-retirement left Joe Hunsaker restless. He increased the
consulting business with lectures and writing on pool design. He also started
assembling a staff of architects and engineers with an interest in designing
pools and poolscapes. The group is widely renowned today as
Counsilman-Hunsaker. Over the years, Hunsaker has built a stellar reputation by
designing pools for competition and leisure.
Joe Hunsaker has become an aquatic industry mentor - the trend leader in the
development of elaborate public water parks, prominent, therapeutic, wellness
pools, and high performance competition pools for major universities,
including Georgia Tech Aquatic Center, site of the 1996 Olympic Games in
Atlanta. Other venues designed by Counsilman-Hunsaker have hosted the
Commonwealth Games, Goodwill Games, Pan American Games,
and World University Games.