Biography

Before there was an industry to honor — someone had to build it.

James M. Hunnicutt began his career with two degrees: civil engineering from Auburn University and advanced traffic studies from Yale. He took that foundation to Chicago, then to Nashville, where he became general manager of the city's Parking Board. It was there, in 1961, that he helped co-found the organization that would become IPMI — the very institution that now bears his name on its highest individual honor.

He went on to lead one of the largest municipal parking authorities in the nation before launching Hunnicutt & Associates, a consulting practice that shaped the parking systems of some of the world's busiest airports — O'Hare, SeaTac, Baltimore-Washington, Love Field, Pittsburgh, Schiphol, and Frankfurt, among others.

Jim Hunnicutt was named Parking Man of the Year in 1976. He helped professionalize a field that millions depend on every day — and he did it with the conviction that parking deserved to be taken seriously.

He passed away in 2012. The award named in his honor has been given annually ever since — because that is what his legacy demands.