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Eric Pinckney is a legacy principal for the Integral Group, an Atlanta-based real estate development and investment management firm. Eric has been with the firm for almost 30 years.
Eric came to Atlanta as a student studying Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. It was in that capacity he found his calling as someone who is responsible for the development of sustainable communities. It started when Pinckney volunteered to help families at a nearby public housing project called Techwood Homes in 1980 and urged residents to reject offers from real estate developers. His personal experience in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston had showed him that community disruption often followed gentrification. He believed the best way to build sustainable African American communities was to maintain the sense of family and support that he had experienced growing up in a segregated Massachusetts community.
But after meeting Egbert Perry, Integral’s Chairman & CEO, Pinckney learned that real estate development could recreate the economic diversity that had existed before the age of racial integration. He then changed his educational focus to make his passion for building functioning communities into a profession. He earned a master’s in City Planning from Georgia’s Institute of Technology. Integral hired him as a scheduling consultant, and he was soon promoted to a Project Manager. Eric held that position with the company when the Olympics came to town in 1996. Integral played a significant part in implementing Atlanta housing legacy program for that historic event.
Pinckney returned to Boston for a short period before being called back to the Integral Group where he was given development responsibilities for major projects in Richmond, VA., Baltimore, MD., Washington, DC, Memphis, TN and Denver, CO. By 2002, he was the Vice President of Operations for Integral’s development division. He held that position for ten years. He was also beginning to see how his dream of creating sustainable neighborhoods could become a reality for families and businesses all over the country.
Eric credits mentorship by Egbert Perry, Renee Glover, former President & CEO of the Atlanta Housing Authority, and Dr. Norman Johnson, former special assistant to former President Patrick Crecine at Georgia Tech, for helping him and Integral create some of the most successful and transformative residential developments in the nation.
Today Pinckney is the principal in charge of the Microsoft community development efforts located on its 90-acre, Atlanta Beltline adjacent site near the Bankhead MARTA Station.