BUCKHEAD COUPLE PAIRS UP TO DO GOOD.
Between running a multi-million dollar real estate business and keeping State Farm Arena humming, Eydie and Steve Koonin find time to add community involvement to their high-powered lives. The two have been a dynamic force on Atlanta’s business and philanthropic scene since they married 42 years ago.
A native Atlantan and University of Georgia business school grad, Steve met the Detroit-born Eydie over lunch in Atlanta, and the two quickly bonded. Professionally, he made his mark bolstering brands such as Coca-Cola, Turner Broadcasting and, most recently, the Atlanta Hawks and State Farm Arena. As the CEO of both entities since 2014, he oversees business, financial and strategic operations. Last summer, the Atlanta Sports Council presented him with a Lifetime Achievement award, noting how his work has put the arena into the top of the NBA’s list for overall game experience. He’s also turned the facility into the “Best New Concert Venue” in the country, according to the music industry trade publication Pollstar.
Eydie’s career has also been stellar. She left the corporate world in 1989 to stay home with the Buckhead couple’s two children and began volunteering. Helping out at The Epstein School led to a string of staff jobs, including assistant principal and director of admissions.
“Our kids were there, and I loved it,” she says. “But I also had always loved real estate. I thought I’d start flipping homes. But the joy I got from helping people find a new home made me decide to make it a full-time career.”
That was 18 years ago, and since then, Eydie has become a leader in the local industry by selling across the metro area from Cumming to Reynoldstown as an agent with Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty. She was honored by the Five Star Circle of Service Award from the Atlanta REALTORS Association and is a lifetime member of that organization’s top producers club. “I’ve sold a $250,000 condo and a $1.6 million mansion all in one week,” she says. “I have a true referral business working with people I know or have been referred to me.”
But the couple’s high-powered professional lives are almost overshadowed by their philanthropic accomplishments. For Steve, that has included turning State Farm Arena into Georgia’s largest polling place for the 2020 election, reconfiguring the Atlanta Hawks Foundation to create strong partnerships with communities in need and meeting the Hawks’ pledge to build basketball courts in disadvantaged communities, an effort that has created 28 courts that serve 250,000 area youth. Steve also chairs the board of the Georgia Aquarium, sits on the Atlanta Police Foundation board and is an executive committee member of the Metro Atlanta Chamber. The family name is also on a scholarship at UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Eydie has channeled her talents toward her position as board chair for In the City Camps, a nonprofit that offers overnight camp experiences to Jewish youngsters. She co-chaired the campaign to support Jewish HomeLife, a nonprofit dedicated to helping aging adults. She still shares her expertise with Epstein’s head of school and is a past recipient of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Atlanta’s Citizen of the Year award.
She notes that she was raised to prize philanthropy and giving back. “When you come from a place like the Midwest, it’s inbred to work and do what you can in the community,” Eydie says.
That spirit has been an inspiration for him, says Steve. “It’s just something that now lives inside of us. But it started with Eydie’s devotion. She taught me that the reward you get for the effort you put out is always greater. We want to be good members of the community and give back to the place that has given us so much.”
Along the way, the couple has never lost sight of the most meaningful aspect of their lives: their family.
“We have a really good balance of work, philanthropy and social life, but our top priority is our kids and grandkids,” Steve says. Eydie adds that their favorite pastime is being with their friends—who happen to be 3 and 5 years old.
PHOTO: Erik Meadows
