Mentoring has always been an endearing passion for retired metro Atlanta business executive Alfred Jorgensen.
He had a lot to offer anyone who wanted to improve their business sense, said Harry Wells, a friend and former colleague. "He was a master of putting together sales strategies and directing a sales force. Most everyone who worked with him went on to bigger and better things," said Wells, a sales executive with a risk management firm.
Alfred Hans “Al” Jorgensen, of Dawsonville, died Friday at his home of cancer. He was 77. He had lived in Dawson County for 20 years after residing in Alpharetta and Dunwoody. Services will be at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at New Hope United Methodist Church in Gainesville.
Born in California and educated at El Camino College and UCLA, Mr. Jorgensen met and married Carole Scott in 1960 while he worked in San Diego for a Boston-based software company and she with United Airlines as a flight attendant. They moved to Boston and shortly afterward his company sent him to a 22-week executive training course at Harvard that was "probably the best training I've ever had," he said in an earlier news report.
In the 1970s, Mr. Jorgensen and a partner formed a technology company called Interactive Sciences Corp. In 1980, Mr. Jorgensen merged the company with National Data Corp. in Atlanta and moved his family to the Rivermont subdivision in Alpharetta. After serving as CEO of several technology companies in Georgia and Pennsylvania, Mr. Jorgensen joined Sprint as a consultant in 1988. In 1989, he became general manager of Sprint's Atlanta Applied Technology Center.
Mr. Jorgensen’s strength was as a business troubleshooter, Mr. Wells said. "He got calls from companies all the time to do consulting," he said. "I've never met anyone like him in terms of his ability to negotiate with those in high-level positions."
After he retired from Sprint, Mr. Jorgensen taught an entrepreneurship class at Emory. He and his wife moved from Dunwoody to their Dawson County fishing cabin, which they remodeled, on Lake Lanier in 2000. "He loved the small town of Dawsonville and got real involved in the community," Mrs. Jorgensen said.
In 1997, he discussed in detail in a news report how he had survived prostate cancer and skin cancer. Ever the mentor, he urged men to get tested and he got involved in the Relay for Life, serving as chairman in Dawson County.
Mrs. Jorgensen tells a charming tale of how a stray cat got Mr. Jorgensen to help establish the Dawson County Humane Society. The cat, which they called Spooky, didn’t like anyone in the family except Mr. Jorgensen.
"He was the only one who could pet him. My husband was not fond of cats, but he loved this little cat," Mrs. Jorgensen said. He learned from Spooky's vet that there wasn't an animal shelter in Dawson County. He helped the vet spearhead efforts to start the shelter.
The Jorgensens were married for 51 years. "He was always very loving and caring and made sure that we didn't want for anything," Mrs. Jorgensen said.
Said daughter Lora Jorgensen-Havens, of Wake Forest, N.C.: "He had a wonderful relationship with me and my brother," Mark, who died in 2008. "My dad would give us advice, but he never said ‘I told you so.' If we didn't take his advice, he didn't get upset, and he would continue to help us," she said.
Additional survivors include a sister Ann Ryder, of Lafayette, Calif., and five grandchildren.
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