Charley Johnson

Charles “Charley” Johnson has seen success three times – as a professional football player, an entrepreneur and an educator.

Since graduating from NMSU in 1961, Johnson has played for three professional football teams, started his own company and is currently head of the Chemical Engineering Department at NMSU.

Johnson’s success on and off the field began in Big Spring, Texas – a small town at the foot of the panhandle.

In high school, Johnson played four sports – football, basketball, baseball and golf – and won letters in all of them three times. After graduation, he received a football scholarship to the Schreiner Institute, a private military school and junior college in Kerrville, Texas.

“In 1957 the school dropped the sport (football), so I began playing basketball,” he says.

The switch from throwing touchdowns to shooting hoops is what brought Johnson to New Mexico State. He was recruited and attended NMSU on a basketball scholarship but was promised the opportunity to try out for the football team. In 1958, he was named the starting quarterback under newly hired Coach Warren Woodson.

His college football career included two consecutive Sun Bowl victories and an undefeated 11-0 record in 1960. During the three years Johnson was on the team, the Aggies recorded 23 wins and nine losses. His jersey, No. 33, is the only number ever retired in more than 105 years of New Mexico Aggie football.

Playing professional football was not always on Johnson’s mind.

“At that time, I was firmly entrenched in ROTC and I was going to get a commission (after graduation). I figured I was going to be a career Army officer,” he says. “I really didn’t think that much about football. But we decided to give it a try and I signed a contract with St. Louis.”

Charley playing for the Cardinals

Johnson graduated from NMSU in the spring of 1961 with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. He and his wife, Barbara, packed up their belongings and moved to St. Louis so he could attend the St. Louis Cardinals’ training camp that fall.

“I was very fortunate that I got a chance to play because of an injury to the starting quarterback and I was fortunate enough to play well when I had my chance,” he says.

Johnson became a starter for the Cardinals and continued to have good seasons from 1962-64. In 1963, he played in the Pro Bowl. He got hurt in 1965-66, and then went into the Army in 1967-68 as a second lieutenant, conducting research in the processing of high-temperature polymers for re-entry vehicles at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.

Johnson came back and played for St. Louis in 1969, got traded to Houston in 1970, got hurt again in 1971 and then was traded to Denver in 1972.

“We had four fabulous years in Denver,” he says. “We had the first two winning seasons that the Broncos ever had.”

Although Johnson played hard, he studied even harder. While playing professional football and serving in the Army, Johnson earned his master’s and doctoral degrees in chemical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis.

“Playing ball was a relief from the grind of graduate school,” he says. “And by the same token, graduate school gave me a release from the pressures of being a quarterback of a pro football team. I was able to go hide.”

But times were not always filled with glitz and glamour.

“I wanted to quit everything several times,” he recalls. “But I felt obligated to continue my education because I had the opportunity, and certainly the thrill and glamour of playing (pro football) was its own allure. The money was good, but I didn’t get rich doing it. My goal when I started college was to make $1,000 a month and I achieved that very soon. I felt rich.”

Charley playing for the Broncos

After retiring from professional football in 1975, Johnson helped start several firms before starting his own Johnson Compression Services in 1981. The company, which closed in 2003, sold and leased gas compressor systems to natural gas pipeline and processing companies in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Louisiana. He also consulted in engineering and product and corporate development through 1999.

Now, Johnson is helping to shape the engineers of tomorrow. He returned to NMSU in the spring of 2000 to take the helm of the Chemical Engineering Department.

“I think this department has an opportunity to make a real contribution to the state of New Mexico and I want to be a part of it,” he says.

Johnson was first introduced to engineering while he was a youngster back in Texas. During one of his summer jobs, Johnson was a member of a crew that was trying to replace a sewer line behind a motel.

“Every time a toilet would flush, we had to jump to get out of the way,” he says. “Then a guy pulled up in a pickup truck with a clipboard in his hands. He stood there for a few minutes and got back into his truck and drove off. My supervisor said he was the city engineer. I made up my mind right then that is what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the guy with the clipboard and not the shovel.”

Johnson says he was attracted to chemical engineering because of the wide range of opportunities it offers.

“Our graduates are refueling nuclear subs in Washington, making beer in St. Louis, making computer chips in Dallas and Michigan, and refining oil and gas in New Jersey and Texas,” he says. “They are all over the world making chemicals and pharmaceuticals. There are just a wide range of things that chemical engineers are qualified to do.”

Jessica Fife, a 2001 chemical engineering graduate, says having a department head who used to play pro football was a little intimidating, but Johnson always did his best to make sure the students felt comfortable approaching him about anything, be it questions, concerns or just idle conversation.

“His door was always open,” says Fife, who is now an advanced materials and process engineer with the Northrop Grumman Corp. in Los Angeles.