Robert Wingo has been to the White House twice. When former President George W. Bush invited the 1966 Texas Western College championship men’s basketball team to the White House for dinner in 2006, UTEP President Diana Natalicio was instrumental in securing an invitation for Wingo.
As a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial Foundation board, he was invited again for cocktails with the Obamas in conjunction with the opening of the memorial.
FAMILY IS PROBABLY THE
GREATEST JOY…”
Robert V. Wingo
Despite his work with the memorial foundation board in Washington, D.C., job offers in New York and clients from major companies around the country, Wingo feels most at home in El Paso.
Wingo, now president and CEO of Sanders\Wingo Advertising Inc., moved to the Paso del Norte region in 1960 from Ohio when his military father was stationed at Ft. Bliss.
After graduating from Bel Air High School, he served with the U.S. Army from 1966-68. His experience as a soldier in Vietnam was his motivation to go to college.
“Getting out of [high] school, college really wasn’t part of my game plan,” he said. He changed his mind while in a bunker in Vietnam.
“I decided that if I live through this, there has to be a better way than being in the Army getting shot at,” he said with a laugh.
Not long after he returned home from Vietnam in late 1968 with a Purple Heart, Wingo enrolled at UTEP. He became the first in his family to earn a college degree – a B.B.A. in marketing – in 1973.
Tim Roth, Ph.D., professor and chair of UTEP’s Department of Economics and Finance in the College of Business Administration, was one of his professors at UTEP and has since gotten to know him as a marketing professional.
“I don’t know anyone with more energy and determination to succeed than Bob Wingo,” Roth said. “In addition to intellectual power, he’s got what I would call ‘street smarts.’ He knows how to deal with people and he knows how to create and exploit opportunities.”
Wingo has worked with major companies around the country, including AT&T, Burger King, Mini Cooper, State Farm Insurance, and the United States Postal Service. His local clients include Peter Piper Pizza, GECU, the Convention and Visitors Bureau and El Paso Water Utilities.
“One of the principal reasons that his firm has been so successful is that he is an enthusiastic and informed purveyor of ideas,” Roth added. “In my opinion, that’s a necessary condition for success in his industry.”
Wingo’s passion comes through as he describes what he loves about his job.
“It’s about being able to share with people those key insights that show the difference between what they were doing and what they could be doing,” he said. “When you’re connecting with those audiences and you’ve created the emotional connection between their brand and what they are trying to accomplish with their brand, you are really able to feel the energy and the synergy in the room.”
Wingo didn’t start his career in advertising. His first job was as a part-time engineering aide at Braddock Dunn McDonald, a scientific engineering and analysis firm, while a student at UTEP. He learned very quickly that engineering wasn’t for him, but the job gave him the opportunity to see how important education is for career success.
After graduation, he took a customer service job with Billy the Kid, a now-defunct El Paso boys apparel company. After about a year, he was promoted to assistant to the national sales manager and eventually vice president of advertising for the company that did more than $100 million in annual sales. During that time, Billy the Kid was a client of Sanders Company Advertising, and Wingo worked closely with the company. When Billy the Kid was sold and moved to New York, Wingo had the opportunity to follow, but decided El Paso was a better fit for his family. He joined what became Sanders, Wingo, Galvin and Morton Advertising as executive vice president and owner in 1984.
The company, now called Sanders\Wingo, has expanded its operations to Austin and New York, with satellite operations in Atlanta and Los Angeles. Wingo’s daughter, Leslie Wingo Martinez, is a partner in the business and heads up the Austin office.
Wingo is proud of all his family’s success. His other daughter, Shana Wingo Davidson, is a surgeon in Phoenix. His wife, Paulette Wingo (’92, ’96), received the Gold Nugget Award for the UTEP College of Education in 2009 in recognition of her impact as a teacher, tutor, lecturer and advocate for children.
Wingo also received the Gold Nugget Award, from the College of Business Administration, in 2002.
Now, he is focused on bringing opportunities to other young people. He invites UTEP classes to visit Sanders\Wingo every year and offers student internships each semester.
“The more people we can help and train to be better leaders for today and tomorrow, the better off we are,” he said.
“Being a part of the UTEP family is probably the greatest joy as you look at astronauts and physicians and all the wonderful graduates that have come out of our university and have gone on to create their own businesses.”