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Wunderman, Lester
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Lester Wunderman was born in the Bronx, New York on June 22, 1920. He graduated from high school at the age of 16 but dropped out of Brooklyn College after one year to take an office job and help support his family in the Depression. In 1942, he and his brother Irving offered to work for a single salary for the mail-order agency Casper Pinkster. In 1947, the two brothers joined Maxwell Sackheim. In 1958, they started their own agency Wunderman, Ricotta & Kline with Ed Ricotta and Harry Kline. It grew into Wunderman Cato Johnson. Wunderman stepped down as chairman in 1998.
He was credited with pioneering the modern techniques of direct marketing. He wrote several books including Frontiers of Direct Marketing and Being Direct: Making Advertising Pay. He was inducted into the Direct Marketing Association's Hall of Fame in 1983 and the American Advertising Federation's Hall of Fame in 1998. He died on January 9, 2019 at the age of 98.
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