Dr. Rod Wright is a nationally recognized expert in public opinion research and strategic communication with extensive experience working in the corporate and public sectors. His expertise includes designing and implementing successful community engagement programs; assisting on tax increase and bond elections; market and opinion research; theme and message development; public relations strategies and crisis communications. Prior to joining Creative Entourage, Rod worked at UNICOM•ARC for 34 years. He led the opinion and market research division at the company before serving as UNICOM•ARC’s president for more than two decades. He also worked as director of research with Public Response, Inc., a political and business consulting firm, and as a faculty member at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Rod earned a bachelor’s degree from William Jewell College and his master’s and doctorate degrees from Washington University, all in political science.

Rod has directed a wide variety of public opinion, community engagement and communications projects for hundreds of corporate and public sector clients and school and community college districts throughout the United States. He has worked on successful referendum programs for public education clients leading to more than $10 billion in school facility improvements plus billions more in operating dollars. Projects he led won two Magna Awards from the American School Boards Journal, two Golden Paragon Awards from the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations and numerous awards from the National School Public Relations Association.

In 1995, Dr. Wright directed a public engagement program for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) related to the development and approval of Missouri’s Show-Me Standards for student performance. In Education Week’s 1997 nationwide study of elementary and secondary education titled “Quality Counts,” this effort was praised as helping Missouri “to avoid the debates that have characterized standards-setting in many other states where reform opponents have branded standards as vague and intrusive.”

Rod is a sought-after speaker at national and regional conferences. He has given presentations for the National School Public Relations Association, the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations, the Annual Management Symposium of the American Chamber of Commerce Executives, the Annual Leadership Forum of the American Bar Association, the State Education Improvement Partnership, and the National Governors’ Association) and the national meetings of the Association of School Business Officials."

Rod grew up in a small town of less than 200 people. When he’s not working he volunteers in the community and enjoys baseball, theater and restaurants, especially out-of-the-way places most people don’t know.

Rod’s Fun Fact
I started college as a music major.

Rod on Creative Entourage
Creative Entourage’s strength is its ability to translate research into impactful communications.