2012 SILVER AWARD - Paul Hudson

Paul is one of those rare advertising success stories who spent his entire career at one agency. And while his professional life is home grown—the scope of the agency he helped build and the talent and clients he fostered over the years read like a national who’s who in advertising and marketing.

Paul started out as an insurance salesman fresh out of SUNY Geneseo and was a rising sales star until he met Walt Roberts at a garage sale one day and struck up a conversation about advertising. Walt gave him a couple of books to read and the rest, as they say, is history. Paul joined Roberts in 1975 as the company’s 12th employee. Today, Roberts is a top tier agency headquartered here in
Rochester with an outpost in Minneapolis, a five-time Rochester Top 100 company, and 40-year-old agency brand.

The list of clients touched by Paul’s leadership is too long to fully enumerate. The short list includes Xerox Corporation, Citibank, Corning, Excellus Blue Cross and Blue Shield, ESL, Crosman Air Guns, Champion Sportswear, Mutual of Omaha, Kodak Business Equipment, Greater Rochester Visitors Association, American Express Financial Advisors, United Way of Rochester, Ziff-Davis.

If you’re lucky enough to truly know Paul, you realize he’s not just a smart marketer and thinker—but another rarity in this hyperbolic and sometimes overly slick business—an authentically nice person. Making Paul’s impact on our business, community, and lives significant, enduring, and yes, extraordinary.