Nancy Laster: West Texas's Woman of Advertising

How long does the average business last?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that approximately two-thirds of businesses will make it to two years. Around half of small businesses will survive up to five years. In 2015, a group of scientists did their own research into the topic and estimated the lifespan to be approximately 10 years.

So when we hit our 40^th anniversary this August, it wasn’t without its fair share of excitement for reaching such a monumental milestone!

Of course, none of it would be possible without the vision, tenacity and endurance of our founder, Nancy Laster. An accomplishment of this magnitude couldn’t go without a few words from the entrepreneur herself, so we sat down with Nancy for a little video chat and 40 questions about her life, business and accomplishments. 

Lithuania to El Paso

Every story has a beginning.

Nancy’s starts in Lithuania where her maternal grandparents lived before they immigrated to the United States. The plan was to settle in Wisconsin, but when they arrived in the U.S., the immigration quotas for Jewish people were full and her grandparents were sent to Monterrey, Mexico.

“They did not speak a word of Spanish and my grandfather really struggled to make a living,” Nancy explained.

Nancy’s grandfather started their new life in Monterrey working as a merchant selling various goods. Soon after her mother was born and a few years later, the family continued their journey through Matamores, making their way into the U.S. through Brownsville and eventually arriving in El Paso.

“I think my grandfather saw that there was opportunity in El Paso. He opened up a store in South
El Paso, which is where a lot of the Jewish community started businesses.”

Although Nancy’s mother was raised speaking Spanish and didn’t know a word of English, she learned it very quickly and graduated from high school at age 16 before attending various universities. When she was 19, she married Nancy’s father, whose family had already been established in El Paso.

Growing Up Nancy

Born in El Paso, Nancy spent her childhood being raised bilingual.

“We learned Spanish before we ever learned English, and my grandparents spoke to us in Spanish.” 

Nancy attended Mesita Elementary School and continued to Coronado High School in eighth grade a few years after it was opened. A legacy of rebellion and doing things her way began shortly after.

“I was a hellraiser… but I made good grades. My parents never really knew about it until I was in my 30s and I told them,” Nancy mused. “My friends’ parents would tell them, ‘Why can’t you be like Nancy Oppenheimer and get good grades?’ They would just roll their eyes.”

As she began to explore her teenage years, like many
El Pasoans, Nancy and her friends did so on both sides of the border. At a time when driver licenses could be obtained as early as 14 years of age, Nancy did so and didn’t waste any time getting to know Juarez.

“Kentucky Club, Fred’s, Caverns of Music. We could drink there and we would have great tortas made with ham and guacamole. It was a great way to sober up before coming back to the U.S.”

Nancy first learned to drive in a Datsun 3-Speed and her parents would take the keys whenever they went out of town. But where there was a will, there was Nancy.

“I learned to pop the clutch to (be able to) drive it but I had to be careful.”

The Datsun adventures ranged from taking her brother to UTEP to witness the historic Miners 1966 Championship, to El Paso teen rites of passage like hanging out at the Santa Teresa train tracks for bonfire gatherings.

Higher Learning and Beyond

After graduating high school, Nancy took to the road to start her academic adventures at the University of Texas at Austin where she majored in Journalism.

“UT was pretty crazy. I had a lot of fun those years. It was just a small college town then,” Nancy explained. “We didn’t have the Sixth Street experience that the kids have now. We were all in sororities and fraternities and that was our major entertainment because there would be parties every weekend. We had a great time.”

However, Nancy’s junior year, when she studied abroad in Madrid, Spain, was the most memorable. The immersive program via New York University utilized professors from the University of Madrid, so classes were all taught in Spanish.

In the beginning, Nancy and another American roommate lived with a widowed señora, as many of them would provide students with boarding at that time. It wasn’t the most ideal roomie situation considering A.) the two roommates had both met Spanish boyfriends B.) the fun didn’t start until 11 o’clock at night and C.) the partying typically ended at three or four o‘clock in the morning.

While Nancy and her roommate were having a blast, the señora wasn’t necessarily having the time of her life and after being locked out a few times, they moved in with another pair of students the second semester, one of which happened to be from Ciudad Juarez, El Paso’s sister city.

“It was the most amazing experience. Now, an abroad program, I think you do it for just a semester. I was able to do it for the entire year. That, really, was the highlight of my years growing up. It was a great time to be young and crazy. I just had the time of my life.”

Even with the countless college escapades and a year abroad, Nancy didn’t only graduate on time but half a semester early. She was now ready to start her career.

The first opportunity was with The Bloom Advertising in Dallas, a prominent Texas advertising agency that would later be sold to what is now known as Publicis Groupe, the oldest and one of the largest marketing and communications companies in the world. It served as a great introduction to the industry and after half a year with the agency, she was hired by PBS affiliate KERA-TV.

“I had been watching TV and saw one of their fundraising drives. I just thought it would be so awesome to be involved with that so I went to do an interview and I was hired as part of their public information team then eventually became their Public Information Director.”

After seven years with the PBS station, Nancy moved back home and began her career in El Paso with a newly formed city agency called the El Paso Arts Alliance. As Executive Director of the organization, she was in charge of overseeing all arts organizations and museums in town. However, her main focus was the upcoming celebration of El Paso’s 400^th anniversary called 4 Centuries 81. Although the anniversary was celebrated the entire year, the weekend event that Nancy organized included music, dancing and historical exhibits with approximately 100,000 attendees from both El Paso and Juarez. But it was a temporary job and funding soon ran out. So she decided to call on her past skills with KERA-TV and turned her focus to advertising.

Nancy’s job hunting included visits to every agency in town, hoping she’d be hired with her nearly eight years of experience as a seasoned industry professional. However, interview after interview would lead to the same response – no receptionist or secretary positions were available.

“I told them it didn’t matter because I couldn’t take shorthand and wasn’t interested in being a receptionist or secretary,” Nancy recalled.

Eventually, a local agency owner would offer her an Account Executive position under one condition – that she bring six accounts into the agency and she would be allowed to manage them.

“I thought about it for a second and said to him, ‘If I could get six accounts, I would open my own agency. And, basically, that’s what I did.”

While attending a Fourth of July party in 1980, Nancy bumped into Jimmy Siegel, a Creative Director from another local agency. They stepped out of the party to talk shop and before the night was over, agreed to go into business together.

On August 1, 1980, Laster & Siegel was born. 

History in the Making

In the beginning, a handful of family-run businesses made up Laster & Siegel’s client list. This included a variety of retailers such as Del Norte Department Store, Del Norte Sporting Goods, Union Fashion and Nancy’s father’s business, Albert Matheis, an electronics and appliances wholesale distributor. These few clients allowed them to establish an office off Executive Center and hire a part-time receptionist. As confident as they may have been to start their own agency, not everyone shared the same sentiment.

“That Christmas we laughed because we got the crappiest gifts from vendors. We got gifts that we knew had been hidden in the back of their supply closets for God knows how long,” Nancy recalled. “One rep brought Jimmy a tie with the station logo and a big eagle on it. Jimmy and I laughed our asses off. Nobody thought we’d be in business very long so it was like whatever garbage they could find they ended up giving us for Christmas that year.”

Obviously, the agency did survive and in the years that followed, they steadily picked up clients that weren’t family-owned, such as the Dick Poe auto dealership. Laster & Siegel developed various promotions for the auto dealer, including their iconic “$25 and a Job Gets You a Car Loan”. Variations of the tagline are still used by area dealerships to this day. 

After a successful six years, Jimmy started a new chapter in his life and made his way to Sacramento, California with his family. Meanwhile, another agency in El Paso had suffered a much more devastating loss when the owner’s sister and agency partner passed away, leaving Laurie Miller of Palmer Miller Advertising to run the agency on her own.

“Laurie was the Creative Director of her agency, I needed a Creative Director and she didn’t feel like she could run the agency by herself,” Nancy recalled.  “She was still mourning the death of her sister so it was really good that we found each other.”

This collaboration led to the formation of Laster & Miller Advertising and the new agency officed out of a building that was owned by local CBS affiliate KDBC. One of the firm’s larger clients at the time was homestyle cooking restaurant chain Grandy’s and the agency helped with their advertising in fifteen different markets.

Laster & Miller Advertising stayed in business for approximately seven years before Nancy and Laurie went their separate ways, leading to Nancy’s first venture as the sole owner of the agency. 

“A Bunch of Broads are Going to do my Advertising?!”

When Nancy started the agency, it’s no secret that women faced a multitude of challenges in the workplace. Combine a male-dominated industry with a good ol’ boy mentality blended with the overtly machismo culture of our region at the time and you’ve got quite the challenge for being successful.

“It wasn’t always easy. I know many times we got our foot in the door because we were women. Young women. We weren’t happy about it but we decided to make lemonade from lemons,” Nancy explained. “We were no-nonsense. Once they met us, saw what we could do, they were on board.”

One example from those early days was a request to pitch a new bank in town. Nancy and Laurie put together a proposal in their usual detail-oriented fashion, submitted it along with several other agencies in town and ended up winning the account. When the founder of the bank realized the winning bid was from a women-owned agency, he exclaimed, “Are you kidding me? A bunch of broads are going to do my advertising?!” Nancy and her team ended up providing the financial institution with advertising services for more than 20 years.

While going after new business was essential for staying in business, Nancy felt it was important to contribute as well. This has amounted to countless collaborations with non-profits to help build awareness of their efforts and services.

“I probably started out thinking I would get contacts from doing that type of work because I was on several boards,” Nancy recalls. “After several years, I realized that it wouldn’t be a way to get business but I knew it was a way I could give back to our community. It was worth a lot more to them than if we gave monetarily.” 

The Rest is History

After the initial two partnerships, Nancy proceeded with the agency as the sole owner and purchased a two-story building on El Paso’s Westside where she would continue the business as The Laster Group. The reinvention of the agency would last nearly 20 years and during that time, her staff and the agency’s client list continued to grow. In 2013, the agency rebranded itself as CultureSpan Marketing to better align with the Hispanic-based industry experience it has proudly focused on since the beginning.

An agency that got its start with a handful of family businesses and three employees eventually grew to provide marketing and advertising services for healthcare systems, universities, Fortune 500 companies, regional utility companies, casinos across the western U.S. and hundreds of other businesses, all the while working with a dynamic and vibrant staff.

“Throughout the years, I’ve probably worked with 200 people. Which makes me feel really good that I was able to help people get a start in this profession, put a roof over heads, raise a family,” Nancy said. “I know it doesn’t seem like a lot, given that we’re a small agency. But still, to this day, we’re one of the three top agencies in El Paso.”

The ability to keep a business alive for 40 years is no small feat, even more so when the average company might last up to five years. But establishing a foundation for an industry legacy that can last well into the future is a rarity - one that Nancy started solidifying since the day she found her six accounts and opened her own agency.

Nancy, there aren’t enough words to express the gratitude that we have for you and the kindness you’ve bestowed upon so many of your employees over the years. Congratulations on your spectacular achievement and many well wishes for what’s to come!