Vern Wuensche was born in the tiny farming community of McDade in central
Texas
, the third son of a handyman carpenter with a second grade education who worked for Elgin Butler Brick Company. His mother was a farm girl and later a homemaker who was employed at
Travis
State
School
working in the laundry. She completed the eighth grade.
Vern completed McDade Elementary and then graduated from
Elgin
High School
in 1963. In the fall he entered The University of Texas in
Austin
obtaining a BBA in accounting in 1967, and an MBA in management in 1968, graduating first in his class.
Following graduation—after a stint with the United States Army Reserve—he worked first as an auditor for Arthur Andersen & Co. and then as a tax consultant for Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co. Later he was employed with a series of smaller companies first as a cost accountant for a bag manufacturer, then as assistant controller for an oilfield company, and finally as local controller for several national residential homebuilders. He received his CPA certificate in 1975.
Together with his brother he founded his own company Woodmark Homes, Inc. in May of 1975 with $6,000.00, few contacts and little chance to borrow any additional capital. His company survived, it grew, and it made substantial profits in its third year in 1978. Following 1979’s downturn he had his first experience with our dysfunctional legal system where he spent four years pursuing a dishonest individual, obtaining a settlement barely equal to cost of his lawyer. From this experience he gained the knowledge that there was little apparent benefit in pursuing justice or in using the courts to recover funds taken from his company. This was the beginning of a difficult 30 year struggle to survive his construction business without a functioning legal system. The true nature of it neither protected him nor his business from continuing and regular outrageous personal and financial assaults. Where each assault was worse than the previous.
Following the last such assault in 2003 he formed Legal Reform Now! as a part of Texans for Efficiency in Government, Inc., which he had founded in 1990, so as to make transparent the true nature of our nation's legal system. So Americans could see for themselves the self-serving nature of a closed system of lawyers and judges many of whom in administering the legal process ignore their responsibility in obtaining justice.
And yet despite the continuing assaults Vern Wuensche's company Woodmark has had some proud moments. It has been recognized for building a number of award-winning projects for prominent
Houston
clients. To mention one, a 6,000 square foot home built for a nationally prominent individual was one seven projects in
Texas
to receive a design award from the Texas Society of Architects. An unsuccessful competitor on this project later built the home of President George Bush.
Today the focus of his efforts is Woodmark Kitchen and Bath, Inc., a stable and growing company with a sixteen-year history of renovating kitchens and baths in
Houston
. Ninety percent of its work comes from referrals or previously satisfied customers.
Vern has had varied experiences and pursuits:
Vern grew up on a farm working for others picking cotton at age eight, hoeing peanuts, and hauling hay—and raising vegetables and his own hogs for sale.
Vern as a pro se non-lawyer handled all aspects of a complicated four-year, three-party case in State District Court ending in a jury trial requested by him. The case involved land which had been in his family’s possession since the land was deeded to his distant grandfather by Sam Houston. Through this experience he learned from the inside how poorly lawyers and lawyer-judges operate in failing to deliver justice in our courts.
Vern in 2007 authored a book Overcoming Legal Abuse as an American Entrepreneur where through his thirty-five years of experience with our nation's legal system as a residential building entrepreneur he illuminated its flaws while providing a large number of creative solutions to fix it. The book is available on Barnesandnoble.com and Amazon.com.
Vern has been involved as a hands-on manager in building volume homes and custom homes, and renovating homes plus kitchen and bath remodeling projects. Over the years he has learned home and kitchen and bath design—and with the exception of having skills in electrical, plumbing, heating and air conditioning—is fully capable of building entire projects himself.
Vern is also a self-taught designer of high ranking web sites, doing the research, writing, design, publishing, and search engine optimization which has generally resulted in first-page position for pertinent major search terms.
Vern was an early marathoner, twice running the distance of
Galveston
island in the early 1970’s. He has continued this distance running regularly all his life.
Vern is also a Christian who is serious about his faith. He has regularly attended Missouri Synod Lutheran churches all his life, in one church serving as treasurer, in another serving as an Elder for twenty years, and in still another is an Elder today.
Vern Wuensche has been active in
Texas
politics continuously since 1972. As an eleven-year-old he hung bell-shaped door hangers on doors in
McDade
,
Texas
for Eisenhower in 1956. During the last thirty-eight years he has worked on campaigns of every type. He has attended all Republican conventions, usually as a state delegate. With this broad and varied experience he has obtained an in depth understanding of the political process. And he has been a life-long student of the presidency, with a particular focus on presidential campaigns.
In February, 2007, he filed for the Republican nomination for President of the
United States
with the goal of showing that someone with an average background—having little money—could do reasonably well against those who were nationally known and had many millions of dollars. And if things fell well into place for him, maybe much better than reasonably well.
In the Iowa Caucuses Senator John McCain placed fourth; Wuensche placed tenth. In the
New Hampshire
primary John McCain won; Wuensche placed tenth—three places behind Congressman Duncan Hunter who spent $2.5 million plus having a year of national television exposure in the media and the debates. Wuensche defeated Congressman Thomas Tancredo, Senator Sam Brownback, Governor Tommy Thompson, and Governor James Gilmore, all who quit before the Iowa Caucuses. Tancredo had spent as much as $7,000,000 on the race. In directly contacting over 6,000 small business owners in 242 towns and cities in
Iowa
and
New Hampshire
over a total of 100 days, as a political entrepreneur Wuensche had spent a total of $36,159.
The point he believed he successfully made in his year-long quest is that if enough people of average means and abilities would run for any public office, by the simple law of probability, our nation would almost certainly elect better leaders and fewer lawyers who would have the public's interest at heart.
America
would greatly benefit.
Vern Wuensche has lived in the Memorial area of
Houston
for forty-two years.
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