ABQ’s McKee agency reflects on 2 decades
Company has gained national recognition
Twenty years is a long time. But for Steve McKee, co-founder of McKee Wallwork + Company, an Albuquerque-based advertising agency, the last two decades have passed “in the blink of an eye.”
Twenty years ago, Steve McKee and Pat Wallwork started their compandy in a small office with two Compaq Presario computers and a fax machine. Since then, they have moved into a building in the historic Sawmill District and employ roughly two dozen people, according to McKee. The business has become a nationally recognized agency, successfully competing against agencies based in larger cities for awards.
“It’s funny. If it’s a cocktail party before an awards ceremony and you say you are based in Albuquerque, people show funny faces and quickly go talk to someone else,” explained McKee. “But if it’s a cocktail party after the ceremony, then (the reaction) is lots of questions. Everybody wants to know how we do it and why Albuquerque.”
The agency has worked with national brands like DaVita Medical Group, Gold’s Gym and Lego Education and hundreds of other companies since opening its doors. Though McKee feels the company may have been bigger if they had set up shop in a different city, “Albuquerque is where we want to be, where we’ve always wanted to be,” McKee said. “Great work can happen anywhere and (Albuquerque) is inspiring.”
McKee, an Albuquerque native, left the Duke City after college to find work elsewhere. But homesickness soon overcame him and his wife, and they decided to leave Arizona and return to Albuquerque.
McKee took a pay cut to move back because “Albuquerque is home.” After a few years with a local advertising agency, McKee joined with Pat Wallwork, a Cincinnati transplant, and they began their own business.
In the last twenty years, McKee Wallwork has seen a lot of ups and downs. McKee said that the biggest hurdle was the Great Recession, but the most sudden and intense was September 11, 2001 “when all business stopped.”
The two partners have rolled with the punches and found ways to adapt to changing markets.
It has invested in startup technology projects like Passare, a joint digital funeral planning project with French Funerals and Cremations. In 2001, it pioneered web-based Superbowl advertising ratings systems and in 2003 it partnered with Sprint to create the vote by text systems used in programs such as “American Idol.”
McKee attributes nearly all of the company’s success to the employees and the culture that has been created within the building. “I’m so proud of our people, and I think we are only going to get better from here,” McKee said.