Kelly Cruz is an attorney based in Orange County, California. As a Partner and Director in Strategic Planning for the nation’s leading independent wealth management firm, Cruz focuses her work on comprehensive estate planning for high net worth individuals and families. Her work includes traditional trusts and wills, sophisticated wealth transfer techniques, business succession planning, valuation issues pertaining to wealth transfer planning, and federal gift tax returns. Prior to being awarded her JD from Pepperdine University Law School in 2006, Cruz earned her BA in Psychology with a minor in Linguistics from the University of California Irvine (Zot Zot!). This lead her to take on an early career as a behavioral and speech therapist, a job that taught her exponentially about the importance of compassion and patience.
Now, Cruz is enthusiastic about helping affluent families and corporate executives make sound financial decisions by coordinating their estate planning, investments, taxes, cash flow, and family goals. Cruz has been with the same firm since 2006 and represents clients throughout California, including Orange County, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as a Partner at her law firm. She is a member of the California Bar Association, the State Bar of California, and STEP-Orange County.
Cruz is personable and passionate and is ecstatic to bring her car buying perspective and shrewd negotiating tactics to Wisco Weekly. She is a team player and feels inspired to be surrounded by a team of forward-thinking and creative optimists who are keen to the future of transportation.
Cruz lives in sunny Southern California with her husband and children. In her free time, she loves going to Disneyland with her family, exercising, trying her hand at poker, checking out foodie restaurants, and listening to country music.
Rudy S. Salo, is an infrastructure finance attorney at a large international law firm, public speaker, writer and change-maker enthusiast who brings a fresh perspective to the Wisco Weekly Podcast. As an attorney, Rudy advises lenders, investment banks, educational institutions and governmental entities on financing and structuring public and private projects throughout the United States. Well-versed in both the financial and policy spheres of the transportation industry, Rudy passionately advocates for a critical rethinking of our infrastructure to accommodate the advanced transportation technology currently available to make our daily commuters more tolerable, safer and productive.
Rudy’s work with transportation systems and other infrastructure has included several significant public projects in Southern California and beyond, including the financing of the SR237 Express Lanes expansion in Silicon Valley, the financing of the extension of the 91 Express Lanes into Riverside County, California, and the financial restructuring of the South Bay Expressway (State Road 125) toll road in Southern California. Rudy has also worked on Project Neon in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit’s Orange Line extension to Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, and the new Tappan Zee Bridge in New York.
Rudy serves as a Co-Chair of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation’s E4 Mobility Alliance.
Rudy also frequently speaks at various conferences/seminars, including the Bond Buyer’s Transportation Finance / P3 Conference, Bond Buyer’s California Public Finance Conference, Silicon Dragon in Los Angeles and the IPFA.
Rudy lives in Los Angeles County, but grew up in North Orange County, California. Rudy received his Juris Doctorate from the Georgetown University Law Center in 2003 and his graduated from UCLA in 1999, manga cum laude in Political Science. He is a self-professed science fiction, film noir, punk rock and transportation geek, and he is elated to be able to bring his perspectives on infrastructure, autonomous vehicles, and the prospects of future modes of transportation to our Podcast.
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Surrounded by some of the most accomplished sales and product specialists in the luxury automotive field, Dennis Wisco relaxed in his chair and took a moment for surreal reflection amid the festive and crowded room in Munich, Germany.
Selected to represent his dealership at an event to introduce the Audi A3, Wisco pondered how far his journey has taken him, figuratively and literally, from an automotive industry novice to one of Audi’s best performing salespeople in 18 months.
Wisco is as passionate as he is knowledgeable about present and future trends in the automotive industry. That is no surprise when you learn about the non-traditional route to car sales taken by the Orange County, California native and UC Irvine co-founder of the Rip’em ‘Eaters school tradition. The innovative path he has explored started with college athletics and evolved to automotive retailing.
During his career, Wisco has helped thousands of clients successfully buy, sell, maintain and modify their cars. His knowledge and relationships with dealers and aftermarket shops provide a level of access and knowledge that most car buyers are not granted.
Years before he shared his industry insight– and that of automotive business experts – through his rapidly growing Wisco Weekly podcast, the show’s namesake served as Director of Annual Giving in the UC Irvine athletic department. That is where he cultivated his approach to automotive sales, and the inspiration for launching the automotive business podcast that details the future of automotive through the voices of automakers, transportation professionals and automotive retailers.
“My role at UC Irvine included fundraising and sports marketing and when the time arrived when I ventured into auto sales at a Toyota dealership in 2010,” Wisco said. “I immediately found there are numerous similarities to college sports and the automotive industry, so I applied the techniques I learned at UC Irvine to selling cars.
“When meeting with donors about million dollar gifts, obviously you must be comfortable talking about money, and explaining the benefits of donating those funds,” Wisco added. “Raising money for student-athlete scholarships is a noble endeavor, and I sought to apply this same mentality to car sales. Instead of student athletes, I’m raising money for automotive engineers, allowing them to continue designing and perfecting exceptional products. That is how I found a sense of purpose in the auto industry, and I thrived once I adopted that mentality.”
After one year at the Toyota location, Wisco moved to an Audi dealership where he transformed a new challenge into the next stage of his automotive entrepreneurial endeavors.
“It was intimidating for the initial months at Audi because I was a novice with my knowledge about the products, and my colleagues were advanced,” Wisco said. “I felt like I was in elementary school while everyone else was pursuing their Ph. D.”
In a year and a half, Wisco emerged as one of the dealership’s top salespeople, and he was rewarded with the honor of representing the store for the aforementioned product launch event in Munich. Eventually, Wisco’s original clients returned after three years to return their lease and purchase a new car. Some of those people had another request as well.
“They not only wanted to get a new Audi, but they asked about finding a less expensive yet safe and reliable car for their 16-year-old kid. They wanted to know my recommendations and thoughts,” Wisco said. “That spurred the idea to launch a concierge business to help existing clients buy and sell cars.”
Americans love their vehicles; however, purchasing those vehicles has too often been perceived as a chore. Dealer Visit Experience, the car buying and leasing concierge business that Wisco founded, allowed him to use his industry expertise and dealership contacts to represent clients directly, like a Realtor does for homes.
Wisco finds a vehicle that matches the client’s criteria, negotiates the best possible deal, manages preliminary paperwork and schedules the client’s visit with a DVE-certified product expert at the dealership. The car is prepped and ready to drive home, and all the client does is quickly sign additional paperwork.
When Wisco left the Audi dealership to debut DVE, he developed a niche as an automotive industry source in Orange County. As the months and years passed, the business grew through referrals from existing clients, and Wisco poured time and money into marketing to flourish even further. That is when he debuted Wisco Weekly.
“Eventually, people called me to provide guidance and insight, and not just to buy or sell their car,” Wisco said. “Wisco Weekly started as a podcast for helpful tips about buying and selling, and the audience grew and I became a trusted, unbiased source, I expanded the show to include interviews about the dealership of the future and transportation mobility.
By sharing the voices of automakers, transportation professionals, and automotive retailers, Wisco wants to bridge the science fiction future of transportation with the emotional feelings of buying and owning a car. He is also developing online courses to aid in education towards this end.
Through expanding Wisco Weekly and developing online courses, Wisco is enhancing his role as “a fundraiser of automotive engineers,” the same approach that provided Wisco with motivation and a sense of purpose when he stepped into the Toyota dealership and started his automotive career.
