Stephen C. Kopcha

When Steve Kopcha clears his throat and imparts wisdom to his class, he’ll raise a hand in the air and say, “Listen up!  This is good stuff!”  And it certainly is good stuff.  After graduating from the Missouri School of Journalism, he worked for what is now known as D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) as a copywriter on the Budweiser account.  There he helped create the famous “This Bud’s for you” campaign.  Along the way to being elected Executive Vice President, Chief Creative Officer of DMB&B/Detroit and member of the worldwide Board of Directors, Kopcha created and supervised advertising for Anheuser-Busch, Pontiac, Cadillac, Buick, GMC Trucks, GM Parts, FTD, Dow Chemical Company, Whirlpool, Colgate-Palmolive, M&M/Mars, U.S. Air Force and Westinghouse.  Kopcha has been honored by the Wall Street Journal as a member of the elite Creative Leaders and was the first creative director ever named to the Board of Directors of the Adcraft Club of Detroit. After retiring to a farm in Missouri for two years, Kopcha returned to the advertising “bidness” in 1996 as a Senior Vice President, Creative Planner at the Detroit office of McCann-Erickson. Prior to joining the Missouri School of Journalism's faculty in August of 2001, Kopcha lived with his wife, Avis, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he completed much of his Great American Detective Novel and rode the Rocky Mountains on his Harley.