Robert Wise '68

I graduated from UT Austin in 1972 with a BSEE. Worked a couple of years in Houston and then went to law school. I lived for three years in Los Angeles (1979-1982) and 20 years in Washington, D.C. (1977-1979 and 1982-2000). Earned a masters degree in taxation while in D.C. and studied economics, accounting, political management, and real estate development as well.

From the time I finished law school, few women were interested in me. After the fall of the Soviet Union, I learned that Russian and Ukrainian girls were interested in meeting American men, even men who were significantly older. I visited 13 wonderful young women in Russia and Ukraine in 1998, and eventually fell in love with Irina who was living in St. Petersburg, Russia. She came to America in late 1999 and we soon married (first marriage for both of us). We now have three young children and live in the northern suburbs of Dallas. Irina loves the hot Texas weather after growing up in snowy Russia.

I've been able to trace my ancestry back 1000 years and 27 generations before me. With my father as the first generation before me, the 26th generation before me was Oliver Wise who was living in England at the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066. The Wise family came to England from Saxony probably in the ninth or tenth century. In the 27th generation was Robert de Veteripont and Ernold de Busili, both Normans who joined William, Duke of Normandy, in the invasion of England. The Busili family married into the Veteripont family four generations later, and the Veteripont family married into the Wise family one generation later. In the 21st generation back, Robert de Scardeburg was an English judge in Ireland. This line is filled with lawyers and is probably where I got my desire to be a lawyer. Nine generations and 240 years later, Robert's descendant, Capt. Edmund Scarborough (spelling was flexible until recently) owned several ships sailing between England and Virginia around 1622. Edmund was one of the first burgesses of the newly formed Virginia House of Burgesses. His daughter, Lady Hannah Scarborough, came to America and married my ancestor, John Wise, who had sailed from England to Virginia in 1635 alone at the age of 18. They had six children, of whom I descend from the second son, William. Over the next 200 years and six generations, the family migrated south into the Carolinas, Georgia, and eventually Alabama. My grandfather came to Texas as a young man, and met and married my grandmother there. We have also traced all of my mother's family (Pearson) back more than 200 years to England, Scotland and France. Wise is derived from the old Saxon word gwiss, which means to know or to be certain.