Robert Wagnon is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Republic State Mortgage Company, a full-service mortgage banker headquartered in Houston, TX. Through Robert’s unique philosophy of employee growth and satisfaction, the company has steadily grown since its inception in 1994 from one office in Houston, Texas with 1 employee to over 30 offices spread across 13 states with 240 employees. In 2018, 2019, and 2020 Republic State Mortgage was named a top workplace by the Houston Chronicle and named a best mortgage company to work for by the National Mortgage News in 2019, 2020, and 2021. In 2021, Fortune named Republic a best workplace in the financial services and insurance sector.
Robert serves or has served on the board of directors or the advisory board of the following institutions: Sul Ross University Foundation, Texas Mortgage Bankers Association; Houston Mortgage Bankers Association; Entrepreneurs Organization (EO); World Entrepreneurs Organization (WEO); Main Street Theater; Sterling Bank; and the St. Philips Episcopal Church of Uvalde. For 10 years, Robert served as Cub Master, Assistant Scout Master and Scout Master for Pack 695 and Troop 354 in the Sam Houston Area Council of Boy Scouts of America.
A seventh-generation Texan, Robert resides in Houston, Texas with his wife, Ellen Weingarten Wagnon. Robert enjoys traveling and adventures with Ellen and their three sons, Reagor, Joseph and Bennett. Robert is an avid and passionate outdoorsman and pilot. He shoots skeet, trap and sporting clays weekly. In addition to fishing when and wherever possible, Robert loves to bird hunt at his ranch in Uvalde, Texas. Prior to his current professional career, Robert made his living in the outdoors by backpacking on fire watch through most of southern Alaska, the Yukon Territory and northern British Columbia for the U.S. Forestry Service and private forestry interests and also fished commercially for the better part of a year off Kodiak Island, Alaska. Robert spent two years in the Merchant Marine and was a Merchant Marine Staff Officer, serving as purser on the S.S. Independence out of Honolulu, Hawaii.
