Michael James Wing (born 1960), commonly "Mike Wing", is an American author of ''Talking With Your Customers: What They Will Tell You About Your Business'', convicted of wire fraud and implicated in other scandals, and a sports coach.

Biography

Early career

Wing worked as a White House Fellow from 1992 to 1993 during his time at

Gordon College Gordon College may refer to: * Gordon State College, a public college in Barnesville, Georgia * Gordon College (Massachusetts), a Christian college in Wenham, Massachusetts * Government Gordon College, a Christian college in Rawalpindi, Pakistan * ...

. In 1993, Dearborn Financial Publishing of Chicago printed his book ''Talking With Your Customers: What They Will Tell You About Your Business'', and Arthur Andersen signed on to another printing in 1997. Saturn V model 2019

U.S. Space and Rocket Center

Wing served as executive director of the

U.S. Space and Rocket Center The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama is a museum operated by the government of Alabama, showcasing rockets, achievements, and artifacts of the U.S. space program. Sometimes billed as "Earth's largest space museum", astronaut Ow ...

from 1998 to 1999, where he plunged the center into debt. Wing oversaw construction of a full-scale vertical Saturn V replica to be finished at by the 30th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, July 1999. It serves as a towering landmark in Huntsville, and cost the center $8.6 million of borrowed money. The ''Huntsville Times'' estimated interest costs at $10 million. Wing also sought to create a program for fifth grade students in Alabama and elsewhere to attend Space Camp at no cost to them. Anonymous corporate pledges that Wing promised would fund the $800 per student never arrived. Wing prolonged the Alabama Space Science Exhibit Commission's investigation into the pledges by writing bogus personal checks and having the center record them as received. The program ultimately cost the center $7.5 million. Wing was pressured to resign, and several members of the governing Alabama Space Science Exhibit Commission were ousted from that board as a result of the debacle. At the end of Wing's term as director, the center was $26 million in debt. The state sued Wing for $7.5 million over the Space Camp fraud. They settled for $500,000.

Texas attorney

Wing's next position was as an attorney in Tyler, Texas. He was licensed to practice in Texas from September 2000 until his resignation from the bar in February 2008. Leveraging his position as attorney and the skill and trust afforded because of same, Wing offered to his victims that they could invest in bridge loans that didn't exist. Instead of a bridge loan, he used the monies from those accounts and others to pay off prior "investors" and for his own purposes. Wing resigned from the

State Bar of Texas The State Bar of Texas (the Texas Bar) is an agency of the judiciary under the administrative control of the Texas Supreme Court. It is responsible for assisting the Texas Supreme Court in overseeing all attorneys licensed to practice law in Te ...

after pleading guilty to wire fraud.

College sports coach

Wing served as baseball coach for LeTourneau Athletics from 2002 to 2003 while the team posted 35 wins to 47 losses.

Criminal proceedings

Wing was arrested on April 12, 2006, and charged with 18 counts of wire fraud underlying a scheme to defraud investors by offering high returns on investments for bridge loans among companies which he declined to name citing

insider trading Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider information ...

rules. He pleaded guilty to at least one count of wire fraud and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison, 3 years of probation, and $9.2 million ($ million in current dollars) in restitution. He was released from prison on probation in 2014. In 2017, Wing was sentenced to 6 months in prison for a parole violation brought on by taking out loans without informing parole officers.

High school coach

Wing took a job as coach at Ranier High School in 2016, and left that job on account of a parole violation 14 months later. In 2019, Wing took a position as and then resigned as coach from coaching baseball at remote rural Idaho West Jefferson High School where he had pledged to raise millions for a baseball complex while having 13 players on the team.

Published works

Wing wrote the book ''Talking with Your Customers: What They Will Tell You about Your Business when You Ask the Right Questions'' published by Enterprise Dearborn in 1993. A 1997 edition had input from Arthur Andersen and added information about the internet.

References and notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wing, Mike American business writers American businesspeople convicted of crimes White House Fellows 20th-century American criminals American male criminals American people convicted of fraud 20th-century American writers American baseball coaches 20th-century American lawyers Texas lawyers U.S. Space & Rocket Center 1960 births Living people