Happy Belated Thanksgiving!
I know you’re all sorry you missed out on seeing me dressed up as something like a stuffed turkey on my blog last week, but I do hope you had a nice holiday even if some of you had to spend the evening at work.
After all, the show must go on in this business. While it may not be ideal, holidays are usually a great time to take your career to the next level. By that I mean filling in for someone with a better job than you. For instance, it’s a great time for reporters to play “anchor” for the night.
Don’t sweat it too much. Not only is it good for you, one day you’ll be the one to give the new kid on the block a shot while you go home. That is, if you don’t act like a turkey now. Such is the biz… it can be demanding but it's also rewarding.
Take Mike Embry, a grad I heard from recently. After working as a technical director at WWTV-TV (Channels 9 & 10) in Northern Michigan for several years, Mike was offered two jobs -- one at CNN and one at WPEC-TV in West Palm Beach, Florida.
After carefully considering both, it’s not terribly surprising that he accepted the job in West Palm Beach. After all, he’s done his time in the Snow Belt!
"The people I work with are the best I've ever worked with,” Mike said about his new position. “Every question was answered, and every concern was taken care of!”
As an added bonus, the pay is twice what he was making and the weather ain't bad either. Thanks for staying in touch, Mike.
I also had the pleasure of catching up with grad Tara Lipinsky. She’s back in her hometown of New York City working full-time as a digital media producer for CBS 2. She produces six web casts a day and often gets to star in them. She produces and acts as talent in a daily entertainment wrap, as well as a weekly sit-down interview with a gossip magazine.
Here are a couple examples of her work:
Daily Entertainment Wrap
Weekly Gossip Interview
It’s hard to believe it’s only been about 6 years since she graduated from Specs Howard School!
I also wanted to mention the MCA-I Golden Cassette Awards, which I attended with one of our placement advisors, Denise Lippert. As always, it was great to see a number of grads help produce the event and, and of course, win awards. Grad Darryl Bartlett took home three, Terrance Vails was awarded two, and RMS Productions (owned by grad Randy Stephenson) and Gail Costello (owner of Costello Communications) each won an award.
Grads Sonja Crosby and Terrance Vails, along with our very own video department supervisor, Brad Richter acted as presenters and Bob Daniels of BlueWater Technologies, Jon-Eric Cornellier and Frank Denkhaus provided tech support.
Overall, it was a great night and once again I felt proud to be a part of what we do at Specs Howard School. As always, please let me know how YOU'RE doing!
Above: Participants at the Broadcast Career Builder Conference line up for opening keynote speaker, Doug "The Doc of Rock" Podell.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks in Uncle Kernen Land...
In addition to our usual 9 to 5, Placement Director Kevin Seguin-Scollin and I put a full day in at the BCBC – the MABF’s annual Broadcast Career Builder Conference – at Lansing Community College on Saturday, October 27th.
Over 150 students and young professionals participated in this year’s event, which featured an inspiring opening keynote by my good friend, Doug “The Doc of Rock” Podell, and numerous breakout sessions on employment – from the new careers made possible by new technology, to not-so-obvious career choices, to learning how to market yourself successfully.
In addition, the event included a job fair featuring numerous employers and a thought-provoking closing keynote by Specs grad Ross Marroso (pictured above right).
Ross encouraged attendees to explore a number of opportunities within the entertainment industry rather than focus on a single one. As an airborne reporter for WDIV-TV (Channel 4), an independent filmmaker and co-owner of Motor City Movies, and a screenwriting instructor, it is advice he himself obviously practices. By the way, Ross has another screenwriting workshop coming up at Specs Howard in January. I'll keep you posted on the details!
If you missed the BCBC, get out your 2008 calendar and plan to attend the MAB’s Great Lakes Broadcasting Conference on March 10th and 11th. It too is a great place to network and gain information about radio and television. For more information on this and other MAB-related events, bookmark the MAB web site!
But that's not all! I told you it's been a busy few weeks...
Kevin and I took newly appointed placement advisor, Katie Peters, to an open house at WADL-TV (Channel 38). The three of us thank Kevin Adell and Louis Gibbs for their hospitality. They have a beautiful facility for their newly christened Urban TV and an equally gorgeous facility for sister station, The Word Network. We ran into many old friends and many grads on the tour and really enjoyed the great food!
Speaking of old grads -- and I mean really old grads -- I heard from Rick Staeb, who is now the general manager of a six-station cluster in Bellingham, Washington. The stations are owned by Saga Communications, who own over 90 radio stations and 9 television stations.
The picture below was taken at Saga’s annual managers meeting this year and in addition to Rick and yours truly is Debbie Chavez, the program director of KGMI, which was named “Station of the Year” by Saga’s management. Out of 90+ stations, that’s not bad.
I also took a trip to Toledo and re-connected with several grads that are some of the best-known talents in the market. It was great to have lunch with veteran anchor Lee Conklin of WTVG-TV (Channel 13), who has been the 6 & 11 anchor for some 16 years, and Fred Lefebvre, host of WSPD radio's morning show where he provides his listeners with "Freducation" every weekday.
I also re-connected with Kelly Brown, late of 89x and now the mid-day personality at WIOT-FM. Among the many features of her position, is that she not only lives in the same building as the station, her apartment is literally DOWN THE HALL ... from her studio! Wow.
I also got a chance to visit WTVG-TV and toured their beautiful facility courtesy of grad Matt Black, long-time operations director of this ABC owned station.
I also met with their news director, Brian Trauring, who like every other news executive I've met within the past several years, emphasized how hard it is to find ----- STUDENTS AND GRADS TAKE NOTE ----- news producers! As an example, he indicated he was flying in a potential candidate from California! Take a lesson!
Coming Up!
I attended the MCA-I Golden Casette Awards ceremony on Friday night. I will have a full report later this week. 'Til then -- uk
