When broadcast organizations do a good job of celebrating their engineers, I like to call attention to the practice. Radio World gets tons of press releases and award announcements trumpeting the hiring and achievements of radio CEOs, market presidents and morning show talent. Not so much about engineers.
So kudos to Newark Public Radio’s WBGO for taking the time to announce that Chief Technology Officer David Antoine has been elected to the board of the Society of Broadcast Engineers.
David is a friend of mine, so I’m glad for him. But I bring it up here to reinforce this organizational behavior.
There are nine other worthy engineers named to new or different roles on the board or national office in the SBE’s own press release. Yet WBGO is the only radio employer that issued its own announcement, to my knowledge.
So good on them.
The station quoted WBGO President/CEO Steven A. Williams, saying, “This most recent acknowledgement of David’s expertise and influence fits like a glove. He’s one of an elite group of pioneering engineers that have kept broadcasting operations in the world’s #1 media market running at the forefront of development and execution. There is simply no better place to be than New York City if you’re a media professional, and that is largely because the engineers here are the best in the business. The work that David has done over the course of four decades is an integral part of that esteemed legacy.”
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How do you think David felt, reading those words? And it probably took WBGO Marketing Manager Brandy Wood all of 10 minutes to gather a quote and assemble and send that press release to her contact list.
For that small investment of time, the station not only makes an important employee feel valued in a public way; it also sends a message to others in the industry: Our organization values its team members.
In an era when companies struggle to find good talent — much less good technical talent — how smart is it to just make that little extra effort?
So congrats to David and his SBE board peers, who include several other good friends to Radio World. And thanks to WBGO for modeling good corporate behavior. It matters.