Al Kenyon is now full-time with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He’s been working for FEMA as a government contractor on emergency alerting issues through Five Rivers Services, an information technology, communications, engineering and multimedia services company.
Kenyon came on board this week as a project manager within the FEMA Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) Division, National Continuity Programs. You may have seen him in the FEMA booth at the NAB show, helping to demo alerts.
I heard good things from broadcasters at the show about how FEMA is handling the conversion to the Common Alerting Protocol. My bet is that the RF engineer is, at least, partly responsible for that good vibe.
Kenyon tells me he intends to continue to bring his experience “as a lifetime broadcast engineer working with the best in the industry to whatever challenges I encounter. This is a pivotal point in the evolution of both broadcast and public alerting and I’m going to do my best to insure that the American people can get the information they need in stressful situations.”
Kenyon’s public alerting work began in the 12+ years he worked for Taft Broadcasting as a chief engineer in Cincinnati and Kansas City, both close to the colloquialy-named “Tornado Alley,” in the central part of the country.
In 1987, Al went to work for Jacor’s WLW(AM) in Cincinnati and soon became vice president of engineering for Jacor Communications. When Clear Channel acquired Jacor in 1999, Al was named senior vice president of projects and technology, managing studio consolidation construction for Clear Channel Radio throughout the country. Kenyon oversaw office and studio consolidations, from 15,000-square-foot buildouts in small markets to 100,000-square-foot projects, I wrote back in 2003.
Following Clear Channel, Al worked as a senior technical consultant at Denny and Associates. He became a government contractor in 2006. Kenyon has served on various alerting committees over the years, including holding the positions of vice chair and chairman of the FCC’s EAS National Advisory Committee.
