NPR Centralizes Departments, Names Argentieri to New Technical Post

In an effort to combine two departments, NPR veteran David Argentieri was named senior director of operations and engineering.
“This centralization of the operations and audio engineering departments will provide better one-stop authority over NPR’s technical production resources,” stated NPR Vice President Mike Starling.
Starling told RW Online, “The combined operations and engineering department will handle all technical support logistics for our program operations. Previously, studio and staffing support functions were handled in different departments. Now it’s a single unit.”
NPR implemented the centralization with Argentieri’s appointment, announced the same day 33-year veteran Bob Nock retired. Nock’s retirement caused NPR to reconsider its operating structure.
How does this change the way things are done at NPR?
“It provides a single point of contact for technical support requests, as well as centralized responsibility for costs associated with specific program activity,” Starling said. “This will provide NPR with better identification, tracking and control over all technical support costs associated with discrete program activities.”
Argentieri joined NPR in 1985 after technical stints at WTOP(AM) and ABC News, and served as broadcast recording technician for 10 years, with responsibility for presidential pools, conventions and inaugurations. He later was appointed NPR’s first technical director for news operations in 1995 and its first news operations supervisor in 1998, before being appointed its first director of operations in 2001.