Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

We Remember Skip Tash

Colleagues mourn our former associate publisher

Paul McLane is editor in chief of Radio World.

Long-time Radio World family members are remembering Skip Tash today.

Skip was one of the first people to welcome me when I joined Radio World and its then-parent IMAS Publishing 19 years ago. As a member of RW’s sales team in the 1990s, he was one of the hard-working professionals who made Radio World what it was and is, and who yet who remain in the background for most readers.

Trust me though when I tell you that Skip’s clients and friends will never forget him.

He attended Perkiomen School in Pennsburg, Pa., and the University of Miami before completing his bachelor’s degree at the University of Maryland and launching a career in media advertising. “One of his proudest moments was helping in the late 1970s to get ‘Staying Alive’ by the Bee Gees into rotation at many different radio stations,” the family wrote in a program at this weekend’s funeral service.

After selling time, Skip moved over to selling space. He worked for six years as vice president of ad sales for Broadcasting & Cable, then took a similar position at the National Association of Broadcasters before coming to Radio World and IMAS. The latter part of his tenure overlapped with the earliest part of mine.

He would become our associate publisher, managing millions of dollars in ad revenue for three international trade publications with a combined circulation of 60,000, in addition to launching and managing numerous special projects.

But as hard as he worked, and as proud as he was of what we did here, it’s not those things that we remember as our friend departs.

I recall Skip’s love of golf. I remember his expressions of love for his wife Krystina, his quick energy, his ready expressions of concern for me. Personal warmth and good cheer are what others remember too. Radio World Advertising Coordinator Caroline Freeland talks about Skip’s stutter when he got excited as well as his enormous laugh. She met her husband through Skip: “I will always be thankful for him as he introduced Craig and I and the rest is as they say ‘history’!”

“Skip was funny, caring and full of life,” recalls Rogelio Ocampo, editor in chief of Radio World América Latina. “Always with a big smile. He made you feel like you were the only person in the room when he was talking to you.”

Skip later would go work as executive VP of BuyBidSell.com. He eventually became EVP of FMiTV Networks, national interactive sales manager at Comcast Spotlight and, most recently, president of interactive media sales for Norstar Media Networks.

He also was involved with the Washington DC Police Foundation, WPO at Sibley Hospital, Seed a Need Organization and the Greater Bethesda-Chevy Chase Chamber of Commerce. And for 37 years he was a member of the journalism honor fraternity Kappa Tau Alpha.

Our friend and colleague died Thursday after keeping pancreatic cancer at bay for almost three years, always while showing his trademark humor and grace. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Montgomery Hospice, www.montgomeryhospice.org/donate.

It makes me happy to know that even in his illness — as recently as a couple of weeks ago — Skip was still socializing, having lunch with the friends he enjoyed so much.

Carmel King, today the executive vice president of our Broadcast & Video Group, told me, “I can’t think about Skip without laughing, because everything about him was funny. Working with him for almost 10 years, there were a million moments — it’s hard to single any one out. He was smart and funny and caring and warm and friendly and loyal — a good man and a good friend. I’m so glad I had the chance to know him, and to learn from him about radio, sales and life in general. He was uniquely Skip — a true treasure.”

Close