1 – Please detail your qualifications for the NPR Board.

I have been general manager of WUMB-FM for 25 years, and was the station's core founder in 1968. Even with some of the constraints of being a university licensee I've helped our station grow, from concept through acquisition of the last FM station authorized to go on the air in the greater Boston area, to becoming a five-station network serving 1.6 million people with a $2.5 million budget. We have several channels of programming on the internet and four of our five transmitters have been converted to HD, although we're not yet multicasting. Over the years, the opportunities and challenges I’ve faced as a general manager, are not much different from yours. While I’ve not previously participated on many national boards except serving as Vice President of the University:Station Alliance, I’ve sat on numerous government and non-profit boards locally.

2 - As a Board member, how will you separate your station's self-interest from network interests?

I have been a member of enough boards to know that being able to separate my station’s self-interest from the interest of the organization on which I am is serving is of paramount importance. The bottom line, is that the whole of the organization is greater than the sum of its parts. As a member of the NPR Board, my responsibilities would be to represent all stations, big or small, news or music. I feel confident I can do this.

3. - If elected to the NPR Board, on what Board Committee – or in connection with what issue – do you believe you have the most to offer NPR? 

I have a particular gift with numbers and balancing budgets. My eyes don’t gloss-over when I have a conversation with our engineering staff. Until recently, I had taken the work of NPR’s Government Relations staff for granted, and never understood the valuable role that stations play in helping to sway Congress. With the recent Copyright Royalty issue, I have begun getting more involved in contacting members of Congress myself, and in getting our listeners to do the same. I could fit into a number of areas.  I also know that I am extremely driven to improving public service and increasing audience, and believe the NPR brand is the best way to do so for all of public radio. I would accept this role very willingly. Given my tenacity as well as my enthusiasm for this challenge, I believe I am the candidate with the most to offer the NPR Board.

4. Would you recommend any changes to the way in which network program providers charge stations for programming? 

I wish I could tell you I had a magic wand with regards to this issue and that it would make all the challenges of the program fee issue go away and make everyone happy, but I don’t. However, the more that stations complain about increased programming fees, the more dependent NPR feels it has to be on securing underwriting and major donor gifts; many stations do not like these models either. While of course we must always be cognizant of the bottom line, we need to do our best to lower costs to member stations and create a fair and equitable system for all. 

5 - Since the institution of the A-Reps meeting format, NPR has not achieved a quorum for its Annual Meeting.  Do you view this as a problem?  Do you have any recommendations for engaging more stations in the citizenship of the annual meeting?

Yes, the lack of a quorum is a very sad situation for us all. How can we call ourselves a Member Organization when the general membership doesn’t vote on issues that affect the organization ! We also dilute our clout as members when we don’t meet quorum for several years in a row. I honestly can not believe that someone on staff at NPR or on the Board has been unable – after all these years of not achieving quorum – to find a way to solve this problem. There are less than 300 A-Reps; perhaps each board member should take the responsibility of calling 30 station managers to encourage them to attend or to find out what might get them to a meeting or prevents them from attending. If it’s a money issue, what if NPR tries to find $300,000 in sponsorship revenue to be able to offer $1,000 to each A-Rep towards the cost of offsetting travel and hotel costs?

6 – Do you support the proposed changes in NPR Board composition and structure described in the recently issued NPR Governance consultant’s report? 

No matter what the report says, I’m troubled by the overall process that resulted in the report. It largely involved a review of only one year’s worth of Board meetings, as well as interviews with current directors, 11 NPR staff and only four station managers-at-large – all four of whom operate some of the largest stations in the system. It’s interesting to note that one of the concerns the repot uncovered was “the need to address the steady erosion in the participation of large stations on the board.” The report talks about the need to “create as much openness and transparency as possible (in electing new members) and to provide members with confidence in the process.” I am sorry to say that I am not confident in the process that created this report in the first place. The process aside, I am concerned about the recommendation that would result in stations losing two seats on the Board.

7 - What is your overall assessment of the NPR board?  Is it responsive to stations?  Is it sufficiently high profile?   

I’ve seen many posts on the A-Reps ListServ which ask station Board members to respond to issues; but with a few exceptions, many of them do not. I would like to see station Board Members take more initiative to chime in on sensitive issues – or, at least to acknowledge that they’re reading the comments from the general membership. I’m sympathetic to the fact that Board members who are also running stations are quite overloaded and I very much appreciate the time they have given up to represent the rest of us. It’s very time-consuming. No the Board is not high profile. When I was trying to make my decision about whether or not to run for the Board, I couldn’t even easily find info about the Board on the nprstations.org Web site. The Board should at least have its own tab. I also couldn’t find a simple explanation of Board responsibilities on the Web site. This needs to be corrected.

8 - As an NPR Board member, how would you distinguish between the types of business you believe the Board should conduct in Executive Session versus the business that should be conducted in Open Session?

Transparency should exist whenever possible. Meetings should be open, unless deliberation in an open meeting would have a detrimental effect on the position of the Board in negotiations with a third party.  I believe policy decisions are made at the Board level, and policy advice/guidance is done at the Executive level, and I would distinguish business conducted at the meetings as such, in order to assure efficiency.