Board Blog: Hello, bonjour, and aloha

Greetings from the new president of CBI.

As the new president of CBI, please allow me to introduce myself. I’m an instructor of Radio and TV at the University of Southern Indiana and the Faculty Advisor/General Manager of our student radio station, 95.7 Evansville’s Alternative. I’ve been at USI since 1993, but I moved into my current role in 1999. Before that as a professional, I did news, sports and sales at a variety of stations in Indiana, Idaho and Missouri. Radio was an early love of mine. I was one of those people that after visiting a radio station on a sixth grade field trip, I knew what I wanted to do professionally. There’s no doubt that I know how blessed I have been to not only work in radio, but now teach in that same field.

As my term as CBI president begins I enter this opportunity excited, but also with the knowledge that I am becoming part of a team that has done incredible work. It was just a handful of years ago that the future of this great organization was in doubt when the split with CMA/ACP happened. Not only did CBI survive, but in my opinion, it is now a stronger organization and is serving its members better than ever before.

As president, it is my goal to help build on the work that the CBI board has done. But, at the same time, I do have some ideas of how we can continue to move forward. As past-president Greg Weston said at the convention in Philadelphia, we must find a way to get more CBI members to take active roles in the organization. A great example of some already stepping up and doing this is Steven Hames who coordinates our awards competition, Election Commissioner Ed Arke, and Stephen Merrill, our convention cybercast coordinator. It those members that take active roles alongside the board that make the CBI great. Now we need to find more opportunities for those members that want to take on new challenges serving the next generation of electronic media professionals.

A final goal is one that is already a strong driving force of the CBI board, and that is to keep the National Student Electronic Media Conventions exciting, packed with great educational sessions and affordable. It’s that last part, affordability, that will continue to be our challenge as we balance that with great conference locations that are appealing to our members.