Steve Church was President and CEO of Telos Systems. Before founding the company, he was a Technical Director and talk host for radio stations such as WMMS/Cleveland, and WFBQ/Indianapolis. A pioneer in digital and later IP Audio technology, Church designed the first DSP-based product for radio broadcast applications, the Telos 10 digital hybrid in 1984, the year he founded Telos Systems. He was also the first to design a product using MP3, the Zephyr, in 1993 and in 1995 came the Zephyr NET, the first ISDN-based program distribution network. Other firsts included the Omnia.fm in 1997, developed along with partner Frank Foti, which was the first fully digital broadcast audio processor for FM, and in 2003 he invented the first standards-based audio-over-Ethernet transmission system for broadcast, a protocol that became known as Livewire.
Mark S. Richer was President of the Advanced Television Systems Committee, Inc. (ATSC) for 20 years and led ATSC through the planning and development of the ATSC 3.0 standard as well as other standardization efforts. Mr. Richer first joined the ATSC in 1996 as Executive Director after 16 years with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) where he was Vice President of Engineering & Computer Services. In 1997. he joined Comark Digital Services, a division of Thomcast Communications as Vice President & General Manager. He re-joined ATSC in 2000 and was named President when ATSC incorporated in 2002. While at PBS, he was instrumental in the development of the Line 21 closed captioning system and the conversion of the PBS satellite network distribution system to digital transmission technology and led PBS efforts in the area of digital and high definition television. Mr. Richer also served as Chairman of the System Subcommittee Working Party on Test and Evaluation for the FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service during the late 80’s and early 90’s. In this position, he was responsible for testing proponent systems, including that of the digital HDTV Grand Alliance, which became the basis for the ATSC Digital Television Standard.
Louis Robert du Treil Sr. was a consultant to the firm bearing his name, du Treil, Lundin and Rackley, which for many years he served as owner and president. He had the reputation of being quite creative as a consultant and was very adept at visualizing design possibilities for transmitting antennas and what might be accomplished with the modification of other station’s facilities. He also published a number of instructional papers and articles, a notable example of which was his authorship of documents which provided the basis for discussions regarding AM directional antenna technology during the ITU Region 2 Conference that revised radio station regulations in 1980 and 1981. Prior to forming his consulting firm in 1983, he worked for a number of other engineering consulting firms including Jules Cohen & Associates, L.J.N. du Treil & Associates (his father’s firm) and John H. Mullaney & Associates, beginning in 1960.
Thomas B. Keller was Director of Engineering at WGBH in Boston from 1961 to 1979, Director of Engineering at PBS from 1979 to 1981, Senior Vice President of Science and Technology at NAB from 1981 to 1988 and started his consulting firm, T. Keller Corporation, in 1988. At WGBH he developed an early computerized captioning system for the hearing impaired, and at PBS he continued the development of captioning and chaired the EIA Broadcast Television Systems Committee Subcommittee on Multichannel TV Sound that developed the enabling standards for the BTSC stereo audio system used for NTSC television. At NAB he was instrumental in establishing the Advanced Television Systems Committee and oversaw the Advanced Television Terrestrial Broadcast Project in Washington DC, which demonstrated early HDTV technologies to the FCC and Congress. As a consultant in the early 1990’s, he was the first to propose discrete multichannel audio services for HDTV as part of the activities of the FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Services.
Paul Brenner joined Emmis Communications as Director of IT from DataShare Corporation, an IT consulting firm, in 1998. He became Emmis’ Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer in 2009, focusing on technology business development, industry partnerships, broadcast engineering strategy and developing new distribution systems such as live traffic information through the Broadcaster Traffic Consortium and TagStation song tagging for radio broadcasters, developed in partnership with Broadcast Electronics. Since 2008, he served as President of the Broadcaster Traffic Consortium, a partnership of 16 radio companies throughout the US and Canada formed to distribute data via FM-RDS and HD Radio.
Glenn Reitmeier was Senior VP of Technology Strategy and Policy at NBC Universal. Prior to joining NBC in 2002, he spent 25 years in digital video research and development at Sarnoff Laboratories. He was instrumental in establishing the ITU Recommendation 601 component digital video standard and during the competitive phase of the FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service efforts, he led the Sarnoff-Thomson-Philips-NBC development of Advanced Digital HDTV, which pioneered the use of MPEG compression, packetized transport and multiple video formats. He was a key leader of the Digital HDTV Grand Alliance during the development of the merged proponent systems. At NBC, he was involved in the launch of DTV multicast programming, mobile broadcasting and content distribution to non-traditional consumer devices. He also served as Chairman of the ATSC Board of Directors from 2006 to 2009.
Frank Foti was CEO of the Telos Alliance. Among his many accomplishments in radio engineering are the Dividend Composite filter, non-aliasing DSP clipper, dynamically flat time-aligned crossovers, low-IMD clipping, multi-band look-ahead limiting, integrated FM and HD processing and multi-band crossovers time-aligned to be dynamically flat and single sideband TM stereo. In addition, his personal assistance to many stations’ efforts to sound better was well known and appreciated in the radio industry, along with his many lectures and presentations. He was Chief Engineer at a number of stations beginning in the late 70’s including WMMS/WHK in Cleveland, KSAN/KNEW in San Francisco and WHTZ in New York. By the late 1980’s his popular audio processing prowess led him to full time manufacturing, founding Cutting Edge Technologies in 1988. In 1992, he joined forces with Steve Church’s Telos Systems, rebranding his audio processing line as the Omnia Audio division of Telos.
Jay C. Adrick was Vice President, Broadcast Technology in the CTO Group of Harris Corporation, where he directed the development of Harris’ DTV products. Adrick’s untiring efforts in moving the conversion to digital television forward were notable, such as his contributions to the Harris/PBS DTV Express mobile demonstration system, the rollout of mobile digital television and educational efforts domestically and abroad. A Vice Chair of the ATSC Board of Directors, he also served as chair of the Open Mobile Video Coalition Mobile DTV Forum and led the ATSC’s development of a mobile emergency alerting system. He joined Harris in 1991 as Director of Broadcast Systems and became Vice President in 1996. Prior to Harris, he was an executive at Midwest Communications, a professor of Broadcast Communications and Director of Radio and TV at Xavier University and prior to that was an engineer and design consultant at several radio and TV stations in the Akron and Cincinnati markets.
Jeff Littlejohn, executive vice president, Engineering and Systems Integration at Clear Channel, oversaw all technical aspects of Clear Channel's Media & Entertainment division. In his twenty-plus years in radio engineering, he was a leader in technical improvements for broadcast radio and active on many industry committees, including the NRSC, where he co-chaired the AM Broadcasting Subcommittee. Littlejohn led innovative projects such as the Total Traffic + Weather Network and Clear Channel's Engineering Coop and Market Engineering Management Development program. He also helped launch Clear Channel’s rollout of mobile digital radio programming called iHeartRadio. He began working in radio stations in 1987 and through mergers, went from American Media to Chancellor Broadcasting, AMFM, Capstar and finally to Clear Channel in 2001.
Robert P. Seidel was vice president, Engineering and Advanced Technology at CBS. He was an industry leader in HDTV, the digital TV transition, and other innovative projects, including pioneering work in portable satellite uplink systems used in worldwide newsgathering, for which he received a Technical Emmy Award. He began his career with CBS in 1976 and served in leadership positions for SMPTE and ATSC, as well as participating in NAB technical committees and presenting numerous technical papers at industry conferences, including the NAB Show. In his acceptance speech, he said his decision to work for CBS came from an ABC executive who told him: “If you want to do real engineering, you should work for a guy by the name of Joe Flaherty at CBS Television Network.”
Tom King’s career began in the defense industry in 1973 as a staff engineer at the Naval Weapons Center in China Lake, California. In 1983 Tom joined Kintronic Labs, the company his father, Louis King, founded over half a century ago. A year later, Tom became president of the company where his dedication to the “art of RF” led to multiple designs and products that are routinely used worldwide at broadcast facilities, including AM antenna systems, STL isolation transformers, linear actuator driven RF contactors for AM antenna systems, software tools for AM antenna modeling, and voltage sampling devices used in Methods of Moments proofs of performance of directional AM antennas. He also worked with the Star-H Corporation in the joint development of the Kinstar AM low profile, high efficiency, wideband antenna. A vocal supporter for AM revitalization, Tom King shares this award with his father, Louis King, who received the same award in 2007.
Richard Friedel was EVP and General Manager for Fox Networks Engineering and Operations. He led long term strategy and daily operations of the Fox Network Center in Los Angeles, headed the Fox House Technical Operations Center and provided technical support for Fox’s 14 regional production centers. Before joining Fox in 1996, he served in various positions at Capital Cities/ABC, NBC News and several television and radio stations. He was instrumental in many of the Today Show’s innovative remote productions and the creation of NBC’s first electronic journalism field operations department. He pioneered the introduction of non-linear editing to ABC’s magazine shows, ABC’s conversion to Betacam for news and the transition from film to tape at NBC, and the use of portable earth stations for newsgathering at NBC. While at ABC he managed broadcast remotes for high profile events including the 1989 student uprising in China’s Tiananmen Square.
Andrew K. Laird retired as vice president and chief technology officer for Journal Broadcast Group in 2015. Laird began his career in the 1960s developing audio processors and designing and building radio facilities. He worked in the 1970s and 1980s as a studio design consultant and chief engineer for a variety of customers and radio groups. Joining Journal Broadcast Group in 1998, he played a crucial role in the evaluation and standardization of the system for digital AM and FM radio broadcasting in the U.S. through his work with the NAB/CTA co-sponsored National Radio Systems Committee (NRSC), where he served as the co-chair of the Digital Radio Broadcasting (DRB) subcommittee.
Richard Chernock was Chief Science Officer at Triveni Digital. Chernock led the development of ATSC 3.0 as Chairman of the ATSC TG3 Technology Group starting in 2014. Chernock also was a leading ATSC 3.0 evangelist, with numerous published articles about ATSC 3.0, as well as travelling globally to speak at many industry and technology conferences and seminars on the subject. Prior to chairing TG3, Rich was chair of ATSC’s TG1 Technology Group, which oversaw the development of backward compatible enhancements to the ATSC DTV standard, including the ATSC Mobile DTV and ATSC 2.0 suite of standards. He began his career with IBM in 1981, working in the Microelectronics, Interactive Broadband Services, Video Enabled Solutions and IBM Research Divisions. He joined Triveni Digital in 2002 and became Director of Technology in 2005, CTO in 2007 and Chief Science Officer in 2012.
John Kean was a consultant with Cavell Mertz and Associates, in addition to his own private consulting practice. From 2004 until 2016, he was Senior Technologist for National Public Radio (NPR), where he provided technology solutions and regulatory support, and helped supervise technical projects at NPR Labs. He joined NPR in 1980 and focused on technology issues and FCC regulatory topics in his role as a senior technologist. In 1986, Kean joined Jules Cohen and Associates and then moved to Moffet, Larson and Johnson in 1988, where he consulted on broadcast and telecommunications projects. He returned to NPR in 2004 to help establish NPR Labs, an initiative that developed and evaluated new technologies, standards and procedures for public radio. He was an author (and authored chapters of the NAB Engineering Handbook, editions 7, 8, 9 and 11), frequent presenter, chaired numerous groups in the National Radio Systems Committee and holds a patent for an algorithm that determines digital broadcast radio coverage.
John Lyons was Assistant VP/Director of Broadcast Communications for the Durst Organization in New York City. He spearheaded the design and implementation of the re-designed master antenna at 4 Times Square and the broadcast transmission facility at One World Trade Center, playing a pivotal role in getting broadcasters back on the air in New York after the fall of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He also worked closely with first responders to develop an extensive First Responder Communication System for the World Trade Center complex. Previously, he held various positions at radio and TV stations (including WGCM, WOR and WXLO) and served as chairman of the Master FM Broadcasters Committee at the Empire State Building. In 1990, he joined DSI Communications as a senior project manager, moved to WLTW and WAXQ and then joined The Durst Organization in 2002, constructing the new transmission facility at 4 Times Square, and becoming Assistant VP in 2005.
Tom Jones, President of Carl T. Jones Corporation, actively served the broadcast industry as a consulting engineer for nearly 40 years. He began his engineering career with Ensco as an Engineering Manager, and participated in numerous rail research projects, including full scale test design, data analysis, vehicle dynamics analysis and mathematical modeling. Jones joined his father’s engineering firm as a senior engineer in 1979 and became a full partner in 1983, rising to his role as president in 1985. He managed hundreds of complex broadcast engineering projects and served on industry and government advisory committees, including evaluating the technical aspects of land mobile radio/UHF television frequency sharing. He was also heavily involved in the development of the Method Moments analysis for AM directional arrays and the AM revitalization effort.
Mark A. Aitken was Vice President, Advanced Technology for Sinclair Broadcast Group. He joined Sinclair Broadcast Group in 1999 and served as Vice President of Advanced Technology since 2011. He was also responsible for the formation of Sinclair’s technology venture ONE Media LLC in 2016, serving as its President. A leading advocate for next generation TV development and implementation, he was involved in the broadcast industry’s migration to advanced services since 1987, from his participation in the FCC Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Services to his involvement with the Advanced Television Systems Committee and numerous innovation projects at Sinclair. He began his career with COMARK Communications where he held several technical and managerial positions over 12 years, moving to Thomson/Thomcast/Thales in 1986 as a DTV and Sales Engineer before joining Sinclair in 1999.
Garrison C. Cavell, President of the consulting firm Cavell, Mertz & Associates, Inc., led the industry in drone-based RF measurement and IR detection, served as the original consultant on the Sprint Nextel 2GHz Relocation Project and designed and tested RF facilities and antennas for many clients. Prior to cofounding Cavell, Mertz in 1989, Cavell was a Senior Staff Engineer at Lohnes and Culver, and prior to that worked in radio and television engineering management, facility design and construction, program production, and station systems development in his home town of New Orleans, beginning as Chief Engineer of Dixie Broadcasting Company in 1971. In addition to his broadcast consulting work, Cavell also served as faculty for the NAB Broadcast Leadership Training Program since 2000 and the Technology Apprentice Program since 2012 and served as editor in chief for the 11th Edition of the NAB Engineering Handbook.
Cindy Hutter Cavell, Vice President at Cavell, Mertz & Associates, Inc. specialized in television station and microwave system design and implementation. Her career began as a broadcast technician at several TV stations in the late 1970’s and she joined ABC News in Washington in 1980, becoming a technical manager for network news shows and news operations in the field through the early 1990’s. She served as a project manager in systems integration, VP of Engineering at several station groups and cable operations until 2004 when she became Director of Engineering for the Sprint/Nextel 2 GHz Relocation project. Joining Cavell Mertz & Associates in 2010, in addition to leading TV facility designs and other projects, she became the lead technical advisor to the Fund Administrator for the TV Band Repack reimbursement program associated with the FCC’s broadcast incentive auction.
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