It’s an honor to represent you this year as your WBA Chair!
I don’t have any magical formulas to share with you for prosperity or success, but I will use my first column to ask one thing of you and your staff this year: ENGAGE with your WBA. Perhaps like you, I spent some of my early years as a Wisconsin broadcaster vaguely aware of the work being done by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association. I attended some award galas and dutifully showed up for EEO seminars so I could claim license credit. Doug Kiel, himself a former WBA Chair and one of Wisconsin’s own broadcast treasures, encouraged me to get more involved. It didn’t take long for me to better appreciate the work WBA (and the WBA Foundation) was doing on our behalf. In an industry with challenges aplenty, your WBA is working daily to advocate for us so we can compete in a changing marketplace; train us so our teams are better prepared to conduct commerce and serve our communities and represent us so that others see and hear the important things we are doing in Wisconsin.
I assumed there were a few passionate people driving all this work, and I was grateful for their commitment to us. Now, looking back, I realize that “those passionate people” must be us. You and me. Your staffs. Your colleagues. Your competitors. If you believe as I do, that our future is bright but comes with all manner of new challenges and opportunities, then I ask you to ENGAGE with your state association in a big way.
- Come to our winter and summer conferences (…and bring a bunch of your people with you).
- Attend the many workshops and seminars WBA provides.
- Offer to serve on our board of directors or on one of our committees.
- Support our primary fundraising mechanism, the NSA/PEP program, by running the spots on your stations in strong rotations.
- Help us influence policy and law by lobbying with us on Legislative Days in Madison and in Washington, D.C.
I’m honored to be your WBA Chair this year, and I’m grateful that you hung with me this far in my first column. Please reach out to me (steve.wexler@scripps.com) or any of your WBA staff if you’d like to be more involved and more engaged. We need you, we value you, and I hope we can count on you to become part of those passionate people driving service and excellence on behalf of Wisconsin’s broadcasters.
