saying thank you

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

So, a friend of mine on another list was asking who we thought were the 
best people in radio of all time-- not necessarily the best in terms of 
being famous nationally, but the best in terms of their positive influence 
on our industry.  We hear so many negatives that it's easy to forget that 
some of us got into radio because of somebody we admired.  I thought I 
would ask you too-- have you worked for an excellent owner, or did you have 
a mentor who took a special interest in you in your early days of radio?

For me, a person who comes to mind is the late Rick Sklar of WABC, one of 
the most successful PDs of all time yet one of the most honest and 
ethical.  I learnt a lot from him.  And when I first became a consultant, 
one of the owners I worked with was as new as I was-- his name was Cicero 
Green, and he was the president of a large African-American life insurance 
company in North Carolina.   This was the first time he had ever bought a 
station.  He hired me and the two years we worked together were a rare joy 
in a sometimes cut-throat business.  He and I created a station in the 
Richmond (Virginia) market that was very much like a Kiss 108 (in fact, the 
late Sunny Joe White worked with me at the beginning) and we brought in 
some young and talented people, along with some industry veterans.  Mr 
Green treated everybody with kindess and courtesy-- he had goals and 
expectations, but he always treated us like respected colleagues.  It was 
one of the first times in that market when a staff had been ethnically 
mixed-- there had been "all black stations" and of course, all white ones, 
but the Kiss 108 model was still a new one in the early 80s, and it went 
over extremely well.  In fact, the station went from #12 to #2, which I was 
very happy about for obvious reasons-- but more than that, the entire staff 
was thrilled to make Mr Green successful, since he had given us the 
latitude to do what we needed to do to make the station work.  For me, it 
was one of the first success stories I had in my consulting career, and 
when you are just getting started and need to develop a track record, 
that's a good thing.  But equally important to me was being trusted and 
treated like a professional.   I never forgot Mr Green and we kept in touch 
for years, long after he retired and got out of both life insurance and radio.

So, who are some of the people from your past that you recall as having 
been a positive influence on your career... and how many of them are still 
in the business?