Meet the cast, Part 2

In my last post, I wrote about our evening technical director, James Williams. One of the other jobs that James will perform is the training of fellow employees. It’s something that we actually both do.

James will train employees on the technical side, while I will train fellow employees on the production side.
It’s one of the more rewarding aspects to our jobs.

Three of our production assistants have really come such a long way in a short period of time.

David Whittenburg is actually no longer one of my production assistants. He received his union card this past summer and is now on the technical side of things. It was truly a pleasure to see how fast he took to certain aspects of his new job.
He’s been running our robotic cameras for the past few months and has become a connoisseur of the fine art of robotics! He’s creative, quick to adapt and offers suggestions on blocking. He really is a pleasure to have in robotics and is a true asset to this station.

Another tremendous talent that arrived at the station this past spring is Heather Torbitt.
In the short time that she’s been here, she’s done everything on the production side, including directing. In fact, she’s excelled at directing news briefs, web casts and promos. As far as I’m concerned, she’s ready to direct an actual news broadcast. Like Dave, she’s picked up on new things very fast and is always eager to learn more.

With that in mind, Heather goes above and beyond her production assistant duties and will also edit billboards for the sales department. She is a delight to work with and will have a marvelous future in this industry.

The next person in our trio of up and coming production assistants is Anthony Lucas.

Tony is just as dedicated, committed and passionate about his job as David and Heather. Like Heather and David, Tony is an excellent production assistant and is a talented floor director.

His thirst for learning is never filled and he’s always trying to learn more any way he can. Tony has been fortunate to be able to do blocks of news live on the air and he has done a remarkable job working under the “on air” light.
What’s good about Tony is that he is easy going, and works well under pressure. That will serve him well as a director. In fact, I could say the same about all three people that I’ve mentioned in this post.

I’m proud and honored to work with each and every one of them and see a sensational future for them all. It’s very gratifying and the most rewarding part of my job. What’s really nice is that we have more people in the pipeline just like the three that I’ve mentioned.

Tom Hunsicker has worked in our sports department as an intern. That was a few semesters ago. He hung around the sports department and helped them out on his own time. That’s finally paid off for him. He now has a paying job in our production department. Like the others, Tom will also have an impressive future in this business.