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PBS Member Stations Vote Four Professional Directors to Serve on the PBS Board in National Election
ARLINGTON, VA, September 9, 2013 Today, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger announced the results of the 2013-2014 voting that elected four station leaders to serve as Professional Directors on the PBS Board of Directors. Throughout the month of August, member stations from across the country cast their ballots for these key positions.
Each of the directors will serve a three-year term that begins on November 6 at the fall meeting of the PBS Board.
The PBS station executives chosen in the 2013-2014 election are:
- Tom Axtell, General Manager of Vegas PBS, Las Vegas, NV
- Rich Homberg, President & CEO, Detroit Public Television, Detroit, M
- Shae Hopkins, Executive Director and CEO, Kentucky Educational Television
- JoAnn Urofsky, General Manager, WUSF Public Media, Tampa, FL
Mr. Homberg and Ms. Hopkins, will be serving on the Board for the first time. Mr. Axtell and Ms. Urofsky will each be returning for a second term.
PBS and our member stations are in the midst of an exciting moment in our shared history with the reach of our content and our system's ability to impact lives continuing to grow, said Ms. Kerger. At the same time, our country's still recovering economy and the media landscape's ongoing evolution challenges us to work in new ways. We are extremely fortunate to have these outstanding individuals join our Board, which is composed of extraordinary leaders who give generously of their time, energy and expertise to guide our public service enterprise.
The PBS Board includes both professional directors, who lead public television stations, and general directors, who represent the general public. The membership of PBS elects the professional directors. The general directors are elected by the Board, which also appoints the PBS president and CEO.
The directors are responsible for governing and setting policy for PBS. In total, the Board comprises 27 members: 14 professional directors; 12 general directors; and the PBS president. All PBS Board members serve three-year terms without pay.
Biographical Information
Tom Axtell (Returning Director)
Tom Axtell has served as general manager of Vegas PBS since 1994. In Las Vegas, he has reinvigorated local programming, integrated emerging technologies, developed new fee for service business models, and created community partnerships to expand the range of sustainable public media services offered locally. His prior service includes public radio stations in Minneapolis/St. Paul and Fargo, and public television stations in Spokane and Milwaukee. He has experience working for nonprofit, college, and school district licensees as well as markets where the stations operated in sole-service, duopoly and multi-market situations. He has left the industry a few times to work as a College Vice President for Development and State Senate Legislative Aide.
Vegas PBS moved into its new Educational Technology Campus in 2009 following a successful $72 million capital campaign. The building is the nation's first LEED Gold television facility, and first post-Katrina, post 9-11, FCC Media Security and Reliability Commission compliant studio. Vegas PBS operates a multi-cast television service; programs four additional cable and five EBS channels; manages a media library with over 210,000 online and 16,000 on the shelf titles; an emergency communications data-casting service for police, fire fighters, hospitals, and schools; and a statewide Described and Captioned Media Center. An extensive Ready To Learn outreach program hosts over 600 workshops a year attended by over 100,000 people. Vegas PBS produces 20 local TV series and specials annually, plus extensive web content. Its Global Online Advanced Learning (GOAL) program offers 330 professional certifications and 5,000 personal improvement courses for high school students, teachers, medical professionals, workforce training programs, and returning veterans. Over 115,000 students successfully completed courses last year. The station routinely ranks in the top ten PBS stations in the Nielsen overnight metered market reports for sign on to sign off gross rating points.
Mr. Axtell is active in Las Vegas community affairs, serving on the boards of the Atomic Testing Museum, United Way of Southern Nevada, Nevada Development Authority, Green Chips, Utah Shakespeare Festival Board of Governors, and Las Vegas Rotary. He has served on several industry boards including the Nevada Broadcasters Association, PBS, and NETA. Mr. Axtell graduated from Gonzaga University Law School, Spokane, Washington, and also holds a bachelors degree in history from Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota. He has been married for 35 years and has twin daughters.
Rich Homberg (New Director)
Rich Homberg is President and CEO of Detroit Public Television, a position he has held since 2008.
Despite significant challenges in the Michigan and national economies, Mr. Homberg led to a successful conclusion a $22 million capital campaign for a state-of-the-art broadcast facility in 2009 and the organization was named Best Managed Non-Profit of 2010 by Crain's Detroit Business. The station was honored with a DuPont-Columbia Award in 2012 for innovative documentary programming and recognition the same year from the Association of Public Television Stations for its Great Lakes environmental programming.
A strong advocate for the value of a collective impact blueprint for aligning efforts across the public media system to strengthen our service, Mr. Homberg has been an active participant in the Major Market Group's efforts around the Community's Agenda and the PBS Community Connection initiative. He also serves on the PBS Interactive working group.
In Detroit, DPTV's television and ra
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