Meet the Crew

The NCPR staff is just the right size (fewer than 20) to self-organize at a family or big-band level, as opposed to forming a bureaucratic utopian community. That would make Ellen Rocco, station manager, NPR board member, and host of The Blue Note, our blues queen.

The largest section of "the band" is the news gang, cajoled along by news director Martha Foley, who co-hosts the morning news program The Eight O'Clock Hour. David Sommerstein is assistant ND, has another incarnation as music host of The Beat Authority, and serves as the station's commissioner of baseball. Todd Moe is morning host, cultural desk editor and co-host of the regional arts program Open Studio. Brian Mann runs our Adirondack News Bureau and is our outdoor recreation test bed, and latest author, with Welcome to the Homeland, a book on the urban/rural political divide. We are one short on the news side at the moment and have an opening for a reporter to host the All Before Five regional news update.

Our program director and host of Music for a Monday Afternoon is Jackie Sauter. Her stranger half is station engineer Radio Bob Sauter, who also hosts The Radio Bob Rhythm & Blues Show. Shelly Pike is operations manager and Community Calendar maven. Production manager Joel Hurd keeps the sound squeaky clean and runs the production studio.

Membership director June Peoples is Joel's southerner half and also heads up our home livestock division, harboring peacocks, a goat, bunnies, dogs, and anything else in the neighborhood that looks hungry or woebegone. Susan Sweeney Smith looks after major giving, and in her spare time, oversees the one book, one community program North Country Reads. Sandy Demarest is our underwriting director and undercover vox recordist. Development assistant Kelly Jacoby, in the off-season for marathons, does the organizational equivalent of juggling a bowling bowl, a flaming torch, a chain saw, and a live baby. And web manager Dale Hobson does whatever it is that web managers do. Whenever he tries to explain, people go to sleep.

A number of part-timers and volunteer music hosts round out the crew. Announcer Barb Heller hosts NCPR's String Fever and FM in the Morning, as well as a nationally-syndicated show on the internet channel Folk Alley. She is joined in the station folksinger division by announcer Kevin Irwin, and in the oppressed and underappreciated part-time announcer division by Connie Meng, our resident theatre critic, diction coach, and cabaret queen. Receptionist Meg Hawley runs the front desk and is our first responder and minesweeper. Volunteer Guy Berard cools out Saturday night with Jazz at the Ten Spot, and Mike Alzo hosts the long-running Folk Show.

Anyone who can correctly identify all the people in the staff photo above is eligible to win a supply of Radio Bob Brand Emergency Duct Tape.