[BC] How we got our first break in radio....

[Clayborn, Kevin]

My route into Radio/Broadcasting was a long slow one. Would you believe
it started by becoming interested in call letters? From an airline
magazine article no less.

Flying back to Arizona where I grew up after visiting my grandparents in
northern Virginia, I read a magazine article "If it is WARM in Scranton,
can it be KOOL in Phoenix" from American Airlines. I kept the magazine
for many years but sadly have lost it. This was in the late '60's or
early '70's.

During junior high school, I used to scan the AM dial on a little 9
transistor looking for interesting stations like KOMA in Oklahoma City
(too bad those calls are gone) and other Midwest stations.

When I graduated high school, I knew I wanted something technical, but
college and DeVry were too expensive, so off to the Air Force. My
recruiter found a job for me as an Avionic Communication Systems
Specialist. I had to ask him what the person did. He replied "They fix
radios". OK, good enough for me. 

Jump ahead 10 years and me wanting to become a civilian again, I decided
to get a General Radiotelephone license as the FCC no longer issued 1st
Phones. I had to drive from Albuquerque to Denver to take the test,
about 400+ miles. I passed with a 92% and was the third one done out of
about 70 people. 

With General Aviation being in a slump, I decided to apply at broadcast
stations as every one knows "Those towers never move, so therefore I
won't have to."

A consulting engineer, still in the business hired me as Chief for a
small AM/FM in Tucson where I made less money than I did in the Air
Force. It's also where another member of this list, Bill Croghan, took
pity on me and taught me the importance of relying on other engineers in
the market. In a year and a half, while working part time for the
consultant, I helped put 2 FMs on the air and upgraded a 3rd one from a
Class A to a Class C. Getting back to my license, imagine my surprise
when with my first visit by an FCC inspector, I found that a General
Radiotelephone was not valid for Broadcast!!

Then, Ron Jones offered me a job as Customer Service Manager for CRL,
and here I am today. I've met a lot of great and interesting people
along the way--sometimes they are the same people and sometimes not!

Wouldn't trade it for anything though.

Kevin Clayborn
North American Sales Manager
Orban/CRL
kevin at orban.com
C--602-617-8811