Mike Tosch Resigns

Date: March 8, 1999
From: Mike Tosch
Subject: My Departure from KPBS

To all my friends out there, I wanted to let you know that I have
submitted my resignation at KPBS Radio/TV. My last day will be this
Friday, March 12.

I have accepted the position of Director of Broadcast Engineering for a
small company called Scanz Communications. They are located in West Los
Angeles, near Santa Monica. I will be in charge of the broadcast side
of development and deployment of a new technology that the company has
designed. It is for use with sports broadcasting and sports
officiating. It allows the ref or official to carry, personally, a
wireless, portable device that records the plays and replays for he or
she to preview immediately. This is really exciting since officiating
errors and Instant Replay in the NFL have been much in the news. The
group I will work with includes the TV director who invented and
pioneered Instant Replay in 1963 and another gentleman who was the
former president of Fox Sports.  I have been asked to join their team.

Now as far as KPBS-TV/FM, I got my start here at KPBS in late May 1980. 
I came from Upper Michigan as a young Chief Engineer where I, luckily,
enjoyed snowshoeing to the transmitter site (Ya shure, Ya betcha,
eh?!!!).  I have held four different positions here at KPBS, all in
Engineering. I was first hired to be the FM Maintenance Engineer.  In
fall of 1983, I took a lateral transfer to become the Transmitter
Engineer (#2 guy). We dealt with all the transmitters, microwave and
satellite for TV and Radio. Eventually, the Transmitter Supervisor was
lured to a commercial station and in 1985, I was promoted to the
position of Transmitter Supervisor, my third KPBS position. Former FM
Chief Mike Starling left for NPR in 89 and is currently Vice President
of Engineering at NPR. Our former Student Assistant, Chris Durso,
graduated from SDSU in TC/F was hired to replace myself as FM Engineer
and then Mike Starling as Chief Engineer. Chris left KPBS in Sept 1994
and John Folsom, our Engineering Manager asked me to take on the role of
Radio Chief Engineer and moving Radio into our new building. We moved
the Radio News Dept by September 96 and the rest of Radio by June of 1997.

I included that last bit just to share my goings-on here at KPBS for the
last 18-plus years. I had a whole lotta fun at KPBS and with some others I
have contracted for along the way and will miss a lot of it. But a
better opportunity has come along and being young (well, not too young)
tells me to give it a shot. I am ready for the new challenges, so I
will be busy for a while. I haven't left broadcasting as much as I am
now going to contribute to it at a new level.

To contact me via email after this Friday, use mike@scanz.com  but use
miktosch@kpbs.org  until then. I will be commuting home to San Diego on
the weekends until we move the family in the summer, after school lets
out. So I will be listening, reading, and watching.  I should be at
the NAB in April and hope to run into some of you there.

To my friends on the PubTech Listserv, thanks to all of you for
providing food for thought and insight into everything you always wanted
to know about Public Radio Engineering, BUT were afraid to post...err, I
mean ask. And special thanks to Chuck Leavens of WDUQ for hosting it. 
Duck soup, guys...

Take care and write back if you get a chance.

-Mike Tosch

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Edited by Gary Stigall. Posted March 9, 1999.