Ten years ago, on the Monday after my 66th birthday on January 2, 2016, and the first Monday after my Christmas/New Year vacation, I sent the following email to my WABC Family:

“Good Morning Folks,

Please excuse this group email, but I wanted to make sure that all my WABC Family heard this news directly from me. I just gave notice of my intention to retire from WABC and if they accept what I proposed, my last day here will be Friday, January 29, 2016.

Well over half my life has passed since that day in 1976 when I walked onto the 8th floor of the ABC Building at 1330 Avenue of the Americas. I started here as a 26 year old single guy, and over the past 40 years, I met and married my best friend, became a Dad 3 times, sent 3 kids off to college, saw my first son get married, became a Grandfather twice, and recently celebrated a 36th Wedding Anniversary with the same girl I met back in 1977 in the middle of a 5 month long NABET strike against ABC. Over the course of 40 years I have managed to work for 5 different companies without ever changing jobs! Along the way, I’ve worked with some of the best radio has to offer. From the Musicradio days, legends like Dan Ingram, George Michael, Rick Skylar, and Johnny Donovan. On the WPLJ side there were great folks like Tony Pigg, Pat St. John, Jim Kerr, Jimmy Fink, and a late night guy named Bob Marone. When WABC went talk in 1982, I was fortunate to work with great folks like Rush Limbaugh, Bob Grant, John Gambling, and again Johnny Donovan, plus some characters like Ed Koch, and Joy Behar. I’ve also worked with more Account Executives and Sales Management folks than I can count, some of them were the best in the business…and then there were the rest! I’ve appreciated every day that they do what they do so our checks don’t bounce, because if I had to do their job, they probably would!  

When I started at Musicrado 77, WABC in 1976, it was the most listened to station in the nation. It was the pinnacle of radio’s number one market, the place where everyone wanted to work, and the only radio station I wanted to work at. I grew up and now have grown old in this radio station and the members of the WABC Family were, and are my family, and I feel that WABC is my radio station. Over the years I’ve been to countless weddings, even Rush Limbaugh’s very secretive and lavish one in Palm Beach, seen so many folks become parents, helped friends bury their parents as my WABC Family helped me do twice 30 years apart, and been fortunate to meet, work with, and become friends with so many great people. How could I not think of this place as my radio station?

40 years of working at WABC has given me so much, taken me to so many places, and let me have experiences very few can look back on in their lives. It has provided a very good life for my wife Susie and me, and for our kids Billy, Krissi, and Kenny. It’s given me memories I will treasure for the rest of my life, and stories that I’ll probably be telling for years to come. I know that I’ve shared many of those memories and stories with you folks, be them from the Musicradio or Talkradio days. In a way, that keeps the WABC of old alive and well, even if it’s only in our minds. I’m sad that our fate in the ratings’ war has not been as kind recently (I’m being generous…this station’s rating stink!s), but I still love and am proud of those four letters. I only wish Cumulus would change them and stop dragging W A B C through the mud, turning what was a legendary radio station into a Mecca of paid programing for anyone who wants a radio show! It makes me sad that today, the radio industry is in the shape it is, and that the future of the young kids I work with today is not as bright as mine was in 1976, but for me, it’s time for Susie and I to move on to our next chapter. 

I may be retiring from Cumulus, New York, but in my heart I’m saying good-bye to the WABC/WPLJ Engineering Department and the American Broadcasting Company that a 26 year old me started working at so very long ago. When I look back, all I can say is, “Thanks for the ride…it was better than anyone could expect!” 

During the next month that I continued working, I wrote several blogs about my 44 years working in New York Radio, since my start in 1972 at WHN. Over the next month I’m going to share some of those looks back at may radio life that are now 10 years old! Hard to believe. Back in the day, I thought Working in Radio was “Better Than Working for a Living”, but little did I know, the BEST was yet to come!