Jennifer Barrett joined the staff of 88.5 WFDD in the summer of 2016. Before moving to Winston-Salem, she worked as a teacher of English Language Learners in Boston. She received her B.A. in English from Mount Ida College and her M.A. in English from Wake Forest University. Her M.A. thesis explored perceptions of female voices on public radio.
Adam Bennett got his start at WFDD as a volunteer in the Spring of 2017 and came on board as a staff member shortly thereafter.
A native of Nebraska, Adam earned a Social Science Education degree from the University of Nebraska at Kearney before relocating to North Carolina in 2009.
He works behind the scenes producing and editing many of the announcements and testimonials that you hear on WFDD, and he also tries to help with anything else that he can around the station.
Keri Brown is a multi-award winning reporter and host at 88.5 WFDD. She has been honored with two regional Edward R. Murrow awards for her stories about coal ash, and was named the 2015 radio reporter of the year by the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas (RTDNAC).
Although she covers a variety of topics, her beats are environmental and education reporting.
Michael Burke hosted his first radio show at the age of nine – granted, it was in his basement, with a 45-rpm record changer, a tin can with holes for a mic and only ‘broadcast’ as far as the stairs, but the die was cast. Raised in Delaware, Michael worked at a local radio station in high school, then became a journalist and broadcaster in the US Navy. Over a career spanning more than two decades, Michael worked in radio and television in Greece, Italy, Midway Island, and numerous ships, including the battleship Wisconsin during Desert Storm.
Bethany joined the staff of WFDD in the fall of 2012. She received her B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from Wake Forest University and focused on Anglo-Irish writing.
Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio.
Dan joined WFDD in August 2017. He has lived up and down the eastern US and graduated from Syracuse University in 2011. At Syracuse, Dan worked at CitrusTV, the student-run television station for the university.
Prior to arriving in the Piedmont Triad, Dan was in the TV-broadcasting industry working in Great Falls, Montana, from mid-2012 through the end of 2015. While at KFBB, Dan anchored and produced Sports and News.
Molly Davis joined 88.5 WFDD in January of 2005. She is a Winston-Salem native and a graduate of Davidson College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Molly has twenty-plus years of experience in marketing, public and media relations, event planning, and nonprofit management, and began her career with Borders Books Music and Café, where she coordinated nationwide store grand opening events. In the late ‘90s, she served as Marketing Director for Winston-Salem Events.
Tom Dollenmayer came to WFDD from WUSF Public Media, licensed to the University of South Florida. He began his broadcast career as a part-time volunteer board operator at WLPJ in New Port Richey, Florida, in the fall of 1988. Dollenmayer served as Radio Operations Manager at WUSF and rose to the position of Station Manager over 2 radio stations and a TV station in just 5 years. In addition, he has worked with NPR Labs in Washington, DC, to test and implement new technologies to interconnect public radio stations and deliver new HD radio services.
Before his arrival in the Triad, David had already established himself as a fixture in the Austin, Texas arts scene as a radio host for Classical 89.5 KMFA. During his tenure there, he produced and hosted hundreds of programs including Mind Your Music, The Basics and T.G.I.F. Thank Goodness, It’s Familiar, which each won international awards in the Fine Arts Radio Competition. David continues presenting classical music to new audiences as the producer of Kairoff at the Keyboard which airs locally and is distributed by PRX.
Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter.
Eddie Garcia began his career as an audio engineer at the age of 13 when he figured out how to record fuzz guitar into his family’s Hi-Fi VCR. Many trips to Radio Shack later, he purchased a Tascam 424 MKII 4-track and hasn’t stopped pressing record since. After years of playing in bands, recording bands, and setting up rickety PA systems, he studied recording engineering at GTCC. During this time he was also a DJ at 90.9 WQFS, Guilford College’s student run radio station.
Karen Kantziper is thrilled to be a part of WFDD, since she has been a fan of the station and a public radio enthusiast for many years. She was born in Savannah, Georgia, but considers North Carolina home as she’s lived here for 23 years. Karen formerly worked in sales for a local TV affiliate for 13 years. Before that, she was Public Relations Director at the American Red Cross in Georgia after also working in blood donor recruitment.
Sonsera Kiger was thrilled to join the WFDD team in January 2020 as the Listener and Donor Services Manager. She is originally from the mountains of North Carolina, but has made her home in many places in the world, including, most recently, Chile. She completed her undergraduate degree in Spanish, with minors in International Relations and in Women’s Studies, at UNC-Asheville; she was designated as an Undergraduate Research Scholar, and published research based in Mexico.
April Laissle is a reporter and WFDD’s host of All Things Considered. Prior to taking on the afternoon shift, April spent four years waking up before sunrise to host Morning Edition at WYSO Public Radio near Dayton, Ohio. There, she specialized in reporting on education, city government, and labor unions. She spent the summer of 2019 covering breaking news events, including a major tornado outbreak and the aftermath of the mass shooting in Dayton. Her work has been featured on several NPR news programs, including Here & Now and Morning Edition.
Gabriel Maisonnave joined WFDD as the Education Program Manager in the fall of 2017. Even though as a kid he loved to write short stories and had a radio show every Saturday at 1 pm on a local radio station, life took him away from storytelling and towards international relations and conflict resolution. He got his BA in International Relations from the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires and he founded a youth development non-profit organization with four friends in La Plata, where he was living at the time.
Emily joined WFDD in 2014. It’s a homecoming after 11 years working in public radio for stations in colder climates. She graduated from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro in 2003, where she earned her degree in music. She moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where she saw an advertisement on the side of a bus for the local station, WFIU, and began volunteering. That turned into a full time gig, where Emily did everything from producing fund drives, co-hosting a classical music quiz show, and handling station relations.
George joined WFDD in October of 2013, after serving twelve years “hard time” as Market Chief Engineer for six commercial radio stations in and around the Triad area. He is a North Carolina native, having grown up in Kernersville, and is a graduate of UNC-Greensboro with a double-major in Public Administration and Urban Planning.
As Operations & Engineering Manager for WFDD, George works to make sure we stay on the air, and that what comes out of your speakers sounds good (and is the correct program!).
Paul Roper knew he wanted to be in broadcasting while he was growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y. His parents were the audience whenever he decided to do play-by-play of hockey and baseball on television or read the news from the local newspaper. After graduating from Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., Paul was play-by-play announcer for the ECHL's Trenton Devils for one season and with the Ontario Hockey League's Erie Otters for four seasons. He also works at IMG College as a producer and studio host for the Florida Gators.
Timothy joined the staff of WFDD in the summer of 2015. He received his B.A. in Anthropology and M.A. in Counseling from Wake Forest University. After graduate school, Timothy spent four years in Residence Life & Housing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has called the Triad home for ten years and is looking forward to further engaging the WFDD community. In his spare time, Timothy enjoys spending time with his family, supporting Wake Forest athletics, and reading.
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