WASHINGTON – February 7, 2024 – America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) today announced the election of its board leaders and board members.
- Franz Joachim, General Manager and CEO of New Mexico PBS in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has been re-elected Chair.
- Dolores Fernandez Alonso, President and CEO of South Florida PBS in Miami, Florida, has been re-elected Professional Vice Chair.
- David Steward II, Past Board Chair of Nine PBS in St. Louis, Missouri, has been re-elected Lay Vice Chair.
The newly elected trustees are:
- Clarence “C.C” Copeland, President and CEO of Louisiana Public Broadcasting
- Diana Enzi, Lay Trustee of Wyoming PBS in Riverton, Wyoming
- Susan Reardon, Lay Trustee of PBS SoCal in Los Angeles, California
The re-elected trustees are:
- Eric Easter, Lay Trustee of WHUT in Washington, D.C.
- Anthony Hayes, President and CEO of WMHT in Troy, New York
- Ambassador Gaddi H. Vasquez, Lay Trustee/Former Board Member of PBS SoCal in Los Angeles, California
The officers and trustees will begin their terms on Tuesday, February 27, 2024.
Ajit Pai, former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman and partner at Searchlight Capital Partners, will also be joining the board of trustees as an at-large member, effective February 26, 2024.
Following is background on the board officers:
Franz Joachim is General Manager and CEO of New Mexico PBS (NMPBS). He has been involved in television production since high school in Tucson, Arizona. Joachim graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in Radio-Television and a minor in Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. While there, he worked for KUAT-TV (PBS), first on its student production crew and then as Studio Supervisor. He has worked in television production for 35 years as a photographer, editor, director and manager in a variety of production environments, including Industrial, News, Studio and Long Form Documentary production. Joachim is a certified diver, shooting for documentaries from the Sea of Cortez to the Turks and Caicos and Virgin Islands. In 1999, Joachim became Production & Operations Manager for KNME-TV in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In this position, he supervised an extensive build out of automated on-air operations and developed the digital file based production workflow for KNME production. In 2010, Joachim was promoted to Director of Content for New Mexico PBS/KNME & KNMD overseeing the scheduling, production, promotion and distribution of content on-air and online. In 2013, Joachim was appointed General Manager & CEO of New Mexico PBS. During his tenure as General Manager, NMPBS has launched the first full service ATSC3.0 signal in public television, launched datacasting for public safety and public education, and led the system in adoption, integration and innovation with the sIX Interconnection.
Dolores Fernandez Alonso serves as the President and CEO of South Florida PBS, the merged organization that brings together WPBT and WXEL to collectively represent the 7th largest TV market in the United States. She is one of the first women in the public television system to have led a station merger. In addition, she launched the 24/7 Health Channel and quadrupled the size of the South Florida PBS endowment. Fernandez Alonso is a visionary and a leader in NEXTGEN TV and immersive media, preparing her stations to meet the demands of ATSC 3.0 and ensuring that South Florida PBS was a part of the Miami NEXTGEN TV launch that occurred in January 2023. Her leadership has resulted in the creation of Emmy award-winning 360-degree content and educational apps. Through her solid stewardship, she has secured the funding for the expansion of the SFPBS studios in Palm Beach County to include an Arts and Cultural center complete with an immersive igloo for experiential learning opportunities for the South Florida community. Fernandez Alonso began her television career in 1990 at the international newsgathering division of Disney/ABC News Inc. - Worldwide Television News in New York, NY. In 1998, she joined WPBT2 as Vice President for Facilities Services where she was responsible for the for-profit activities. She was promoted to Station Manager in 2002 and to Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in 2003. As a proud bilingual Hispanic, Fernandez Alonso earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Spanish Literature from Columbia University and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Miami.
David Steward II is an Academy Award®-winning producer who owns and operates multiple companies with a mission of creating, discovering, and highlighting multicultural and diverse content in the entertainment industry. In 2018, Steward founded Polarity, a holding company to oversee the operations of a portfolio of companies. The companies offer an array of content offerings including graphic novels and comics, animated television, streaming and cinematic features, and gaming. Key portfolio companies include Oni Lion Forge Publishing Group, the European publishing house Magnetic Press, the original content developer Illustrated Syndicate, the animation studio Lion Forge Animation, and Lion Forge Labs. In 2019, Polarity launched the Lion Forge Animation Studio, credited for producing the “Hair Love” short film, distributed by Sony Pictures Animation, and winner for “Best Animated Short” in the 2020 Academy Awards®. Lion Forge Animation has gained recognition for highlighting animators of color and in 2021 was named one of Fast Company Magazine’s Most Innovative Companies in the World, placing #3 in the film and TV category. Steward graduated Magna Cum Laude from American University in 1998 with a B.S.B.A. in International Marketing. In addition, Steward served as an executive board member for the local chapter of the Habitat for Humanity. He is a current board member of Nine PBS, and the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum.
Following is background on the newly elected board members:
Clarence “C.C” Copeland
Clarence “C.C” Copeland is the president and CEO of Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB). He has held the position since 2022, following 25 years at the organization in both engineering and management roles, including serving as acting director since 2021 and serving as Deputy Director prior to that. In 2023, Copeland was elected to serve on the American Public Television (APT) Board of Trustees. Since 2015, he has served on the PBS Engineering Technical Advisory Committee (ETAC) and was its vice chair from 2020-2022. In 2011, under Copeland’s leadership, LPB became the first Public Broadcasting Service station to air an NRT (Non-Real Time) program from a digital file, part of the PBS Interconnect Project. Copeland also led the agency’s FCC Television Spectrum Repack that began in 2016. He is a member of the National Society of Broadcast Engineers, the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters and serves on Louisiana’s Commission on Civic Education.
Under his leadership, LPB has premiered multiple award-winning documentaries including The Precipice, which explores the cultural and climate challenges facing Louisiana’s Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe. The documentary went on to win a Suncoast Emmy® and was named the 2024 Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Documentary of the Year. Other highlights include the Emmy® nominated Louisiana history docuseries Why Louisiana Ain’t Mississippi… or Any Place Else!, Angela Gregory: A Legacy Chiseled in Stone, and A Tall Order: The Louisiana State Capitol, as well as the Suncoast Emmy® award-winning digital-to-broadcast series Safe Haven: Exploring Louisiana’s Green Book. LPB saw their digital offerings expand to include two seasons of Ziggy’s Arts Adventure, an educational children’s puppet series that highlights Louisiana artists and includes educational art activities. LPB also saw great success with strategic partnerships. Working with PBS Digital Media and Houston Public Media, LPB produced the successful series Ritual, which explores the depths and varieties of rituals across the American South. LPB expanded their Louisiana French language programming with the series La Veillée, in partnership with Télé-Louisiane, and recommitted to sports programming with an LPB first - the broadcast of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame 2023 Induction Ceremony.
Copeland is a member of the National Society of Broadcast Engineers and the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters and a member of the Baton Rouge Rotary Club and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. He holds both a Bachelor and Master of Arts in Mass Communication from Southern University and A&M College.
Diana Enzi
Diana Enzi and her husband, Mike, started their first shoe store in Gillette, Wyoming, soon after they married. They later owned two more stores in Miles City, Montana, and Sheridan, Wyoming. They were very involved in their community. She has been a member of business-related organizations, serving as chairman of the downtown Heart of Gillette and as president of the Chamber of Commerce. She also served the state on the Wyoming Private Industry Council for seven years and on the State Council on Vocational Organization. Enzi was tasked with reading grants for the U.S. Department of Education’s Even Start. She was also active in community organizations like Rotary and P.E.O. and in her church.
In Washington, D.C., Enzi continued her involvement in community. She was a member of the Senate Spouses, president of the International Neighbors Club 4, a member of the honorary board of N Street Village and chair of several fundraising galas for nonprofits. Elaine Chao, secretary of the Department of Labor, appointed her to a term on the national Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship, where she helped develop policy to prepare the American workforce for sustained employment. Enzi also was a board member of the Marshall Legacy Institute, which toils to rid affected areas of the world of deadly land mines, thus protecting people and animals and the land on which they live. She helped launch CHAMPS, children against the land mine problem, where children raise funds to train and place dogs and handlers who find and eliminate mines. Wyoming children were the first to raise quarters and fund a land mine-detecting dog that saved lives in Sri Lanka for eight years. Enzi was appointed to the National Job Corps Association to develop programs to train young people for jobs and life. Enzi is now a professional volunteer.
Enzi graduated from Sheridan High School in 1967 and obtained a Bachelor of Science in social science and a master’s degree in adult education from the University of Wyoming. Enzi is a lifelong learner. Diana Enzi married Michael B. Enzi in 1969. They have three children, Amy Enzi Strom, Brad Enzi and Emily Enzi McGrady, and are grandparents to Trey and Lilly Enzi and Megan and Allison McGrady.
Susan Erburu Reardon
Susan Erburu Reardon is Principal of True North Charitable Advising, which she established in 2022 to provide philanthropic advice to individuals and consulting services to nonprofit organizations, with a particular focus on arts and culture and public media organizations. Reardon was a nonprofit executive for 15 years with KCET, the independent community public television resource for Southern and Central California (now part of PBS SoCal). She joined KCET in 1997 as its Senior Vice President and General Counsel. In 2004, Reardon was promoted to Executive Vice President and General Counsel, assuming the additional responsibility for obtaining grants for programming, production and general operations from federal and state government agencies and from charitable and corporate foundations. From December 2010 through October 2012, she served as Chief Development Officer, with overall responsibility for management of KCET’s fundraising efforts, including planned giving, major gifts, foundations and government grants, membership (annual giving), corporate underwriting and special events.
From September 2013 through May 2022, Reardon served as Director, Gift Planning of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association (LA Phil). In this role, she created and managed a reinvigorated legacy giving program. During her tenure, she built legacy giving at LA Phil into a four-person dedicated Office of Gift Planning. As its leader, Reardon had overall responsibility for all solicitation, documentation, recognition and stewardship of legacy gifts, working with donors and their financial and legal advisors. She also devised, implemented and coordinated marketing, communications and stewardship plans for the LA Phil’s legacy society, the William Andrews Clark Society. From December 2015 through April 2020, Reardon was responsible for management oversight of the LA Phil’s major and principal gifts fundraising and its prospect management and research functions. In January and February 2020, she served as Interim Vice President, Advancement following the retirement of Kathleen Kane as its Chief Advancement Officer.
Reardon is a current member in good standing of the California State Bar, and has 43 years of experience as an attorney, including with the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where she practiced law for 17 years and was a firm litigation partner for seven years. She has served as a trustee of the Los Angeles County Bar Association (LACBA) and as Chair of LACBA’s Corporate Law Department Section. She is a current member of the Los Angeles Council of Charitable Gift Planners (LACGP) and the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners.
Reardon currently serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of PBS SoCal, where she is Chair of its Advancement Committee and a member of the Executive Committee; as Vice Chair of the Los Angeles Master Chorale, as a Trustee and Chair of the Advancement Committee of Idyllwild Arts Foundation; as Chair of the Board of Directors of Lorelei Ensemble; and as a Director of the Pfaffinger Foundation. Throughout her work career, Reardon also served on the Boards of numerous arts and culture organizations, including as a member of the Board of the Los Angeles Master Chorale Association since March 1992 and as its Vice Chair, Strategic Initiatives from 2013-2018; as a member of the Board of Directors of Chorus America from 2006-2018; and as a member of the board of the Radcliffe Choral Society Foundation (RCSF) from 2011-2018, serving as RCSF’s President from 2015-2017.
Reardon graduated with her A.B. in History magna cum laude from Radcliffe College (Harvard University) in 1977 and received her J.D. in 1980 from Harvard Law School. She completed all course work in the Certified Specialist in Planned Giving program in 2015. As of 2023, she completed all course work and received certification from the American College of Financial Services as a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP).
Reardon and her husband George are longtime residents of South Pasadena, California and have a summer home in Stonington, Maine. They have two adult children and two granddaughters.
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About APTS
America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) is a nonprofit membership organization ensuring a strong and financially sound public television system and helping member stations provide essential public services in education, public safety and civic leadership to the American people. For more information, visit www.apts.org.
Contact:
Stacey Karp
202-654-4222
skarp@apts.org