I was on an interesting mission this morning. WGTD GM Dave Cole told me that four big boxes of “old stuff” was slated to be shredded this afternoon, and that I needed to go over to the basement archive and look through the boxes to make sure that nothing important would be lost. Just finding the boxes was a bit of an adventure in itself, with head custodian Dave Pierson and I walking through every inch of those underground hallways until the wayward boxes were finally found. 95% of what was there was of absolutely no use to anyone- but lo and behold, there were a few things here and there that I thought deserved to be saved. They include the personnel file of my good friend Playford Thoreson – who began work at WGTD 25 years ago at a starting salary of $4 an hour. I will bring it over to him the next time I visit; I think he’ll get a kick out of it.
I also found the records from 1986 when the station searched for a new Fine Arts Director and hired me. It was partly a blow to my ego, in that someone at the time told me that a tireless national search had been undertaken and that something like 104 applications had been received. In my mind, that made my selection all the more noteworthy. But the paper trail tells another story. There were 20 applicants, 7 of whom had basically no legitimate qualifications whatsoever. Out of the 13 viable candidates, 6 were chosen for interviews. One of those six withdrew when he found out that he would be responsible for the costs of getting himself from Oklahoma to Kenosha. Another simply failed to appear for the interview. That left four of us who were interviewed – and yours truly took the prize, but not out of the throng that I was sure had applied for the job.
But wait- as it turns out, I was very very lucky to get to the interview stage at all and made the cut by the skin of my teeth. The reason was my application tape, which I made in a the living room of a private voice student of mine in Chicago – someone who had a small, cheap external mic that plugged into her stereo system. That’s the only thing I had access to for making an audition tape – for which I made up some classical music mumbo-jumbo and some fake news stories. I thought I did okay, considering the circumstances, but in fact my audition tape was scored a 2.6 – – – and the cutoff for consideration for an interview was 2.5, In fact, of the six of us who qualified for an interview, the ratings were 4.3, 3.6, 2.9, 2.8, 2.8, and 2.6. That’s right – I was the lowest rated of the six. So I had some ground to make up in my interview and must have said something halfway compelling. Actually, one of my memories of that interview is of Gary Vailllancourt, the station manager at the time, winking at me from time to time- especially, it seemed to me, when I had satisfactorally completed an answer. I interpreted his wink to mean “that’s it -great answer- now stop talking.” And I did.
So perusing this file has mostly been a humbling experience for me- and I can always use a healthy dose of that- but I also did come across this little ego-stroking memo from GaryV. to Bill Nicholai, who was then chief counsel for GTC-
The selection committee for the aforementioned position of FIne Arts Director, made up of my self, Bonnie Orr and Richard Hazelton, recommends the position be offered to David Gregory Berg.
The selection committee found Mr. Berg to have the necessary experience and ability for the position, in addition to having an excellent personality. (See attached summary) =
[which I will spare you having to read!]Three references were called and no negative responses were given. A summary of their comments is as follows:
Greg is a terrific guy, very disciplined; business-like; excellent singer and musician; extremely responsible; very bright; high integrity; skills to communicate with people; he’s tops.
That memo was written on April 24, 1986 – and I shudder to think of all that I would have missed out on in the last 21 years – – – including meeting my wife – – – if they hadn’t opted to take a chance on yours truly. So thank you, Rev. Steven Swanson, wherever you are, for saying “Greg is tops.” I hope I’ve lived up to your recommendation. And thank you, Stephen Brown, then the director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, for saying that I was “very disciplined and business-like.” I don’t know who the heck he was thinking of when he said that, but I’m glad the compliment somehow got attached to me.
pictured above: saved from the paper shredder – WGTD newspaper ads from the late 1970’s.