While not meeting in person, I’ve been talking to many of you by phone and email lately, and there’s a thread of commonality in your stories. Our healthcare workers, shippers, grocery workers, and take-out people are really on the front lines, often contacting hundreds of people a day. These people are doing heroes’ work. 

Among the second tier are broadcast engineers have been busy going to work to make sure our broadcast plants still work. You’ve likely been making sure the reporters and entertainers working from home are set-up to do so. And you’ve been doing this as part of a force reduced by corporate downsizing, so things have been a bit frantic. 

Our broadcast engineers are entering homes or more and getting technical stuff set-up and tested for people who otherwise may never have known more than working a laptop and phone. Sometimes this is occurring with few professional tools, so you’re making do with what you have, sometimes with mobile phone SIP apps and laptop apps like Skype. You need to make sure they interface with the devices between them and the transmitter. 

Our chapter Chairman, Tony McDaid, says iHeart has the good fortune of having a stock of professional codecs to leave their work-at-home reporters and deejays, and powerful remote routing and voice-tracking capabilities that help by requiring less continuing support. 

I’m grateful for having a career in high demand right now.

And I’m grateful for our fellowship and find myself while in increased isolation reflecting on how little time we spend together. I’m looking forward to fixing that.