Veteran broadcast engineer and SBE member Mark Goodman has assumed the role of Director of Engineering and Operations at KPBS-FM/TV. The position opened last year when Leon Messenie retired. Mark says his responsibilities include Master Control and Production operations.
Mark joined KSWB-TV as a broadcast engineer. In 2006, he left to join XETV when it was Fox 6, where he eventually became Director of Technology for what had become CW6. In 2017. When Televisa closed their US operations, he moved to KFMB-TV with a number of other employees. In 2019, he took an engineering position at KPBS-AM/TV.
Mark says he and his wife Veronica have been married 26 years. His daughter Dakota commutes with Mark to SDSU. His twin daughters Summer and Autumn attend Steele Canyon High School. When Mark is not working or hanging out with his family, he collects vinyl albums and recently rebuilt a Technics SL-2000 turntable.
Regarding KPBS projects, Mark reports they are replacing their Rohde & Schwarz TV transmitters with new GatesAir ULXTE-30 and ULXTE-16 models. Tony McDaid has been preparing the site for their arrival.
There’s been a lot of turnover after long engineer tenures. “We have had more retirements. Kevin Birch retired at the beginning of January and the retirement of Leon Messenie back in June of course both were large losses for the station and me personally. Both Kevin and Leon knew where all the bodies were buried. I could never fill Leon’s shoes but strive to provide the level of excellence he always maintained in everything he did. I’m also lucky to be able to hire Kevin Schrader back part time for special projects and have the opportunity to still take advantage of his mentoring and advice. Kevin retired at the end of January last year. I’m dreading the retirement of my boss and mentor Bruce Rogow…at the end of June. I’ve been busy but it has been a blast working with such a great team here at KPBS.”
On a personal note, when Mark answered my ad for an engineer position at XETV in 2006, I received two unsolicited phone calls in support of his technical work and attitude, and he proved to be a genius-level talent with a patient ear for users. He and Paul Redfield turned around XETV’s IT plant in short order, and with our cross-border fiber link, we soon had a remarkably modern, versatile system for moving data for an STL, a cable return, phone, intercom, and media.