Harris Corp. VP Jay Adrick Joins National VOA Museum of Broadcasting Board
Jay C. Adrick, co-founder of Cincinnati’s WVXU public radio station and a leader in the design and integration of digital broadcasting systems worldwide, has joined the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting board of directors.
A 48-year veteran in the broadcast industry and vice president of broadcast technology at Harris Corp., Adrick is a board member and vice chairman of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), an industry committee establishing standards in North America for digital television and mobile digital TV technology.
He also represents Harris on other broadcast standards organizations and with regulatory issues in the U.S.
Harris is an international communications and information technology company serving government and commercial markets in more than 125 countries. Headquartered in Melbourne, Florida, the company has approximately $5.5 billion of annual revenue and about 15,000 employees — including 6,000 engineers and scientists, according to its website.
"We are thrilled and honored to include Jay in the VOA museum family," said Ken Rieser, National VOA museum board chair. "We look forward to having him join our efforts to move the museum forward into becoming a sustainable, engaging museum that informs, educates and entertains the community and the world at large."
Earlier in his career at Harris, Adrick led teams that designed and built many leading broadcast facilities including The Golf Channel; The Weather Channel; The Discovery Channel; National Public Radio (NPR); The Voice of America Washington, D.C. studios; Georgia Public Broadcasting; Iraqi Media Network; and many other broadcast facilities.
He also led the technical team that designed, built and operated the Harris/PBS DTV Express. When standards for digital television were selected in 1996, Harris and the Public Broadcasting Service built a working demonstration digital TV station and took it to 40 cities across the U.S. to host technical and business courses for station managers and directors about the capabilities of digital TV.
In addition to his Harris duties, Adrick serves as chairman of the Open Mobile Video Coalition Forum. He has served on both of the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Media Security and Recovery Councils and as an advisor to the FCC on the digital television transition.
A Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and a member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE); the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE); and the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE), Adrick has written and presented a large number of technical papers and chaired various technical presentations.
Prior to joining Harris, he served as executive vice president of Midwest Communications Corp., where he was a company founder.
Before entering the commercial broadcasting world, Adrick was a professor of communications at Xavier University for eight years and later taught broadcasting courses at the University of Cincinnati.
He co-founded WVXU –FM in 1971 with John Maupin, moderator at WCXU/WVXU from 1960 to 1972; Fr. Lawrence J. Flynn, S.J.; and Bill Eggerding, engineer who served as technical director of the TV studios. WVXU operated as a student radio station providing training for future broadcasters.
Local award-winning radio producers Mike Martini and Mark Magistrelli founded Media Heritage, Inc., one of the organizations located at the VOA museum. They trace the organization’s roots to historical features produced at WVXU beginning in the late 1990s.
The Media Heritage Collection is now part of the National VOA Museum of Broadcasting’s permanent collection. Martini is also a VOA museum board member.
WVXU was transferred from Xavier University to Cincinnati Public Radio in 2005. Cincinnati Public radio now owns local radio stations WVXU, WGUC and WMUB.
While at Xavier, Adrick served as director of radio and the Xavier television production center.
Adrick’s broadcast career in radio engineering was inspired in 1961 by a friendship he had with a neighbor, Keith Nyfler, who was a Voice of America engineer. Nyfler took then 13-year-old Adrick on a VOA tour and allowed him to stay for his regular eight-hour shift while Nyfler operated the transmitters and ran the VOA station.
The trip sparked young Adrick’s lifelong passion for broadcasting, the VOA and broadcasting technology.
While still a teen, Adrick worked for several radio and television stations in the Cincinnati market, serving in various engineering, production and on–air roles.
Adrick holds a bachelor of science degree in communication arts and a master’s degree in educational communications from Xavier University. He lives in Madeira with his wife Mary Ann, a retired educator.
When not working on digital broadcasting, Adrick is active with hobbies that include amateur radio (K8CJY), sailing and O-Gauge model trains. He is also a lifelong broadcast history buff with a focus on broadcast technology and engineering.
The National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting, 8070 Tylersville Road in West Chester, is open the third Saturday of each month from 1 to 4 p.m. for public tours. Next museum opening is Saturday, Oct. 20. Donations of $5 for adults and $1 for children under 12 are suggested.
The VOA museum consists of collections and exhibits from the VOA-Bethany station; Media Heritage’s Greater Cincinnati Museum of Broadcast History; the Gray History of Wireless Museum; and the West Chester Amateur Radio Association control room.
The amateur radio group restored the original VOA-Bethany control room, which will be the location of the club’s amateur ham radio station WC8VOA. The ham group will continue to communicate with other shortwave radio amateurs around the world from that station on a regular basis.
For more information about VOA museums, go to www.voamuseum.org and view the website’s Telly Award-winning video narrated by Cincinnati journalist and former anchorman and TV host Nick Clooney.
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