Radio Producer/Personality fills time “Storm Chasing” between gigs

Radio Producer/Personality fills time 

“Storm Chasing” between gigs

   If you asked Brian (Douglas) Spieker what was his one passion in life was; he would tell you “Radio”. Spieker who has 21 years in radio & television broadcasting was last employed a year ago in Fargo, ND, with Great Plains Integrated Marketing, the parent company of WZFG-AM which was the very 50kw AM station at 1100 who used FCC rule 47 CFR 73.1250 during the 2009 Flood across the Red River Valley that borders North Dakota & Minnesota. The station was heard from Alabama to Saskatchewan to Colorado to the east coast. Brian’s assignment was to keep the station on the air at all costs, or until he had to evacuate the site due to the rising flood waters inundating the transmitter. That did not happen the station survived the flooding, but the budget of the cluster didn’t. Several areas were cut back within the group, and Spieker was no exception, even though he was the station's "Utility Player". He was cut back to 6 hours a pay period from an average of 96 hours every 2 weeks.


    Facing homelessness Spieker exited WZFG and moved to Tucson, Arizona where he continued his search for another position nationally only to get a few sporadic interviews. Brian decided to take on the highly competitive world of voice over and produce streaming talk from his New Mexico studio only to find it wasn't paying all the bills. “One of my studio partners asked me if I had been out on a storm chase lately” said Spieker. That was when Brian got the idea to continue his hobby of storm chasing and photographing severe storms and tornadoes. Spieker noted, “This spring has been the wildest I have seen in my 12 years of being a certified chaser, I see the reaction of the citizens in the communities, and it makes me want to contribute more to the science of meteorology through radio.”


   Spieker had learned his meteorology from notable storm photographer, Warren Faidley, and staff members from his local weather service offices. While Brian is eagerly looking to return to a position in radio at some level he currently is studying to become a FEMA certified emergency manager, as part of his additional storm chasing knowledge, and hopes someday to use that training to contribute his experience to improving the EAS system or other public warning systems, including increasing warning times to the public in emergencies.


   Brian (Douglas) Spieker can be reached by e-mailing brian@audiotracks.info or winatradio2@gmail.com he can be reached by telephone at: (575) 571-1680.