By Lookout Staff

August 26, 2010 --Will Lewis, a champion of radio and the in broadcast latest technologies, is retiring this month after more than 32 years at KCRW, Santa Monica College's award-winning news and music station.

Lewis, who is departing shortly after the recent retirement of long-time General Manager Ruth Seymour, will continue to serve as media consultant to SMC.

Seymour, who teamed up with Lewis in 1971 at KPFK-Pacific, said her colleague "over

the years helped shape the station." When Seymour took over the helm at KCRW, she appointed Lewis management and programming consultant.

"The joy of working at KCRW," Lewis said, "is the way the station embraces change. It was one of the first to stream on the Internet in 1995 and became a leader in podcasting less than 10 years later."

Dr. Chui L. Tsang, Superintendent/President of Santa Monica College, thanked Lewis for his years of dedicated service and innovation.

"Over the years, he collaborated with Ruth to produce subscription drives that raised millions for KCRW," Tsang said. "They tell me that in the early days he would sleep in a trailer parked outside the station so he could be on the air from 5 to 9 a.m. and be back at 4 for another three hour shift."

Lewis began in public radio in 1957 as a producer and tape editor at WGBH-FM in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From 1963 to 1971, he was general manager of WBUR, Boston.

In 1967, he and his fellow board members of National Educational Radio successfully lobbied Congress to include radio in the pending Public Television Act. Lewis was among the broadcasters invited by President Johnson to witness the signing of the Public Broadcasting Act in the White House.

Lewis has taught broadcasting at Boston University, Emerson College, and CSU-Northridge. At the University of Florida he taught radio and television news, winning a CBS Foundation News Fellowship at Columbia University.

He was elected president of the Los Angeles Press Club in January 2010 and was instrumental in the Club's nomination of NPR Senior Foreign Correspondent Anne Garrels for the Daniel Pearl Award for Courage and Integrity in Journalism.

"The joy of working at KCRW," Lewis said, is the way the station embraces change. It was one of the first to stream on the Internet in 1995 and became a leader in podcasting less than 10 years later."
    Will Lewis