On June 30 (2015), the WFSU family bid farewell to the man who has provided guidance and inspiration for the past two decades. Pat Keating is retiring.
Even though the WFSU staff – and apparently more than a few radio listeners, TV viewers and web consumers – think of WFSU as unique, the operation does share at least one characteristic with other mass media outlets; a good deal of staff turnover. Whether it’s the many behind-the-scenes jobs, or the folks seen and heard on the air, people often come and go with little or no notice. Nationally, in fact, the average employee turnover in the broadcasting industry is more than 25-percent, one of the highest worker churn number of any jobs sector. But Patrick Keating beat that figure handily, providing some two decades of leadership to the WFSU family, which includes the radio and broadcast TV operations, along with the Florida Channel. Under Pat’s leadership as general manager, all aspects of those operations grew and advanced, even in the midst of so many changes in the industry. To a very great degree, that fact harkens back to a basic guiding principle that Pat recently articulated in regards one of the station’s many involvement initiatives.
“We have said for a long time that we wanted to be more than a TV station that simply broadcasts a signal out over the air,” he noted. “We want to be on the ground in the community making a difference. We want people who live in our area to think that one of the reasons that it’s good to live where we do is because of the contributions that WFSU is making.”
And, for more than twenty years, that contribution has been under the firm but gentle guidance of Patrick Keating. He will be missed and his many friends at WFSU, past and present, wish him well.