Radio executive Joerres leaves radio family for retirement

When managers call the people who work for them family, it can smack of self-delusion.
But for Tom Joerres, the analogy has its roots in the way his personal and professional lives became linked in 1987 when his first wife died of football jersey cancer in the home they had just built, at the start of his radio career.
It's the kind of loss that puts other challenges, including raising four young children, into stark relief.
And in his case, it created an empathy that extended into the workplace.
It "made me realize that nothing worse could ever happen to me," said Joerres, president and general manager of the Milwaukee Radio Group.
"All the craziness, the politics, whatever brick wall you run into, are just momentary things."
Joerres ran track as a kid - he was a state champion in high school - and he applied a runner's philosophy of life as a marathon to his family and work.
"I've got that mental thing of endurance," he said.
Now his kids are grown, he remarried in 2004, and his seventh grandchild is on the way.
And his stations - WKLH-FM (96.5), WHQG-FM (102.9), WJMR-FM (98.3), WZBK-FM (106.9) and WJYI-AM (1340) - are successful enough to account for 20% of the earnings for Saga Communications' 100-station chain.
"By far and away, we are the biggest contributor to the bottom line," he said.
So, what's the next challenge? Retirement, at age 58.
"I want a life that's elective for the first time," Joerres said.
The next chapter of his life will include "staying out of the way" of his wife Jodi's routine, doing volunteer work with her, and something he has put off for four decades - "learning to play that damn guitar."
And he may do a bit of San Diego Chargers jersey consulting and radio talent management work.
"I don't want to abandon the business," he said, "but I'm happy to let go of a lot of it."
'He works for us'
And when his extended family sees him off at "a graduation party" for him Friday, their number will include WKLH morning show co-host Dave Luczak.
"The greatest thing he ever told me was that we didn't work for him, he works for us," Luczak said. "He did everything he could for his radio family to make not just our work experiences good but our lives better any way he could. You could talk to anyone in the building, and they would have the same story."
"He doesn't have a false or fake bone in his body."
Just a few years after Luczak started work at the station, Luczak's father died. Joerres traveled to Pittsburgh to attend the wake and funeral.
"And one of my uncles said, 'I don't know who that guy is. But I've worked at the same place for 35 years and my boss wouldn't cross the street to do " Luczak recalled. anything for me,'
Joerres said his approach to life and radio both come from his upbringing. Growing up the third of eight children, he said, "you learn to share."
"You learn time management," he said. "And when you share a bedroom with your brothers, you learn about crowd control."
Balancing work, life
Joerres' dad worked at Ladish Co. for 40 years, and his mom was a homemaker. His family lived near the airport and he attended then-Pio Nono - now St. Thomas More - High School (where his brother is now principal). Joerres and his first wife, Linda, met at the age of 14 and married at 20.
He graduated from Carthage College in Kenosha with a degree in secondary education at 22, and they had their first child in 1974.
He drove a soft-drink delivery truck for two years before getting a sales job at WOKY-AM (920).
"I've always been in sales," he said. "When I was in high school, I sold Catholic Digest door to door."
He became sales manager at WTMJ-AM (620) in 1979 and joined what would become WKLH-FM in 1982. He had "a little equity position" when WKLH was sold, and used it buy the station in 1986 as a partner in Saga Communications.
His wife died the next year, and he describes the period that followed as "dog years."
"It was doable with divine intervention and a guardian angel," he said. "I became a lot more organized," and his life revolved around his kids.
"What I took pride in was never forgetting an appointment or practice or registration or game," he said.
He told his late wife "you take them for the first six months and I'll take them the next 17 years."
She gave the kids a "great foundation," he said. "My job was not to mess it up."
Continuity, consistency and loyalty played a role in his radio family as well.
"I've got people who have been with me forever," Joerres said.
Luczak and his WKLH co-host, Carole Caine; Bob Madden and Brian Nelson, of the top-rated WHQG morning show; and WKLH program director Bob Bellini have been with Joerres for more than two decades. General sales manager (and possible Joerres replacement) Annmarie Topel has been there 15 years.
And Roz Britton - called the "queen of funk and the world's best receptionist" - has been there so long that an annual staff award is named after her.
Although the local radio ad market has suffered a 30% loss, and despite alienating some listeners by changing a smooth-jazz format to classic country, Joerres is still bullish on radio.
In its heyday, he said, "96% of cheap nfl jerseys the audience would tune in to radio during the week. Now it's dropped to 91% or 92%," despite intense competition "for ear time" from the Internet and satellite services.
This leads him to conclude that radio is here to stay.
Joerres, however, has left the building.