Subject: Transition and Stability at Pacifica
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 18:13:39 -0700
From: Dan Coughlin danc@pacifica.org
To: Pacifica Community

Dear Pacifica Staff, Board Members and Colleagues,

As many of you know, I announced my resignation at the Pacifica National Board meeting earlier this month in New York City.

I will stay on until such time as an interim Executive Director is installed but no later than June 1, 2005. Thereafter, I've agreed to make myself available to the network, if needed, for a 3-6 month advisory period.

People ask about the reasons for my departure.

Well, my wife is pregnant and we are expecting twin girls. We are both thrilled and excited. I'm really looking forward to fatherhood, more and more with each passing day. I feel strongly that I do not want to miss the twins' first years of life. As you all can appreciate, the Executive Director position here at Pacifica makes that very difficult.

After some three and a half years, I move on with a sense of enormous gratitude to all of you who have worked so hard to build Pacifica as a dynamic independent media voice and a vital forum for the peace and social justice movement nationwide. It's been an honor and a privelege.

Over the coming weeks, I'll be here to work with board members, staff, the many dedicated listeners, and the various Pacifica communities to ensure a smooth transition. Stability and continuity are crucial in the period ahead.

Toward those goals, I am creating a transition team at the national office just as the Pacifica National Board is beginning its transition process as well. I want to ensure that all records, documents and information will be passed along to the next Executive Director in the most efficient and orderly ways possible.

Accordingly, Pacifica Chief Financial Officer Lonnie Hicks will be leading the transition team here at national (lonnie@pacifica.org). Director of Special Projects Phil Osegueda will provide support around development, HR and compliance issues (phil@pacifica.org).

Affiliates Director Ursula Ruedenberg will work on external relations and affiliate affairs (ursula@pacifica.org). National webmaster Pete Korakis manages www.pacifica.org and will continue to work with the network on tech and I/T issues (web@pacifica.org).

Pacifica has never been more needed than now. I believe we are on a path that will allow the original vision of Pacifica founders Lewis Hill, Eleanor McKinney and Richard Moore to be sustained. They committed themselves to “the arts of communication ... uncensored and free-ranging discussions, interviews, conversations and documentaries.”

Looking back over the last three and half years, we've been able to reach that goal and more:

· Pacifica has experienced the largest and most rapid expansion in audience and revenues in the network's history.

· Pacifica programming is now heard on more stations and by more listeners on a wider variety of media platforms than at any time since the network started in 1949.

· Pacifica today is the country's most diverse national broadcaster. More than 35 percent of Pacifica's audiences are Black and Latino and more than half of the staff are people of color. Today, CPB recognizes four of the five Pacifica stations as minority stations, up from just two a few years ago.

· Pacifica has posted its best ever consecutive financial results. See our 15-year financial history at http://www.pacifica.org/finance/

· Financial reporting and budgeting, non-existent in early 2002, is now transparent, routine and detailed. Indeed, Pacifica Radio is the most transparent non-profit of its size in the country.

· Pacifica has embarked on a remarkable experiment in listener democracy, holding two nationwide elections with more than 400 candidates and 27,000 voters casting their ballots in two separate elections.

The list can go on . . . But I am firmly convinced that Pacifica's best days are yet to come.

With your commitment, Pacifica will continue to develop into a financially sound, diverse multi-media organization with the capacity to be more effective locally and to have an impact globally.

This means that Pacifica in this digital era must disseminate its programming via new media such as satellite radio, Internet radio, digital and wireless platforms, as well as over our existing affiliates network. The goal must be to develop a global community of local programming.

Again, my deep affection to all of you and my gratitude for having the opportunity to do the work to which so many of us are dedicated.

Yours in struggle,

Dan



*****
Dan Coughlin
Executive Director
Pacifica Radio
1925 MLK Jr. Way
Berkeley, CA 94704
510-849-2590 x204
510-849-2617 (fax)