The five-year program leading to a bachelor’s degree in broadcasting and mass communications and a master’s degree in business administration launched this fall.

Fritz Messere ’71, M ’76, dean of the School of Communication, Media and the Arts, said he sees many graduates of the college’s broadcasting program develop successful careers in the field outside the studio. The new degree option aims to give such students a quick start on that career path.

“Particularly the students we see graduate from the broadcast program who are not in a creative area, they tend to be focused in some area related to business: sales of broadcast time, programming, management of broadcast stations, advertising and marketing,” Messere said.

Richard Skolnik, dean of the School of Business, noted that the strength of the two programs at Oswego makes the combination especially attractive for students seeking thorough grounding for solid careers. The School of Business appears every year in Princeton Review’s guide to “Best Business Schools.” The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences lists Oswego’s broadcasting program among the nation’s outstanding television, film and digital media programs.

Mom put the kibosh on that idea, but Dave was able to grab his degree, make his first and only collegiate play-by-play broadcast and launch a career that has made him the television voice of the National Basketball Association’s Minnesota Timberwolves.

David Benz ’92 most recently hosted, anchored and reported for Comcast Sportsnet in San Francisco. Last fall he became the TV play-by-play voice of the National Basketball Association’s Minnesota Timberwolves.

“I’ve always wanted to do full-time play-by-play,” says Dave, who has spent his two-decade career as a sports broadcast journalist in Miami, Dallas, Denver and D.C., among other cities.

Most recently, he was able to enjoy the Giants’ 2010 baseball championship run and last year’s successful 49ers football season as a host, anchor and reporter for Comcast Sportsnet Bay Area in San Francisco.

“I’ve had the chance to go to great places and meet a lot of people … I’ve had an unbelievable career,” Dave says. In addition to his full-time studio work, Dave found his way into some TV and radio play-by-play gigs covering college sports and arena league football while also working the sidelines for the NFL, MLB and NBA broadcasts. The work paid off as he now enters a very small fraternity of NBA commentators.

“I feel like this is the job I’ve been grooming myself for basically my whole professional life,” Dave says.

“There’s just something about doing the game live,” he says. “It’s so much more electric.”

Dave cut his teeth “cutting tape” in the WTOP studios, where he directed and hosted “7 O’Clock News.”

“That was invaluable experience,” says Dave, who worked closely with Professor Mike Ameigh, current School of Communication, Media and the Arts Dean Fritz Messere ’71, M ’76 and Bill Canning of the television lab staff.

As operations coordinator for “Good Morning America,” Cameron processes hires, tracks freelancers and runs the internship program among other tasks. The former WSTM-TV (Syracuse) and WNYW-TV (New York) intern hopes to make his way to the front of the cameras eventually, but loves learning all aspects of the broadcasting business.

Jones

A member of the Future Alumni Network as a student, Cameron stays active with the Graduates Of the Last Decade Leadership Council.

Cameron’s advice: “If you use the tools you are given at Oswego and stay connected, you’re going to be successful.”

1. Key to a good morning:

My key to a good morning is started with my Pandora radio, specifically the Anita Baker station. Listening to the classic oldies puts me
in the perfect zone to make a good morning a great morning!

2. Part of a complete breakfast:

I love pancakes and cream cheese bagels — separately of course, everything bagels to be exact. But I would not be myself without having a banana and at least one cup of coffee.

3. Go-to Oswego dining hall dinner item:

Anything off the grill at Pathfinder dining hall from paninis, cheese steaks, chicken phillies, burgers, waffle fries — Oh my!

4. Favorite campus activity/organization:

There are just too many! Big shout out to FANs (Future Alumni Network), Department of Campus Life, Residence Life, Phi Beta Sigma Rho Xi chapter, Student Association and ALANA!

5. Greatest Oswego experience:

My favorite Oswego experience by far was being a building manager working in Hewitt Union and the Campus Center at Campus Life. I learned many valuable skills that I use to this very day, built great relationships, and it offered an enormous professional trajectory.

6. Worst thing about leaving Oswego:

I miss the carefree, casual life where there appeared to be a sense of security — a safe haven.

7. Best thing about coming back:

I love to see the new developments at the college, whether it be new structures, academic progress, reconnecting or meeting students.

8. Coolest internship:

Coolest internship was when I did news reporting at WSTM-TV Channel 3 in Syracuse. I learned the craft of reporting and working at a television station. Most of all, I got a front-row seat journeying throughout Central New York to places I would have otherwise not known.

9. Dream job:

I think I am at my dream job. I’ve dreamed big all my life and I seized a golden opportunity to work at ABC News and to be a part of the Good Morning America family! I intend to keep growing, learning and seeing what can come of this experience.

10. Words of wisdom:

To always strive to set a good example in work ethic and relationship building. You never know who may be watching or looking, but just know that someone always is.

She did end up in television, but not in the way she expected. She is part of “Roadtrip Nation,” a social movement and PBS series intended to inspire late-teens and 20-somethings to get real about their dreams.

“We’re here to ask the hard question of: What are you passionate about in your life?” said Richards while visiting campus in September.

Under the tagline “Define your own road in life,” Richards and her fellow “roadies” visit college campuses across the country in a trademark green RV. The perpetual tour is intended to inspire college students to discover what they love and strive to make it a career.

A Johnson Hall resident mentor, Admissions Office tour guide and member of the Omicron Delta Kappa honor society executive board as a student, Richards — currently active with the Washington, D.C., alumni chapter — was happy to bring the message to her alma mater.

“I think it’s really important to engage students one-on-one and especially to use travel as a way of self exploration and career exploration,” she said. “We want to help them integrate that into their majors and into what they’re doing and keep their interests and their passions on the forefront.”

Student leaders who take internships on the RV each year find and interview potential mentors, from STEM professionals to higher-profile entertainers. It’s tradition for the interviewees to leave behind a signature on the wall or ceiling of the RV.

Richards and her crew also encourage students to take their own road trip to get in touch with their passions and the people who can help make those goals possible.

And in a true “medium is the message” moment, he is doing it, not only in person in a campus seminar room for several class meetings, but live from New York City via video conferencing the rest of the semester.

Utley

“The digital age has changed our lives and will continue to do so in many profound ways,” said the longtime NBC and ABC news veteran.

Utley teaches and holds seminars in the communication studies department in a variety of topical areas related to contemporary journalism, modern media and globalization. In addition, Utley continues to serve as the director of New York in the World, an initiative of the SUNY Levin Institute that focuses on the competitiveness of New York in today’s global economy. He was the founding president of the Levin Institute and served from 2003 to 2011.

Utley had his choice of SUNY schools, but he chose to join Oswego’s faculty. “The School of Communication, Media and the Arts at SUNY Oswego is a recognized leader in its fields,” he said. “I am excited to be joining the faculty and working with the students. This offers the opportunity to draw on my professional and personal experience in media, journalism and communications, which are all undergoing dramatic and rapid change. Working together I know we will be able to understand and cope with what these changes will mean for all of us as individuals and as a society.”

Before joining SUNY, he worked as a broadcast journalist on NBC, ABC and CNN, as well as public radio and public television, specializing in international affairs.

Utley began his career with NBC News in Brussels in 1963. In 1964-1965 he covered the American entry into the Vietnam War and then served as NBC’s correspondent in Berlin, Paris and London. In the 1980s he was the network’s chief foreign correspondent working out of the New York headquarters. Utley also served as anchor of the weekend editions of NBC Nightly News (1971 to 1973 and 1988 to 1993). He was the host of several network magazine programs, the Sunday edition of “Today” and the moderator of “Meet the Press.”

From 1993 to 1996, Utley was chief foreign correspondent for ABC News based in London and, from 1997 to 2002, he was a contributor for CNN.

Utley has received broadcast journalism’s most respected honors, including the Overseas Press Club’s Edward R. Murrow Award and the George Foster Peabody Award. He is the author of the book You Should Have Been Here Yesterday, published by PublicAffairs in 2000, a narrative of the growth of television news in the United States.

Luckily Tom Niziol ’77 made it down off that roof safely. Now he draws on his Oswego snow schooling and a 30-year career with the National Weather Service in Buffalo in his role with the country’s premier source for consumer weather information.

Niziol

Niziol joined The Weather Channel in January 2012, and immediately took to the air to explain extreme weather conditions around the country.

He is featured regularly during winter weather coverage on The Weather Channel, which reaches more than 100 million American homes. Niziol also contributes his expertise with content on The Weather Channel’s digital platforms including weather.com and social media outlets.

Niziol enjoyed being a student in Oswego’s meteorology department, he said, not only because of the school’s excellent reputation in the field but because the program was small enough to get individualized attention and the opportunity for hands-on research with faculty members. The late Professors Emeriti Eugene Chermack and Robert Sykes were his mentors and heroes, he recalls.

“Professor Sykes used to take us onto the roof of the meteorology building to begin class each day and he spent time to train us how to connect and ‘feel’ the weather. I particularly remember one day when the winds were very light, they did not even rustle the flag and he asked us to tell him the wind direction,” Niziol recalls. “We all looked for signs to help us but could not find any. Then he asked us to smell the air. It smelled sweet like chocolate and we all immediately knew that was the aroma from the Nestle chocolate factory in Fulton. Now that’s meteorology at its finest.”

Niziol’s interest in weather started young. He remembers watching the sky and following the weather as a kid, but it was his high school earth science teacher who triggered his interest in meteorology as a profession. “However, once I arrived at Oswego, it kicked my interest into high gear and meteorology became a passion,” Niziol says.

MORE: Students at SUNY Oswego Pinpoint Storms for Schools

Oswego was a logical choice for the budding meteorologist. “I picked Oswego mainly because it was one of only a couple of state schools that offered a reasonably priced college education and had a meteorology department. I also picked it because of its idyllic location on the shores of Lake Ontario — what other college campus can offer the type of sunsets and connection with storms that Oswego can?” he says.

That connection spawned a host of memories for the weather expert, like pulling a couple of co-eds off the fence at the tennis court next to Seneca Hall when they could not navigate the icy sidewalks in 60-mph winds.

“The friends, the dorms, the meteorology lab, the wrestling team workouts, the sunsets, the winter storms, the lightning over the lake — it was all wonderful and it is so nice to revisit those memories from time to time,” Niziol says. “If I had to go back and relive those days, there is very little I would change.”

After Oswego, he went to work for the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratories in Buffalo, now CALSPAN Corp., and from there joined the National Weather Service. He worked his way up the career ladder, eventually becoming the officer in charge of the Buffalo office.

After three decades at the government’s weather service, Niziol expected to finish out his career there, until a call came “out of the blue” from The Weather Channel, asking him to audition to ex­plain winter’s extreme weather to a national audience. He made the trip to Atlanta, auditioned and was invited to become part of a Weather Channel team that includes Oswego grads Thomas Moore ’74, who serves as coordinator of the weather forecasting program and now works hand in hand with Niziol, and Al Roker ’76, who hosts the channel’s popular “Wake Up with Al” morning program.

And how cool is it to be The Weather Channel’s winter storm expert? “I’m the luckiest man alive,” says Niziol, who cherishes his “very understanding family” and loved his dream job with the NWS in Buffalo. Now he has another dream job telling the whole nation about the weather phenomena he came to love and understand at SUNY Oswego.

A backpack journalist takes photos or videos for stories, and then produces them in addition to reporting and editing.

Nominated for a total of three, the KUSA-TV reporter won the Emmy award for “best live reporter” in the Heartland Region, which covers markets in five states including Colorado.

While working on his degree in broadcasting and mass communication, Kevin was very active in WTOP-TV from the moment he got accepted.

“I wanted to be a TV reporter since I was 4 years old,” Kevin says. “Oswego allowed students to get involved with WTOP as soon as you were a student. At SU, you had to be a junior. It was the best decision I made when it came to my academics.”

Fueled by a love for hiking and traveling, Kevin began dreaming of working for KUSA-TV back in high school. The NBC affiliate located in Denver ranks as one of the best in the country. In 2009, after working three years with WSYR-TV NewsChannel 9 in Syracuse, his dream became a reality, and he moved to Colorado.

“While at Oswego, I had three professors who really influenced me,” Kevin remembers. “One was Jerry Condra. The next was Ron Graeff — his broadcasting reporting class was excellent and taught me all the fundamentals. [Now dean] Fritz Messere ’71, M ’76 was [another]. He was just an excellent professor who helped and really inspired me.” l

— Emily Longeretta ’12

Lou Borrelli Jr. ’77

Borrelli has been involved with the media technology company since last year, serving as an advisor and investor. He’ll now oversee all aspects of NimbleTV’s marketing, including communications, strategy and business development.

NimbleTV offers a kind of boxless Slingbox and DVR service, allowing cable, satellite and telecommunications TV subscribers the ability to stream their video content on numerous digital devices.

Borrelli previously served as president and CEO of NEP Broadcasting, an international provider of outsourced teleproduction services critical to the delivery of live sports and entertainment events.

Prior to joining NEP, he was senior VP of broadband for America Online, responsible for developing AOL’s High Speed Broadband business plan, managing the commercial launch of AOL High Speed Cable to Time Warner Cable customers, and developing distribution partnerships for AOL across the cable television and telecommunications industries.

Cohn was inducted during an awards luncheon for the third annual CableFAX Program Awards, Oct. 4 in New York City. Cohn was one of eight members inducted in this year’s class. Fellow inductees included actress Glenn Close, NBC Universal Cable President Bonnie Hammer, Oxygen Channel founder Geraldine Laybourne and Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson.

CableFAX, a multimedia organization designed to keep viewers in the know about cable dynamics and news, publishes a bimonthly magazine and conducts webinars on how to provide training opportunities for cable professionals.

A longtime personality on ESPN, Cohn earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from Oswego. She is a member of the Oswego Athletic Hall of Fame, for her achievements in women’s ice hockey, and has served as moderator of the Lewis B. O’Donnell Media Summit. She is also the author of a book, Cohn-Head: A No-Holds-Barred Account of Breaking into the Boys’ Club.