One of the most important behind-the-scenes names in Milwaukee radio, Tom Joerres, says he's retiring at the end of August.
Joerres is president and general manager of Saga Communications Milwaukee Radio Group, which includes WKLH-FM (96.5), WHQG-FM (102.9), WJMR-FM (98.3), WZBK-FM (106.9) and WJYI-AM (1340.)
In the announcement of his retirement, he jokes that its "his graduation" after a radio career that began in 1977 as an account executive for WOKY-AM (920).
During his tenure, he oversaw the creation of top morning shows hosted by Dave Luczak and Carole Caine on WKLH, and Bob and Brian on WHQG, better known as "The Hog."
While the search is on for a permanent replacement, Saga Communications Senior Vice President Warren Lada will fill in.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
