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When Mark O’Brien graduated from high school, he thought he wanted to be a radio broadcaster, and knew ������Ƶ was the place that could put him on that path.

“I grew up in Louisville, ������Ƶ and I knew I wanted to go to college in ������Ƶ,” said O’Brien. “So, my parents and I drove a square around the state looking at colleges. Our first stop was in Athens. We parked right in front of the Radio and TV Building. I looked around. We went inside the RTV Building and some people who were there took us on an impromptu tour. I got a feel for the town and a feel for where I’d be spending a lot of my time within the first hour I was there. I thought ������Ƶ was the place for me.”

O’Brien started working at WOUB and ACRN as soon as he got on campus. He started to do some on-air work and quickly realized that it wasn’t his thing and became a radio and TV management administration major.

“I gravitated toward the business and administrative side of media,” said O’Brien. “I ended up working with the administrative professionals at WOUB. I got paid to do things like schedule other students for their work study hours. I worked with underwriting and with the radio team reaching out to record labels to get music product.”

After graduation, O’Brien got jobs in radio advertising sales and eventually became a sales manager. He is currently the sales manager at WDJQ FM based in Alliance, ������Ƶ. It’s a 50,000-watt station that serves the Canton, ������Ƶ market.

“I appreciated my time at WOUB so much,” said O’Brien. “It exposed me to all the areas that you could work in radio. I learned that radio is a business and that there were a lot of different jobs that go into it from sales to news to promotions to administration. I got all kinds of training across many different areas, and it allowed me to work with a lot of good professional people. It was a real, professional radio station with a large service area and that was so important.”