History of BABES by John Rolih
With Addendum by Dane Ericksen
The seeds were planted in 1959 when Gordon McLendon bought Oakland
station KROW and changed the call letters to KABL and the format to
beautiful music. He sent his own choice for Chief Engineer, Howie
Immekus, from Dallas to take over engineering duties. After a period of
learning where everything is and making whatever changes he felt necessary,
Howie apparently felt the need to make some changes in the way the
broadcast industry operated, at least in the Bay Area. And so, it came about,
in 1961, the exact month is lost in the dusty bins of memory, Howie invited
all the Chief Engineers of the Bay Area to lunch courtesy of KABL. The
lunch was at a restaurant whose name, too, has been erased from memory,
but which was located on 17th Street in Oakland right across the street from
the KABL studios at 17th and Telegraph. It was a get-acquainted type
meeting where Chief Engineers from competing stations finally had a chance
to meet face to face, a somewhat unusual occurrence in the industry. It was a
pleasant experience to say the least.
The following month the invitation was repeated. The lunch was at the same
restaurant as the previous. At this time, Howie made the presentation that we
should continue to meet on a regular monthly basis, but that his boss could
not continue to pick up the tab. So the next meeting was set for the
Claremont Hotel and we each picked up our own tab henceforth. We met
one more time at the Claremont, but since most of the Chiefs were from the
other side of the bay, it was decided that it would be more appropriate that
the meeting place would best be a San Francisco location.
During the early ’60s, FM hadn’t made its impact on the radio audience so
that most of the participating Chief Engineers were AM engineers. The ones
who were in on formation and early years of the organization, if one wishes
to characterize it so, were as follows, starting at the low end of the dial:
KSFO’s Chief chose not to come, Tom Razovich was from KFRC, Don Hall
from KNBR, A1 Cormack from KCBS, Dick Parks from KGO, Ross Smith
from KLX, Howie Immekus from KABL, Grant Wrathall from KSAY,
Roger Roberts from KFAX, Paul Beck from KYA, John Rolih from KDIA
and Bob Sampson from KRE. There were also representatives from
Television. Lee Berryhill from KRON was a frequent participant, as were
Ray Holtz of KPIX and Jerry Plemmons of KQED. Harry Jacobs of KGOTV
was not a regular, though he was present for several meetings. Later
when KSFO made some changes Terry Lloyd was a regular attendee as the
new Chief. Though FM had not made its run to the top yet, there were a few
FM Chiefs who began to attend.
Though not a regular and not just a Chief Engineer, but an owner, was Jim
Gabbert who had moved his KPEN to San Francisco and changed the call
letters to KIOI or K101. Whenever it suited his needs, Jim would attend the
luncheons, particularly when FCC Commissioners were to be in attendance.
Howard Bollenbach of KEAR, Roy Trumbull of KDFC and later Laney
College before heading for KRON were also a couple of early attendees as
was George Craig of KPFA in Berkeley. Later, there were Chiefs
representing San Jose stations, Herm Stahlberg of KXRX and, later, KLOK
and John Higdon a contract engineer. Chief Engineers from as far away as
Sacramento were invited and attended from time to time. Closer to the Bay
Area, Dan Ethan from KSRO in Santa Rosa became a regular. Representing
the professional engineering community, Hammett & Edison were
represented by Ed Edison.
One of the regulars from early on was Ney Landry, Engineer-in-Charge of
the San Francisco office of the Federal Communications Commission. This
lead to a rare cooperation between radio station engineers and the FCC. Over
the years, many FCC inspectors attended the meetings including Don
Browne, Phil Kane and Dane Ericksen. There were also representatives from
various companies doing business with radio stations who were permitted to
attend, but were not permitted to make any pitches for their products. Bud
Taber of Taber Engineering was one of the early ones aboard. Bill Cleary of
Pacific Bell who was in charge of toll lines in all of Northern California was
an early attendee also. Unusual, too, was the inclusion of broadcast students
and their instructor from Clayton Valley High School and from John
O’Connell Trade School and KALW, Jack Phillips became a regular.
The site chosen for the lunches in San Francisco was the Fior D’Italia
restaurant on Union Street in San Francisco. The meeting room was adjacent
to the sidewalk and featured a mural of an Italian scene painted on one wall.
The same mural now exists on the other side of the wall in the main entrance
to the Fior D’Italia. Programs were arranged by the unofficial chairman,
Howie Immekus, and were usually presentations by manufacturers of
broadcast equipment. There was also a secretary’s month when the Chiefs
were asked to have their secretaries as guests and featured speakers were air
personalities of local radio or TV stations. Thus, we were entertained by the
likes of Russ Coughlan, Jim Dunbar, Terry Lowry, Emerald Yeh, Fred
LaCosse and others. Another feature was the month managers were invited
to attend. These were the times representatives of the FCC, generally, were
invited speakers. This feature became so popular that for several years
during the ’70’s the lunches were transferred to Del Webb’s Townhouse Hotel
on 8th and Market and the speaker was usually an FCC Commissioner who
flew in from Washington, D.C. Attendance was generally high at these
meetings.
During the latter half of the sixties, several changes occurred which were
important insofar as the history of the organization was concerned. Al
Cormack of KCBS retired and Howie Immekus was chosen to be the new
Chief Engineer, Jim Lehman taking over the helm at KABL. Dick Parks
retired from KGO and was replaced by Ed Johnson who was later replaced
by Veldon Leverich. We had our first loss due to a heart attack in 1967 when
Paul Beck of KYA died. He was replaced by a temporary Chief for a year
and the following year Ron Smith became Chief at KYA. It was probably
sometime during this period that Fred Krock of KKHI, who took over the
Chief Engineering duties from Veikko West and became a regular attendee.
A bonus during the ensuing years was the yearly dinner put on by Mr. Zack
of Zack Electronics. The Chiefs were invited to various restaurants or to the
Elks Club on Sutter Street. There was usually some sort of game following
the dinner, either something to test one’s mental skills or gambling ability and
the prizes were often tools or instruments that were very handy for the
engineering types. It was an evening looked forward to each year.
At some point during our history, it bothered someone that we had no name.
Not only that, we had no typical organization, paid no dues and had no
elected leader. It was around this time that Rog Roberts of KFAX came up
with the B.A.B.E.S. for Bay Area Broadcast Engineering Society. And
because Howie was so busy with things at KCBS he didn’t have sufficient
time to handle the “chairmanship” of the BABES that Dick Parks, who by
now had joined the sales staff at Zack Electronics and served the broadcast
community, took over the helm. It was Dick who furnished the key which
stands at the speaker’s rostrum and being a “silent” key meant that anything
spoken here was not for general publication.
As is usual for such organizations, as the price of lunch and parking crept up,
it was decided that we should have our meetings elsewhere. And so it was
that we wound up at the Elegant Farmer on the corner of Bay and Powell
sometime in the 70’s. But the atmosphere was different, the room delegated
to us was crowded, and we had to serve ourselves at the salad bar; so after
about a year, Dick Parks got fed up with the situation and we moved back to
the Fior D’Italia where we remained until the end of 1992, though now an
inner room became our meeting place.
About this time, in 1975, Dick Parks felt he was under a bit too much
pressure and requested to be relieved of the duties involved in being
chairman, and so it was that John McCarthy, who by now had taken over as
Chief Engineer at KABL was given the helm. Other changes during this
period resulted from the retirement of Tom Razovich from KFRC. Bob
Kanner took over for a while but was transferred to the RKO station in Los
Angeles and Phil Lerza became Chief at KFRC. It may have been around
this time that Ray Holtz was transferred back east by Group W and Don
Lincoln took his place at KPIX and became a regular with the B.A.B.E.S.
Somewhere during this era the “Boston Mafia,” as Dick Parks dubbed them,
came in to take over at KYA. It was probably in 1978 when Ron Smith left
to move to KGO-TV. Thus we got to know Kevin Mostyn, Mark Manuelian
and Bill Bartells.
Radio broadcasting was evolving rapidly during the seventies so that FM
overtook and passed AM for the most part in the ratings race and more and
more Chiefs from FM became a part of our organization. Some of the bigger
AM stations had FM counterparts; so they had representation all along, but
the stand-alone FM stations began making a noise. Time has dimmed the
memory a bit, but one of the early regulars from FM was Bill Ruck from
KFOG. If someone wishes to expand this section, please feel free to do so.
We were not limited to having meetings solely at the Fior D’Italia. A number
of meetings were held at restaurants in Jack London Square, particularly
when the FCC presented the program. We had the pleasure of seeing the
FCC truck which was used for monitoring the performance of TV and FM
stations prior to a visit from the FCC. Once we had lunch at Francesco’s on
Hegenberger road, followed by a visit to the excellent facilities of Family
Radio Stations which was built for the most part by the staff. On another
occasion, we traveled up to the Nut Tree for lunch, followed by a tour of the
Voice of America facilities at Dixon. If memory serves me correctly, we also
had a tour down the peninsula of the Ampex plant where tapes were
manufactured.
As the years rolled by, we had special occasions to mark events that were
important to the BABES. After many years of service, Ney Landry retired as
Engineer-in-Charge of the San Francisco FCC office and was honored at a
well attended dinner at the Fairmont Hotel in January of 1981. He was
replaced by Serge Marti-Volkoff. Later in the year there was a special event
marking the 50th anniversary of Zack Electronics at which Mr. Zacharias was
honored at a dinner at the Officers Club at the Presidio. One of the highlights
of the evening was a speech by Russ Coughlan who was Master of
Ceremonies and then a presentation of a special “Memorial Zipper Award” to
the honored guest by Bill Newbrough who had taken over at KNBR after
several other changes. Representatives of various manufacturers were in
attendance and Supervisor Wendy Nelder presented a Citation on behalf of
the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco.
And so the years continued to pass until 1985 when we lost the founder of the
BABES. In the spring Howie Immekus fell victim to a heart attack while on
the job. During that year grave diggers were on strike so that there were no
services for Howie until Good Friday, April 5th at Howie’s church in
Hayward. It was well attended by the BABES as we said “Farewell” to a
person who contributed so much to the Bay Area Broadcast industry. In his
honor, a scholarship fund was set up at College of San Mateo to train future
broadcast engineers at KCSM and KCSM-TV.
In 1986 another change occurred when John McCarthy resigned from his
position as Chief Engineer at KABL, going into another field of work. He
was replaced as Chairman of the BABES by Steve Lampen who had been
Chief at KJAZ but was by this time working at Zack Electronics. Then the
following year we suffered another great loss when Dick Parks succumbed to
an aneurysm on December 7, 1987. On his way to the Chief Engineers’
luncheon the day before Thanksgiving, his car was struck by a truck running
a red light. He made it to the lunch on time and didn’t even mention he’d had
a problem. He returned to work at Zack’s, which had been purchased by
Mike La Porte the year before, for the next two days. Then on Sunday, his
wife had to take him to the hospital where he slipped into a coma from which
he did not recover. Dick was a rare individual who did much good in the
world, but hardly anyone knew about all the good things he had done.
The ’80s were also a time of many changes in the broadcast industry.
Possibly as a consequence of the advances in equipment reliability and
liberalization of license requirements, engineering staffs began to shrink. In
many cases it came down to a Chief Engineer plus one assistant, or just a
Chief Engineer who did many other tasks besides keeping the station on the
air. Eventually even Zack Electronics had to downsize and Steve Lampen
was let go in the process. Paul Black of KMEL took over as Chairman.
Lunches continued to be held at the Fior D’Italia until the end of 1992.
Another change that occurred was the inclusion of SBE members at the
lunches by combining the two meetings. Then in 1993 the lunches were
moved to the Hyatt at Fisherman’s Wharf. After a few meetings there, the
location was changed to the Cypress Club on Jackson Street with Art
Lebermann, who by now was Chief Engineer at KDFC, as Chairman.
One of the side benefits of belonging to the BABES that dates back almost to
the beginning was the meeting held each year at the NAB convention.
Arrangements were made before the NAB to have a dinner for all the
BABES members who attended the convention. Drinks were usually
furnished by Mr. Zack and Marty Jackson of Marcom. Quite frequently,
Chief Engineers who had moved on to other stations around the country
would attend to meet again with old friends. The meeting following the NAB
was quite often devoted to discussions by those who attended on new
equipment that they had seen there.
Over the years, many changes have occurred, in the industry, in the
ownership, in the listening audience and in the faces one sees at the meetings.
With a new century looming ahead and new technologies coming out of the
laboratories, what the broadcasting industry will look like in the years to
come is anyone’s guess. With digital technology and fiber optics, we have
some clues. But one thing is certain, those who continue to attend the
BABES meetings will be on the forefront of the industry. Those who
continue these meetings will not be those who were there in the beginning,
but let this serve as an historical reminder of the past and those who had the
vision to bring the engineering technology to its present state and the
foresight to see the benefits of our working together instead of separately as
is the case in most other locations. The BABES is a unique organization.
Let us work to keep it alive and well far into the future.
Updated BABES History Addendum by Dane Ericksen, P.E., SBE Chapter 40
Secretary
The first joint meeting of BABES and SBE Chapter 40, San Francisco,
occurred on November 25, 1987, at the regular Fior d’Italia venue. The
presenter was Paul Schatz of General Electric, and the subject was Identifying
and Managing PCBs in Broadcast Equipment. This combined meeting
proved so popular that a second joint meeting was held on June 29, 1988,
again at the Fior D’Italia restaurant. The presenter was Robert Weller, P.E.,
of the FCC. A third joint BABES/SBE 40 meeting was held on March 29,
1989. The presenter was Kent Crawford, the newly appointed FCC Regional
Director. Beginning in September 1989 the monthly BABES and SBE
Chapter 40 meetings were combined, since the target audiences were so
similar. The presenter was Dane Ericksen, P.E., of Hammett & Edison, Inc.,
and the subject was changes to the FCC EBS rules.
In January 1994 the monthly meeting location was moved to Sinbad’s
Restaurant, at Pier 2 on the San Francisco Embarcadero. The meetings
continue to be luncheon meetings on the last Wednesday of each month,
except for December, when no meeting is held.
The last BABES/SBE40 meeting held at Sinbad’s Restaurant was on
Monday, November 23, 2015. Check out the video of this lunch on the
Memorable Lunches page on this website. It was the restaurant’s last day
and thus the reason for the two-day move up of the regular monthly meeting
date; the building has now been demolished, replaced by a new ferry terminal.
Beginning in January 2016 BABES/SBE40 began meeting at Delancey Street
Restaurant, 600 The Embarcadero (at Brannan Street) in San Francisco. Still
a lunch venue, on the last Wednesday of each month (except December), and
valet and street (metered) parking are available. The meetings are open to all
interested parties, not just SBE members, but RSVPs are requested. Go the
Future Lunches page for more information