The NPR board’s membership and governance committee nominated six station managers as candidates for three member-director board seats that will open this fall.
Five candidates are seeking their first term on the board. They include: Paul Maassen, g.m. of WWNO in New Orleans; LaFontaine Oliver, g.m. of WMFE in Orlando, Fla.; Jeff Ramirez, v.p. of radio, KERA in Dallas; Joyce Slocum, c.e.o. of Texas Public Radio in San Antonio; and Jo Anne Wallace, v.p. of radio, KQED in San Francisco.
Roger LaMay, g.m. of WXPN in Philadelphia, is the only incumbent candidate running for a second term. Two member-directors who will leave the board this fall, Betsy Gardella of New Hampshire Public Radio and Greg Petrowich of WSIU in Carbondale, Ill., are completing their second terms.
Other station managers may petition to run as member-director candidates by collecting signatures from 15 authorized representatives of NPR — managers who vote on behalf of their station in decisions that NPR puts to its membership. The deadline for petitioners to put their names on the ballot is June 27.
NPR’s online voting process opens July 13 and ends Aug. 13. The three-year term for the new members begins November 2015.
One of the board’s public members, lawyer Patricia Diaz Dennis, recently resigned from the board for personal reasons. Her term expires in November 2017. NPR has not filled the vacancy for the remainder of her term.