Caryn Mathes, GM of KUOW in Seattle, will retire next year, she said in a LinkedIn post.
Mathes said she will stay in her current role through January 2025.
“There’s joy in leadership and I have enjoyed my career immensely,” she wrote. “And while the work in media still excites and energizes me, I have accomplished what I was hired to do. I want a chance at a different type of life while I still have my health and my wits about me!”
Mathes has led public broadcasting stations for decades. She joined KUOW in 2014 after leading WAMU in Washington, D.C., for eight years. She also led WDET-FM in Detroit for 20 years.
Mathes has also served on NPR’s board of directors.
“Now is a perfect time to step away,” she wrote. “I have assembled a stellar executive leadership team; we have a strong, creative, and productive assembly of individual contributors on staff; and we have the support and guidance of a knowledgeable, dedicated, and hardworking board with a process for perpetuating board excellence.”
The station’s board has assembled a search committee led by its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion chair, Ian Warner. The board has also hired executive recruiting firm Campbell & Company to assist with the search, she wrote.