by Amena Anderson

The personnel structure of CU radio is being changed from an independent way of doing business to more of a cohesive unit in order to improve efficiency and stewardship, said Lee Geysbeek.

Geysbeek is senior vice president for Cornerstone radio and vice president for broadcasting.

In the past, CU’s four radio ministries —WCSG, WaYfm, His Kids and Mission Network News — each had a separate team of management and workers who focused only on the responsibilities relating to their ministry.

For example, WaYfm’s team only focused on public relations for WaYfm, and His Kids’ team only focused on public relations for His Kids. But with the new structure, one person oversees one aspect of management for all four ministries with the assistance of a team of people.

Geysbeek said he announced the changes at the end of last summer and right now they are at “various stages of emerging.”

The new structure includes Chris Lemke taking on the additional role of network program director for CU radio in addition to his role as general manager and program director of WCSG.

Rich Anderson is the donor relations director as well as remaining WaYfm’s general manager and Greg Yoder is the network news director for CU radio as well as executive director of Mission Network News.

Patty Riva’s role has expanded to public relations director for CU radio instead of only the director of promotions for WCSG and Lee Hageman is the customer service coordinator and will lead a team who will serve the listeners of all four stations.

Tom Bosscher is chief engineer for CU Radio and Dodd Morris is the new media coordinator as well as being director of His Kids Radio. Topher DeRosia is the Webmaster for CU radio and Lori Nelson is the facilities supervisor for CU radio as well as the administrative assistant to Geysbeek and the vice president of CU radio Advancement.

Geysbeek said the radio’s way of doing business is to “move from vertical to horizontal.” Instead of everyone working separately, everyone will be connected.

“We have a wonderful group of people who are gifted and talented,” he said. “It’s really leveraging all of that together. We are going to bring all of that talent and we are going to pool it together”

Geysbeek said that because “many of them have the same activities and support structures,” the merging together of members will allow the ministries to become better stewards of their resources and avoid “duplicating efforts and activities,” by assigning the same responsibilities to multiple personnel.

“We want to be a family of ministries serving the whole family,” Geysbeek said.

Part of becoming a whole family, though, includes the closing of WaYfm’s Kalamazoo office and moving its workers to Grand Rapids. The Herald recently reported that the closing was the result of budget cuts and effects of the economy. WaYfm will lose two part-time employees and save approximately $25,000 a year.

Lemke said that the restructuring of responsibilities within CU radio was not the result of budgeting or the economy, but instead the motive was efficiency and stewardship.

Lemke said his additional role as network program director broadens his responsibilities from working only with WCSG to encompassing all the other stations.

“This includes overseeing all on-air programming for WCSG, WaYfm, His Kids and Mission Network News and its personnel serving in an on-air capacity,” Lemke said in an e-mail.

“I’ll also be intricately involved in the development and finalization of all promotions and events tied to WCSG and WaYfm as these activities are directly tied to impacting the on-air sound.”

Lemke said in the past he worked exclusively with WCSG, but often shared ideas with WaYfm personnel.

But now with the changes, “It will involve working more intimately with the radio leadership team directors Dodd Morris of His Kids, Greg Yoder of Mission Network News and Rich Anderson, general manager of WaYfm,” he said.

Geysbeek said one of the biggest obstacles within the new changes will be balancing all four stations at once.

It’s about “trying to find the balance in keeping the ministry focused on their particular mission and the collective mission,” Geysbeek said.

Greg Yoder agrees that balance is the key. His additional role as network news director along with being executive director of Mission Network News includes leading all the news departments for each station.

“Focus will be the biggest challenge. It’s hard for me to take off my MNN hat and put on my WCSG hat and vice-versa,” Yoder said in an e-mail. “Time management will also be a challenge.”

But Yoder said that his team of four — Becky Carlson, Joel Hill, Ruth Blis-Kramer and Sharon Felten — are already well organized.

“However under the new structure, we’ll be able to help each other more effectively,” Yoder said.

Geysbeek said another challenge will be letting go of the old way of doing business. He said some of the CU radio personnel have been there for more than 15 years and have 15 years of experience doing everything a certain way.

“Whenever any one goes through changes it’s very taxing, it’s very difficult, it’s not easy,” he said.” I feel like we’re getting our second leg on the ground now.”