New President And General Manager Caryn Mathes Arrives At KUOW

KUOW Public Radio welcomes a new president and general manager, Caryn G. Mathes, currently wrapping up her first month in the position which she assumed full time on January 2, 2014.

Mathes comes to KUOW from Washington, D.C., where she had been the general manager of public radio station WAMU since 2005. Mathes takes over as general manager of KUOW from Wayne C. Roth, who held the position for 30 years before retiring in September last year.

“Caryn is a dynamic leader and will guide the station to be an even greater resource for our community,” said Joan Enticknap, who heads the Puget Sound Public Radio board of directors. “She will raise its sights and grow its impact, and we will all be the better for it. The board of PSPR is very excited about her joining the station.”

Prior to WAMU, Mathes was general manager of WDET in Detroit from 1984 to 2005 and also served as assistant vice president of university communications at Wayne State University from 1989 to 1991.

“I am driven by and thrive on building public media organizations; the future of civil society depends on the foundation of a well-informed population capable of nuanced thought,” Mathes says. “KUOW is poised to be a leader in public media’s ‘next chapters’ on audience, content and technology, and I know we will do great things in this regard.”

Mathes was elected by public radio managers nationwide to a three-year term as a member director of NPR and also serves on the board of the University Station Alliance. She has received numerous awards, including the 2013 Washington Business Journal “Women Who Mean Business” award. She received the Woman of Distinction Award in 2007 from the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders and was named among the “Ones to Watch” in 2010 by Radio Ink magazine.

Mathes holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Indiana State University. She began her career as co-anchor at CBS affiliate WTHI-TV Channel 10 in Terre Haute, Ind., at the age of 19. She worked in commercial radio in reporter and anchor positions at WCKY-AM in Cincinnati and Detroit’s WJR-AM before making the switch to noncommercial radio in 1982.

For more information, please see our press page.