Onion River Community Access Media (ORCA), Central Vermont’s largest Community Cable Television and Media center providing local, national and international news, entertainment and in depth political coverage, has recently undergone a restructuring of staff to better serve the individual interests and highlight the strength of their employees to better serve the 13, 300+ households in their thirteen town “catchment”area.
At the start of the New Year, then Executive Director, Kenric Kite expressed a desire to trim his more than forty hours a week workload and focus more on the production and program development side of the operation. Mr. Kite has had an over twenty-year association with Community Cable television operations in central Vermont, beginning as a production assistant with the Adelphi network and assuming the directorship of ORCA throughout the transition to the Comcast network till the present time.
A significant part of his responsibilities as Executive Director was devoted to programming and production, and under his watch, ORCA’s offerings on cable channels 15-16 & 17 grew exponentially and consumed the majority of his time and interest. Consequently, Mr. Kite approached ORCA’s Board of Directors with the idea of creating a position titled Chief of Production which would be responsible for creating new programming, recording, editing and airing onsite coverage of everything from comprehensive Statehouse coverage to local council and selectboard meetings, to producing in studio and external community arts, education and athletic events. He would also be responsible for providing in house training to members of ORCA’s communities for the purpose of recording and editing footage of important events as well as assigning appropriate videographers and production staff form ORCA’s stable of part time contract personnel. Finally he will provide programs of general interest to outlets throughout Vermont through the Vermont Media Exchange network.
This idea was warmly embraced by ORCA’s Board of Directors at their March meeting, thus beginning the discussion of where to find the best person to fill the administrative responsibilities of the Executive Director’s position. They found this to be an easy task, as they had the solution already at hand in the personage of ORCA Office manager, Joanne Crowley-Watkins.
Ms. Crowley-Watkins has been an employee of ORCA Media for over three and a half years, beginning her tenure soon after her and her family’s arrival in Montpelier. She was he first designated Front Office/Office manager ORCA had, the position was literally created for her and quickly grew. Her designated responsibilities came to include creating and maintaining a schedule for full and part time staff assignments, the use of ORCA’s studio space, tracking the flow of ORCA’s video equipment to and from community members and house videographers, payroll computation and submission, tracking accounts payable and receivable and be the “face” o ORCA to the general public. In light of that comprehensive administrative experience, the ORCA Board of Directors unanimously offered Ms. Crowley-Watkins the position of Executive Director.
In this new role, Ms Crowley-Watkins will continue the above duties as well as taking on a direct involvement with preparing the annual budget, contract negotiations with Comcast Cable, personnel and HR management and creating new and effective initiatives to raise ORCA media’s profile in their respective service communities.
Finally, with the retention of Senior Engineer Madhavan S. Nair, whose expertise was highly commended by the Board members, ORCA Media is poised to further refine and expand their excellent services to the viewers in Berlin, Bethel, Braintree, Calais, Duxbury, East Montpelier, Middlesex, Montpelier, Moretown, Randolph, Rochester, Waterbury and Worcester.
