Moving on: YPR Pres. LaFontaine Oliver on public radio, community

Tom's guest today is LaFontaine Oliver, the current president and CEO of Your Public Radio. His achievements here in Baltimore over the past three years are significant. Since his appointment in 2019 as general manager of WYPR, he has merged this station with Towson-based public music station WTMD and engineered a unique partnership between WYPR and the online news organization, the Baltimore Banner. Those two initiatives have irrevocably changed the media landscape of this community. LaFontaine also served for six years on the Board of Directors at National Public Radio, including two terms as board chair. In his work both nationally and here at our stations, LaFontaine has raised up diversity and equity as central, animating operating tenets. As one of the few African Americans in senior leadership positions in the NPR system, he has served as a model and a mentor to public media professionals of color across the country. Before he became the president and general manager of WYPR, he led WMFE in Orlando, Florida for six years. Prior to that, he was the general manager of WEAA at Morgan State University here in Baltimore. Next month, LaFontaine Oliver will take the helm at New York Public Radio, the nation's largest public radio organization. LaFontaine Oliver joins Tom today in Studio A for a kind of exit interview, to reflect on his tenure, and to look ahead to where public media is headed in the future.Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.