Working from a strategic plan, there are 3 people overseeing the operations of WQED. In addition to President & CEO George L. Miles, Jr., there is an Executive Vice President & General Manager and a Vice President of Business Affairs. Reporting to the Executive Vice President are also a Vice President for Development and Membership; one for Education; one for Production; one for Legal and Human Services; as well as one for Publishing. This streamlined management team is working to integrate the individual WQED media, and concentrate the corporate focus on local service, with an eye toward global distribution. The WQED Board is involved fully in operations, and the Community Advisory Board is functioning to help us keep contact with the needs of this region.
George Miles
President and Chief Executive Officer, WQED Multimedia
George L. Miles, Jr. is President and CEO of WQED Multimedia, the Emmy Award-winning public broadcaster for southwestern Pennsylvania. WQED Multimedia is the parent company of WQED tv13 (PBS), WQEX tv16 , WQED fm89.3, WQEJ fm89.7/Johnstown, a publishing division that includes PITTSBURGH magazine, local and national television and radio productions, www.wqed.org and the WQED Education and Community Resource Center.
Mr. Miles arrived in Pittsburgh in September 1994 as President and CEO of what was then called QED Communications, and he assembled a new management team to reorganize the company and to reconnect with the community. He restructured the organization to be more flexible in the changing telecommunications market, and later he consolidated separate entities into a seamless multimedia enterprise to take advantage of cross-functional disciplines.
WQED Multimedia's five decades of excellence in television production includes local and national productions, like The War That Made America, as well as national PBS programs like Doo Wop 50, the most successful fund raising special in PBS history; Doo Wop 51, Rock, Rhythm and Doo Wop; and Rhythm and Blues 40, Love, Rhythm & Soul, Timeless Music and This Land is Our Land, which are all part of WQED's American Soundtrack Series.
WQED is also the home of Rick Sebak's All-American Documentaries like A Cemetery Special; Unusual Buildings and Other Roadside Stuff; Sandwiches That You Will Like; A Flea Market Documentary; A Hot Dog Program; Great Old Amusement Parks; An Ice Cream Show; and Shore Things. WQED's America's Home Cooking series features WQED's Chris Fennimore sharing recipes on a cooking show with viewers around the country.
The centerpiece of WQED's local programming is On Q Magazine, an Emmy Award-winning daily news and public affairs program, which premiered in January 2000. Other local productions include Black Horizons, QED Cooks, Live From Studio A, and Dave and Dave's Excellent Adventures.
WQED pioneered the concept of the local history special and now counts 24 episodes in The Pittsburgh History Series and Pittsburgh Home Video collection.
From 1984 to 1994, Mr. Miles was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of WNET/Thirteen in New York, where he was directly responsible for day-to-
day operations of the PBS flagship station. Prior to his WNET assignment, he was Business Manager and Controller of KDKA-TV and KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh; Controller and Station Manager of WPCQ in Charlotte; Vice President and Controller of Westinghouse Broadcasting Television Group in New York; and Station Manager of WBZ-TV in Boston.
Mr. Miles' experience also includes work as a contract auditor for the U.S. Department of Defense. From 1964 to 1966 he was in the U.S. Army, serving six months in Vietnam. In 1969, Mr. Miles joined the accounting firm of Touche Ross & Co., serving as manager until 1978.
Mr. Miles, a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), earned a B.A. in accounting from Seton Hall University, and an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. In 2002, he received an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Business Administration from Robert Morris University. In 1989 he received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from St. Joseph's College, and he was honored with the Pinnacle Award for outstanding achievement as an alumnus from Fairleigh Dickinson University. In 2006, he was named one of the "Fifty Most Influential African Americans" by The New Pittsburgh Courier, one of the country's oldest and most prestigious African American newspapers.
He sits on the Board of Directors of American International Group, Inc. (AIG); Harley-Davidson, Inc.; WESCO International, Inc.; Equitable Resources, Inc.; HFF,Inc.; Chester Engineers, Inc.; University of Pittsburgh; Allegheny Conference on Community Development; UPMC Health System; and is on the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Board of Advisors. He is a Director of the Mt. Ararat Community Activity Center's Executive Board.
He is the former Chairman of the Association for America's Public Television Stations (APTS), former Co-Chair of Mentoring Partnership of Southwestern Pennsylvania and a former Chair of the Urban League of Pittsburgh, Inc.
DebORAH L. Acklin
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER,
WQED MULTIMEDIA
Deborah L. Acklin is Executive Vice President and General Manager for the Emmy-Award-winning WQED Multimedia. She is responsible for day-to-day operations of the organization, including WQED-TV, WQEX-TV, WQED-FM, PITTSBURGH magazine, an education center, and wqed.org. She recently served as executive producer for "The War That Made America," a four-hour, high-definition (HD), nationally-released docu-drama for PBS, which focused on the French and Indian War. In September of 2007, Ms. Acklin received the Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Station Excellence, given by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences to a television station for outstanding programming, commitment to broadcast excellence, and exemplary operations in Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, and New Jersey. It is the second year in a row that she has received this prestigious Emmy award.
In Western Pennsylvania, Ms. Acklin is only the second woman in broadcast history to serve as general manager of a television station/multimedia operation.
Ms. Acklin returned to WQED in 2002 to serve as Senior Vice President of Production and Technology and Chief Content Officer after spending several years at the National Geographic Channel where she was recruited to help launch the cable television startup. Working from the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington DC, she helped lead a team that conceived, developed and produced "National Geographic Today," a daily television journal about life on "planet earth." In her role at National Geographic, Acklin produced more television hours than any other producer in the Society's long history.
As Executive Producer at WQED Pittsburgh from 1996-2000, Ms. Acklin developed blockbuster music specials for PBS which generated more than 45 million dollars for public television and still hold the record as the most successful fundraising programs to date. She also oversaw national documentaries for PBS, and created WQED's nightly television magazine program, "On Q Magazine".
The Pittsburgh native's work has been honored with many awards including: a national Emmy award nomination; seven Emmy awards (Mid-Atlantic); a CINE Golden Eagle; White House Press Association honors; The Gabriel award, the Pearl award, the Pennsylvania TV/Film award from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR); Associated Press honors for Best Newscast; Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters awards for Excellence in Broadcasting; and the personal honors of being named one of Pittsburgh's Outstanding Women in Science by the Women & Girls' Foundation, and one of the region's 40 Under 40, by PITTSBURGH magazine.
Ms. Acklin is active in the Pittsburgh community on a variety of boards and committees including: Chair of The Three Rivers Arts Festival; The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium; Carlow University, The Carnegie Museum of Art; The Pennsylvania Film Institute, The Steeltown Entertainment Project, St. Vincent Seminary and The Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Society.
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