After less than two years at the helm, WMNF’s Rick Fernandes is stepping down as general manager of the nearly 42-year-old nonprofit community radio station.
Fernandes, who's taking a position at a "major national media organization" informed staff of his decision to leave on Thursday morning. The station said his last day is Sept. 10; Finance and Administration Director Cindy Reichard will act as interim GM while a search for a new GM is conducted.
Fernandes—a multiple Daytime Emmy winner—departs two years after WMNF 88.5-FM’s last GM Craig Kopp resigned amid controversy surrounding Kopp’s February 2019 firing of the station’s co-founder and news director Rob Lorei. Lorei won his job back after filing a grievance, but was fired again by Fernandes this spring.
Lorei did not fight to get his job back after the second firing, but in recent weeks, WMNF and its former news director have again found themselves at odds over the reason for his termination.
The backlash from Lorei’s firing and recent programming changes at WMNF have been a sore spot for listeners, some of whom demonstrated outside the station this month.
When he resigned, Kopp described his situation at WMNF as “unworkable.”
Not counting interim GMs or station managers Cindy Reichard and Mercedes Skelton, CL counts Fernandes—who was hired in October 2019—as WMNF's 7th GM in 23 years.
Before Kopp, WMNF was run by Sydney White (2012-2014, fired) and Jim Bennett (2009-2011, resigned). Bennett notably took over after Vicki Santa—arguably WMNF's most beloved station manager, and appointed from within the station—passed away in 2008 after serving in the role for 8 years. Jean Palmquist, who was GM before Santa, resigned after one year, citing personal reasons. Before Palmquist, Richard Eiswerth led the station for just two years (1996-1998) according to his LinkedIn profile.
Over the weekend after the Fernandes resignation news broke, another past WMNF station manager, Greg Musselman, reached out to say he held a leadership position from 1990-1995. Lisa McCormack filled the role before Musselman.
“Working at WMNF has been a pleasure and an honor,” Fernandes wrote in a release. “The organization is wholly devoted to serving its region through great journalism and volunteer-driven content, and I’m proud to have played a part in what everyone on this team has accomplished to ensure WMNF remains a pillar of the community for many years to come.”
The press release added that "Fernandes created an endowment of more than $130,000, invested in a state-of-the-art podcasting studio" during his time at WMNF.
In an email to CL on Aug. 25, WMNF Board President Will Greaves said the first step in the GM search is to send surveys to Board staff radioactivists (WMNF supporters) and general listers to gauge how the community's priorities have changed since the last search.
"We are also trying to finalize the search committee, made up of members from all the different parts of our community. We hope to have all that created/digested and have the job posting up within the month," Greaves added. "While I have heard from a couple people the internal candidate thing, I can't tell you at this point the plan until we get all that survey feedback."
Greaves also added that Fernandes refused to increase his own salary during his short time at WMNF, citing a desire to see other staffers get a small bump during COVID.
UPDATED 08/25/21 11:20 a.m. Updated with comment from WMNF board president and past station manager Greg Musselman.
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This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2021.