John Martin  Biography
WAMT    WUCF-FM    WDBO-AM    WBJW-FM    WWLD    WKIS    WWNZ

John fills us in on his time in Central Florida Radio.
My radio career took quite a few twists and turns over the years. I began my professional career as a weekend jock at WAMT-AM 1060 in Titusville in the summer of 1981. During the week, I was working at WUCF-FM 89.9 (originally called "Stereo 90", then "89.9 FM") while I was a student at UCF. Six months after I started at WAMT, the format changed to easy listening, and I left, not only because I wasn’t really in to that format as a young 19 year old kid, but also because I wasn’t in to the commute from Orlando each weekend, either. 
In the spring of 1982, I was hired as a weekend producer at WDBO-AM 580, producing the Pat Flannagan show on Saturday nights. I left there a year later, in early ’83, to work weekend overnights at BJ105, WBJW-FM 105.1 in Orlando . I worked at BJ until the end of college in December 1984. From that point, I left BJ to go back to WDBO in early ‘85 managing the 
WDBO Starship, the station’s mobile broadcast studio. It was definitely not the job I wanted at the time, but anything to get my foot in the door. I left WDBO three months later to head back to BJ as a full time jock (mostly overnights). It was during this time I worked with Terry Ross and Bob Benjamin (Robert Peterson), both of whom I worked with at WUCF. Bob went on to manage WMFE-FM 90.7 following college. I also worked for a time with Darrell Hammond, of Saturday Night Live fame, who co-hosted the morning show during this time. 
I was kind of a restless kid during these years, and left BJ nine months later in late ’85 to work at WWLD-AM 1190, which had recently launched a format aimed at Central Florida tourists. One of the station’s founders was Walter Windsor, the former GM at WFTV. The station went belly up just five months later, in April 1986, and I was hired not long after as a news writer at WKIS-AM 740. I thought my transition into news would be a short-lived one at the time. However, I wound up working my way up to reporter, producer, and afternoon anchor over a 5-year period from Susquehanna through Guy Gannett ownership and a call change to WWNZ-AM 740. For a few years during my career there, I produced the morning news with Wayne Trout and Lynn Levine.
In 1991, I was let go in a station mass exodus. During this time, I was working part-time in television news, which is where I would continue until Wayne Trout hired me to help produce the morning news in 1992 at the revamped (and newly Paxson-purchased) WWNZ. I worked there until the end of 1993, when I decided that my career should be on the television side.
I worked in TV news for the next nine years before transitioning completely out of broadcasting. Today, I manage corporate communications for CuraScript, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical distributor and subsidiary of Express Scripts.

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