MSU alumnus and retiring radio executive reflects on influential 47-year career

MSU Today with Russ White

Schram is retiring as executive director and general manager of Michigan Radio after an influential 47-year career in Michigan’s radio industry.

Schram reflects on his rewarding career and describes how he fell in love with radio as a 10-year-old boy thanks to listening to Top 40 radio while visiting a cousin in New Jersey in 1963. And Steve tells of a wonderful circle of life moment about when he got the chance to tour his favorite radio station – WKNR Keener 13 – as a young boy. On the tour, Steve met the WKNR station manager, who asked Steve what he thought he might want to do in the radio business. Steve replied that “Someday I’d like to sit in your chair.

“And here’s the magic behind that. Twenty-seven years later, I became the general manager of WNIC, the successor station to WKNR. In that same building, that same office became my office, and it was the exact same desk that I sat behind.”

Schram talks about challenges and opportunities facing the constantly evolving radio industry. He describes the generational differences in how people consume media. And he talks about why he chose to attend college at MSU and how that experience impacted him. And he shares his advice for today’s Spartans studying communications.

MSU Today airs Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 5 a.m. on WKAR News/Talk and Sundays at 8 p.m. on 760 WJR. Find “MSU Today with Russ White” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your shows.