Radio Free Brooklyn Management Team
STATION DIRECTOR
Shane Gasteyer
Shane is a union organizer, musicians’ rights activist, and crazy cat gentleman, as well as the writer and co-host of NYC’s best (and only) regular Music Trivia night. He is also the host of Everybody Plays the Fool, a weekly music show on Radio Free Brooklyn.
TECH DIRECTOR
Calvin Williams
Calvin Williams, a native of Brooklyn, is part music geek, part tech geek, part oddball creative. By day, Calvin is an IT and VoIP Professional, and by night, he's on the pursuit of finding the right sound through audio editing, music production, and DJing. Calvin can be heard on the Radio Free Brooklyn airwaves as host of the music show Lush Vibes Radio.
MUSIC DIRECTOR
Rachel Cleary
Rachel is a Brooklyn native who has been involved with Radio Free Brooklyn since 2015. She has appeared in and co-produced several independent films, and her story was the subject of a one-act play titled Marathon Play, which was featured in the Prelude Theater Festival in 2014. She was also a staff reporter for The Shadow Press. Rachel produces and hosts Hear and Now with Rachel C.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Rina Kofman
As a Russian immigrant who grew up in Queens, Rina became an avid radio listener & record hound at a young age. While years of piano lessons proved utterly futile, she channeled her early musical obsessions into freeform radio, working at KRCC in Colorado Springs, WFDU in Teaneck, NJ and here at RFB. Her show, Aural Medication, brings together her diverse musical interests into a cohesive blend.
COMMUNITY/SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR
Jonathan B. Lerner
Jonathan joined RFB in 2016, hosting The Next Best Thing, every Monday night. He served as producer and host of The Bloomington Morning Buzz on 99.1FM WIUX and now works as an Account Manager for Spotify’s Ad Analytics team. Before that, he worked as a Digital Project Manager, and eventually the Senior Director of Podcast Operations for Cadence13, an Audacy company. Jonathan is a singer, news junkie, observational comic, and huge fan of the Kansas City Royals and Chiefs!
EVENTS/OPERATIONS DIRECTOR
Sam Wolff
Sam is a professional musician, storyteller and comedian. Sam has toured all over the country as the drummer for Kudu Stooge. During his free time he produces comedy shows across NYC while currently working at SiriusXM in Sales Operations. You can listen to Sam every Saturday on his show Ensnared.
Radio Free Brooklyn Board of Directors
CO-FOUNDER
Tom Tenney
Tom is a co-founder of RFB and was the founder and Director of the annual RE/Mixed Media Festival in NYC. He got his M.A. in Media Studies from the New School and his B.F.A. (Bachelor of Fun Arts) from Ringling Brothers Clown College. He has been a guest lecturer at the School of Visual Arts and a Media Studies professor at Hofstra University and New Jersey City University.
CO-FOUNDER
Robert Prichard
Before RFB, Rob was the co-founder and proprietor of Surf Reality’s House of Urban Savages on the Lower East Side. He has produced several theatrical productions including Radical Vaudeville, and 64: A Vaudeville of the Mind at the HERE Art Space. He’s known for his work in the 1980s TROMA cult films The Toxic Avenger and The Class of Nuke ‘Em High. Rob is the producer and host of Bushwick Garage.
TREASURER
Asha Saluja
Asha is a business operations specialist residing in Brooklyn. She’s worked in finance and operations roles at various NYC media companies, and is currently a senior analyst on the business operations team at Pandora Radio. Asha’s professional goal is keeping art and journalism free, fair, and accessible. She has a B.A. in economics from NYU with a minor in Media, Culture, and Communications.
NEWS & INFORMATION
Orie Givens
Orie Givens manages content partnerships for Spectrum News in the Midwest. A multimedia reporter at heart, he has told stories for local, national and international audiences focused on social issues, race, politics and small business. Orie has a B.A. in linguistics from The Ohio State University and a M.A. in journalism from Newmark School of Journalism at CUNY.
VICE PRESIDENT
Phil Buehler
Phil is a visual artist and a strategist in advertising and media, having held senior management positions at several agencies, including Young and Rubicam and Ogilvy & Mather, and now runs Data Dialog, a boutique consulting firm. As a photographer, his work has been widely exhibited at galleries and museums. He lives in Bushwick with his wife, visual artist and performer Lisa Levy.
DEVELOPMENT
Cara Bowler
Cara is a marketing and fundraising professional with over 20 years experience and a passion for enriching the lives of New York City dwellers through the arts. She was the Membership Director at WFUV Public Radio for 12 years, and previously the membership marketing manager at the National Audubon Society. Her focus has now on serving communities in need of a voice. Cara lives in Brooklyn with her cat Willow.
SR MUSIC ADVISOR
Bob Holmes
Bob is an international recording artist and the CEO of Sudden Industries, an award-winning digital agency with a focus on creating engaging digital entertainment across all aspects of the youth market, working with artists including the Elvis Presley estate, P. Diddy, Foo Fighters, MTV, VH1, and Fuse. As a musical artist and producer, he founded and led the pioneering punk country band Rubber Rodeo, and has produced for a diverse range of artists including David Bowie, k.d. lang, Nils Lofgren, and Treat Her Right.
DIGITAL STRATEGY
Betsy Finston
Betsy is a Marketing Strategist at Publicis New York. She works on a variety of brands including Citibank, Smucker’s, Milk Bone and Oral B. She has over 20 years’ Digital Marketing experience helping corporations such as Columbia University Medical Center, Herman Miller, Sheraton, Oxygen Media and Zee TV using digital media and data to increase visibility, generate leads and drive new business.