The Beasley Media Group family is celebrating the life of our dear friend and team member Bob McCurdy who recently passed after a courageous and long battle with cancer.
Bob’s thoughtful insight, professional wisdom and unlimited dedication were instrumental in our company’s success upon him joining BMG back in June of 2016.
He was a trusted confidant, a valued advisor and an incredible ambassador on behalf of Beasley Media Group and the radio industry. His love and passion for the business could be seen and heard in everything he did within our company as well the weekly columns he wrote for Radio Ink magazine.
Bob will be greatly missed and will be forever remembered as a beloved member of the Beasley Media Group family.
Our thoughts and prayers are with Bob’s wife Sydney, his daughters Meagan and Ashley, his sons Michael and Sean, his stepchildren Margaret, Charlie and Will Emerson and his seven grandchildren.
Radio was Bob’s second choice career: Bob was an All-American basketball player and the leading scorer in the nation while playing for the University of Richmond in 1975. He was drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks and anticipated a long NBA career. When injuries curtailed his pursuit of that dream he set his sights upon another.
He started at WLEE AM in Richmond in 1976, then followed his early mentor and General Manager, John Piccirillo, to Indianapolis shortly thereafter. That’s where Bob became a huge proponent of leveraging data and the latest sales tools.
In 1980, his thirst for knowledge and growth led Bob to an opportunity in Chicago on the national side of the business with Katz Radio. After just a few years as an Account Executive, he was promoted to run the Minneapolis office. Just a few years after that he was brought back home to NY to run the largest office in the company.
Bob completely reimagined and reinvented the role of a national rep while leading the Katz Radio New York office. He took the risk of parting ways with some highly tenured staffers and replacing them with less experienced people he could mentor and mold into his vision. The risk paid off and Katz soon took over the #1 billing position in the industry. Bob quickly became General Sales Manager and his philosophy and work ethic spread across the entire company. It was no surprise that in 1990 he became President of Katz Radio.
Bob went on to lead numerous divisions of the company throughout his tenure and formed a deep bond with former Katz CEO Stu Olds. Bob gave much credit to Stu for helping him to develop other aspects of his skill set and was crushed when Stu passed away suddenly in 2010.
In recent years Bob returned to his roots in local radio taking on a leadership position with Beasley Media Group. He loved to teach and impact others, and the role with Beasley gave him a great platform from which to do so.
Bob was a tremendous influence on many in the industry. His competitive drive, his thirst for knowledge, his discipline and his work ethic impacted everyone who had a chance to work with him.
Bob recently completed a book about leadership, culture and sales. In it he writes, “It has often been said that one can never tell where a teacher’s influence ends. The same is true with leaders. As leaders, we are teachers and as with teachers you can never tell where an effective leader’s influence ends. That makes for an amazing legacy.”
Bob leaves behind an amazing legacy.
