CPB Board Re-Elects Cahill as Board Chair and Sembler as Vice Chair

For Immediate Release on September 18, 2013

Washington, D.C. (September 18, 2013) — The board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) unanimously re-elected Patricia Cahill to serve as chair and Elizabeth Sembler to serve as vice chair. These are each one-year terms.

Patricia Cahill was appointed to the CPB board by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate in August 2009. Ms. Cahill currently serves as an assistant professor of Communications Studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Before retiring in 2011, Cahill enjoyed a 40 year career in public radio, working as a reporter, producer, program director, news director and general manager first at KMUW-FM at Wichita State University, and then as general manager of KCUR-FM, the public radio station at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Ms. Cahill has served on the board of directors for NPR and as the chair of the Distribution/Interconnection Committee, the Membership Committee and the Development Committee. She was also the president of Public Radio in Mid America, a public radio membership organization. Cahill earned a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Kansas.

Elizabeth Sembler was appointed to the CPB board by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate in October 2008. Ms. Sembler served as both the director of engagement at Congregation B'nai Israel in St. Petersburg, Florida, and the director of Kesher, a Jewish afterschool program for students at the Ben Gamla Hebrew Language charter school in Clearwater, Florida.

Sembler has served on the board of WEDU-TV since 1993 and was the chair of its board from 2001-2003. In 2006, she joined the board of the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS), a nonprofit group that supports the continued growth and development of a strong and financially sound noncommercial television service. Ms. Sembler began her career as a staff writer for the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) after earning her bachelor's degree in newspaper journalism and political science from Syracuse University.

About CPB

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress in 1967, is the steward of the federal government's investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,400 locally-owned and -operated public television and radio stations nationwide, and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television and related online services.

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