Founder, President and CEO
Biography
Jim was born in San Antonio, Texas but grew up on the border of Virginia and West Virginia in the city of Bluefield. He began his broadcasting career at the age of 3 on his grandmother’s TV show, Kiddie Kapers which aired on WHIS-TV channel 6.
Jim took an early interest in electricity and electronics, building a complete radio station, including a 50 watt transmitter, for a ninth grade science fair and winning first place in the school.
Jim started working part-time at WHIS radio while in high school. Within a year, Jim was a popular on-air announcer for the station.
Jim earned degrees in electrical engineering technology from Bluefield State College and business administration from Marshall University in Huntington, WV. At Marshall, he was named the student manager of WMUL, the radio station on campus. One thing he did was institute 11 hours of Christian music on the weekends.
After graduation, Jim worked primarily in secular radio. In 1981, he and two associates formed a company called Texar, based out of Pittsburgh, PA that manufactured cutting edge audio processors for major market broadcasting.
In 1986, Jim sold his interest in Texar and moved to Florida. While working for a radio station near Orlando, he got inspired to bring contemporary Christian music to the region and was able to find a non-commercial allocation for that purpose.
After 7 long years of litigation with 6 other competing applicants, Z88.3 was born on August 14, 1995.
In 2001, Jim took over the chairmanship of the Emergency Alert System for the eight county Central Florida area, volunteering his stations as the local entry point for emergency information for all television, cable and radio station in the region.
Presently, Jim is the president and CEO of Z88.3 in Orlando which is broadcast on three full power FM facilities and six translators.
Jim is the Chairman and President of Z Ministries, Inc., Central Florida Educational Foundation, Inc., Charitable Ministry Support, Inc., Event Ministries, Inc., and Easter Sunrise Service, Inc.
In addition, he serves as chairman of Pathways to Care and the State of Florida Operational Area Seven (Central Florida) EAS Committee. He is on the State of Florida Emergency Alert System (EAS) Committee, is the Vice-Chairman of the Board of directors and Treasurer for Circle Christian Schools and serves on the board of advisors for Nathaniel’s Hope, Inc. (Special needs children ministry).
Jim has been married for 23 years to the former Eunice Medina of Cali, Colombia, and has two daughters; Viviana, a senior and Gabriella, a freshman at Palm Beach Atlantic University. He currently teaches children’s Sunday School at Northland, a Church Distributed, in Longwood.
