Steve Berger
His Story
An e-mail from Steve Berger to Gerry Wilkinson....For the past 20 years I have worked for Nationwide Communications, a subsidiary of the insurance company. I became its president in 1989. Prior to that I had several sales and GM positions in Pittsburgh. I have a 23 year old daughter from a prior marriage. In 1990, I married the former Ellen Hulleburg who was President of McGavrenGuild, the radio rep firm. In October of last year, Nationwide sold the broadcast company to Jacor and we expect that the deal willl close in April or May. At that time I plan to retire to our home in Jamesport, NY where I will work on my black and white landscape photography, fish, write and do what I can in the community for the people, the land, the water and the animals. Unfortunately, I have no momentos of WRTI. Thanks for thinking of me and if I can provide any information, please let me know. Only The Best! Steve Berger
From Mike Biel....As someone who arrived at WRTI in the Fall of 64, the voice of Steve Berger is the one which we all looked up to and hoped to be able to emulate. By our era Steve was less active at the station, but his voice appeared on our news opening until Mr. Blenheim told us to change it because he sounded too good prior to most of our newscasters. He did have some assignments, such as announcing "Americana" on Mondays, and I remember he sometimes would breeze through the station to Studio A with a girlfriend on his arm. Quite probably the girl was a blond. And if so, I have often wondered if she was Jessica Savich. If you check the two books written about her, you will see Steve quoted and described as her first real boyfriend and the guy who turned her on to radio. At least one of the books mentions him bringing her down to WRTI a number of times, as well as bringing her to the Atlantic City radio station he worked at. In the documentary that Lifetime Television did of her, there is a filmed interview segment with Steve. Eventually I started engineering "Americana" and I remember on several occasions being dragged out of the control room at the last minute by Miss Farley for me to fill in as announcer when Steve wasn't at a taping. I remember being scared stiff the first time because I knew I wasn't as good and that introductory sentence was a doozy, but it is a point of pride that I have several Americana scripts where Miss Farley's first line is changed from "Thank you Steve Berger" to "Thank you Mike Biel." We all thought Steve a natural to be the next big announcer on WABC, New York. In fact, I have a tape of him portraying a WABC announcer to Phil Sabatelli's hilarious version of Mr. Blenheim in "A Day In The Life of Larry Blenheim." It's good to see that Steve was so successful in his career that he's about to retire!
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