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Meet our Team

Frank Emspak - Managing Editor/Executive Producer
Frank is in his fourth decade as a labor activist. Starting out as a machinist, he worked his way into academia and has written extensively on new technology and work organization, with investigations of factories in parts of the world where workforces are creating new ways to organize work. Frank founded WIN in 2000, with the aim of broadening the availability of high-quality, worker-oriented news on commercial and community radio. He holds a PhD in History and taught at the UW-Madison's School for Workers.

Richard Thomson - Operations, H.R. and Finance Manager
Rich has been a graduate project assistant for Frank Emspak at the UW School For Workers for six years. Rich is an Ph.D. student in Industrial Relations and his currently working on his dissertation. His research interests include: cooperatives/worker ownership/stakeholder theory; labor unions/Industrial Relations theory; property rights theory; and corporate governance reforms. Rich was a volunteer reporter on Madison, Wisonsin's WORT 89.9 FM Labor Radio show for several years. He also worked as a machine helper replacement at a unionized cardboard box mill for six summers. Rich is currently a union member and departmental steward.

Jesse Russell - Producer
Jesse graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in journalism. While at UConn he spent time in various positions at WHUS the university's radio station. Those positions included: music, fundraising and public affairs director. Since graduating he has been a staff writer for the Willimantic Chronicle, sports editor at The Glastonbury Citizen and has trained Transportation Security Administration employees how to use the CTX 5500 explosive detection system at airports throughout the country. In addition to producing for WIN, he is a founder and music writer for Dane101.com and is an editor and co-founder of the independent publishing company Altered States Press.

Doug Cunningham - Producer
Doug is a highly experienced radio journalist who came to WIN in 2004 from a five-year stint as State Capitol Correspondent for The Wisconsin Radio Network in Madison. Doug has news director and reporter/anchor AP and UPI award-winning news experience at commercial and NPR member stations in Michigan and Indiana. In June of 2009 Doug was chosen Labor Communicator of The Year by the Metro New York Labor Communications Council "For his unwavering commitment to journalistic excellence and integrity in the service of the American worker." Also in 2009 the International Labor Communications Association gave Doug A First Award in its annual labor media awards for his WIN story "Victorious Militancy - The 2008 Chicago Sitdown Strike". Doug's print work includes 10 years as a co-founder and investigative reporter for The Flint Voice alternative newspaper (later The Michigan Voice). Doug's radio news work has been broadcast on 1010WINS in New York City, WLS-AM, WBBM and WBEZ in Chicago and hundreds of others nationwide. His freelance & "stringer" work has appeared on Wisconsin Public Radio, Free Speech Radio News, Court TV, Wispolitics.com, Stateline.org, The Minnesota News Network, The Michigan News Network, AP & UPI. Starting in 2005 Doug has done regular labor news talk segments on the Thom Hartmann national progressive radio talk show.

Ken Pfile - Union Outreach Coordinator
Ken is a former high school English teacher and union president (IA), and a long-time school employees’ union staff member. He worked for the Wisconsin Education Association Council as Executive Director in their Platteville office during the 1980s, and for the Michigan Education Association as a lobbyist and as Executive Director in the Livonia office until his retirement in 2003. A long-time political activist, Ken also worked a Congressional primary campaign for the National Education Association in 2004.

Board of Directors

Anne Arnesen - Executive Director, Wisconsin Council on Children and Families, Madison, WI.

Dustin Bielke - Media Relations Officer, Wisconsin Education Association Council, Madison, WI

Carl Bryant - Producer, Letter Carriers Today, Community Cable TV 214, San Francisco, CA

Jill Cashen - Communications, United Federation of Food and Commercial Workers, Washington, D.C.

Frank Emspak - Professor, School for Workers, Madison, WI; Executive Producer, WIN

Howard Kling - Labor Education Service, University of Minnesota; President of UPPNET, Minneapolis, MN

Gavin McDonald - Communications, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades and the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, Washington, D.C.

Jeff Miller - Communications Director, Communications Workers of America, Washington, D.C.

Jim Papian - Communications Director, United Food and Commercial Workers, Washington, D.C.

Jim Spellane - Director, Journal and Media Relations Department, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Washington, D.C.

Norm Stockwell - Operations Coordinator, WORT FM Community Radio, Madison, WI

Leigh Strope - Communications, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Washington, D.C.