Staff

Joe O'Connor, General Manager
Previously, Joe O'Connor was the Senior Producer for the award winning radio program “On Point”, a two hour news and talk program airing Monday through Friday, produced for NPR by The WBUR Group in Boston.

Joe O'Connor spent 22 years at ABC News, starting as a news writer for ABC radio. He went on to become an associate producer for Good Morning America and for ABC News Nightline. While in his first tour at ABC News Nightline, from 1984 through 1991, he won three Emmy Awards for his work on broadcasts featuring town meetings surrounding the release of Nelson Mandela and the 1st Palestinian Intifada for which he also shared in the Alfred I. DuPont Columbia University Award for excellence in broadcast journalism. His third Emmy was awarded for the Nightline broadcast which covered the breaking story of the, then, only hours-old Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

Joe O'Connor became a producer for PrimeTime Live in 1991 working on stories with Diane Sawyer and Sam Donaldson. In 1994, he became the senior producer in Washington for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, responsible for all news coverage for that broadcast in the nation's capital. In 1996, he returned to his first love, Nightline, where he was awarded his fourth Emmy for the critically acclaimed series on race relations entitled “America in Black and White”. A fifth Emmy was earned for his coverage of Bill Clinton's visit to LaCrosse, Wisconsin in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Joe also shared in the prestigious Peabody Award given to ABC News Nightline in 2001 for excellence in broadcast journalism and a 2nd Peabody given to ABC News for its coverage of 9/11. Joe was also awarded the Outstanding Media Award by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill for his program on schizophrenia as portrayed in the Oscar winning film, A Beautiful Mind.

Joe has worked on almost every story imaginable, from the democracy protests in Tianamen Square to The Persian Gulf War, from home equity fraud in South Central Los Angeles to profiling psychiatric emergency services on Chicago's Southside. During the 2004 academic year, Joe enjoyed his Nieman Journalism Fellowship at Harvard University.

Joe started out as a reporter for WBUR while getting his graduate degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University. Joe then worked as producer for CNN in Atlanta and Washington before jumping to ABC News.

Joe has been a leader in the Parent Encouragement Program which offers parenting classes in Washington D.C. and its suburbs. He had the privilege of coaching both of his children's soccer and basketball teams.

Robert Ames, Host
Veteran news broadcaster Robert Ames has anchored the Rhode Island news on WRNI, since the station went on the air in 1998. Before helping to launch Rhode Island's NPR News Station, Bob worked as a drive time news anchor for more than three decades in Philadelphia and Boston, most recently at WBZ-AM. Much of his career has been spent working for CBS. His introduction to journalism came as a member of the United States Army serving as a correspondent in Vietnam with the 25th Infantry Division.

Bob is a graduate of Temple University. He is an avid runner. He has been married for more than 30 years and is the father of two adult children.

Robert Seay, Host
Bob has worked as a broadcast journalist for more than 20 years, primarily on Cape Cod. He most recently was executive director of Lower Cape Communications, a non profit organization licensed to operate WOMR-FM community radio in Provincetown . Bob has also worked as an announcer for WBUR in Boston . He was the director of news and public affairs at WQRC in Hyannis , Massachusetts from 1980 to 1997. Bob is married to ABC6 TV reporter Josie Guarino and they are the proud parents of one year old Maxwell.

Mark Degon, News Director
As Executive Producer, Mark Degon has managed the news department and overseen on air operations of WRNI, since the station went on the air in May of 1998. He has more than two decades of experience in broadcast journalism, working in radio and television newsrooms, primarily in the Boston market. Mark calls his work at WRNI his most gratifying professional experience because of the overwhelming gratitude of listeners for this service. Prior to joining the news team at WRNI, Mark was Senior News Producer for WBUR in Boston, the parent station of WRNI.

Mark is married and the proud father of two daughters.

Nancy Cook, Reporter
Nancy Cook has worked in the region for the past two years as a staff writer at The New Bedford Standard-Times and as a radio reporter for WCAI, the Cape & Islands NPR Stations. She's covered everything from healthcare to local government to the environment and burgeoning arts scenes. She's also contributed to NPR's "Morning Edition," "All Things Considered," "Weekend Edition" and "Day to Day" and has written for national magazines such as Slate and ArtNews. She earned her master’s degree from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and her B.A. in English literature from Carleton College.

Steve Callahan, Assistant Chief Engineer
Steve Callahan is the Assistant Chief Engineer for the WBUR Group with primary responsibility for WRNI in Providence and WXNI in Westerly. He has been involved with broadcasting in Rhode Island since 1980 when he was an announcer on WLKW. Steve owns his own radio station, WVBF 1530 AM, in Middleboro, Mass. which he built 12 years ago.