Mark C. Lawrence has served as Chief Executive of KZSU 90.1 FM Radio off and on at Stanford since his senior year, in 1967. Lawrence’s “day job” until his 2004 retirement was on Stanford’s IT department but he’s continued as one of the key figures behind the technical operations at the campus station. A man of rare devotion to radio, Lawrence sat down with The Daily to describe exactly what he does for KZSU and why radio broadcasting makes him tick.

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Mark Lawrence has worked at KZSU on and off since 1963, when he arrived on campus as an undergraduate. Since then, he’s broadcast Mikhail Gorbachev and the Grateful Dead from campus, and now maintains the broadcast equipment — a task, he says, today’s EE students aren’t up for. #gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/8254
Courtesy of Michael Uhila

Mark Lawrence has worked at KZSU on and off since 1963, when he arrived on campus as an undergraduate. Since then, he’s broadcast Mikhail Gorbachev and the Grateful Dead from campus, and now maintains the broadcast equipment — a task, he says, today’s EE students aren’t up for.

The Stanford Daily:What exactly does being a radio station engineer entail?

Lawrence: First, it entails installing (or supervising installation of) and maintaining the actual broadcast equipment — studio consoles, audio processing equipment, studio/transmitter link, transmitter, antenna, etc. Unfortunately today’s EE students aren’t much interested in radio — they’re designing computer chips, or operating systems — so the engineering staff has shrunk over the years.

Beyond the broadcast equipment my job also entails being the facilities manager for our studios and transmitter building, all of which we built ourselves over the years. We also installed our own network of underground cables to connect remote broadcast sites such as the stadium, and to connect the studio to the transmitter building in the foothills. That’s a two-mile cable run. So I’m in charge of fixing everything except the stuff that Stanford Facilities takes care of.

TSD: What first provoked you to get involved with radio?

Lawrence: I was building radios and such when I was 10, and got my amateur radio license when I was in 6th grade. My mother claimed that I rewired a pair of table lamps when I was 5; I don’t honestly remember... In high school I was building my own amateur radio transmitters.

So, naturally, when I got here in 1963 I promptly got involved with the two radio organizations on campus — KZSU and the ham club, Stanford Amateur Radio Club. By then I had discovered that I actually enjoyed building the equipment more than I did operating it, so KZSU was a better fit: lots of people wanted to operate the equipment, and only a few wanted to help build it. I was soon devoting my “radio” energy to KZSU and let my amateur radio license and club membership lapse.

TSD: Do you get any say in what programs KZSU puts on?

Lawrence: Almost none — that’s the Program Director’s job. I do get to throw my two cents worth in, and I can occasionally get a bit pushy, but mostly my pushing is in the direction of more public affairs type programming and live coverage of Stanford events. I don’t — and shouldn’t — have much influence in the type of music played. I’m way too old to pick the music at a college radio station!

TSD: What is your favorite memory from all your time working at KZSU?

Lawrence: Broadcasting the Grateful Dead, live from Frost Amphitheater, for two solid days in 1988, and having their sound man tell me our broadcast sounded great! I think that was the last show they ever did in Frost.

TSD: What music/programming have you personally been most excited to hear on KZSU?

Lawrence: In addition to the Grateful Dead, I’d have to say carrying Gorbachev live from MemAud [in] 1990 was pretty exciting. They were so paranoid about security that they wouldn’t let us operate from our own studios in the MemAud basement so we wired it up and than ran our broadcast from the transmitter building.

Recently we’ve been running a show called “What Would Your Mother Say?” [on] Thursdays [at] 5 p.m. where the students on the panel talk to the mothers on the panel about things they wouldn’t talk to their own mothers about. It makes for some lively discussions.

TSD: Any exciting plans for KZSU in the near future?

Lawrence: We’re actively improving our capabilities for emergency coverage. We’ve long been an emergency resource for Stanford and Palo Alto, and we have very reliable emergency power sources at both studio and transmitter. We’re now focusing on improving the coordination with Stanford and Palo Alto authorities so we can get better information to our listeners during emergencies such as the two recent fires in the foothills. “Improving coordination” doesn’t sound exciting, but it means getting good information to our listeners when they are in an exciting situation, like an earthquake or fire.

As a note of caution, he added: “Be sure your emergency kit includes a battery-powered FM radio.” And a plug: “Tune it to 90.1.”