Gary Kline Obituary, Death – Gary Kline, a radio consultant, has died. Several coworkers said he had cancer. Kline joined Cumulus Media in 1999 and advanced to senior VP of broadcast engineering. 2016 reorganization saw him leave Cumulus. Kline has since built a consulting business offering advice on audio processing, studio design, RF optimization, and enterprise services. His bylined essays appeared in Radio World and other media.
Kline and his technical team completed a significant IT overhaul after Cumulus bought Susquehanna Radio in 2006 and a large infrastructure project for new Atlanta operations in 2007. Other projects included RF jobs in Houston and digital studios for Eugene, Ore., Topeka, Kan., and Nashville, Tenn., one of the first broadcast radio facilities to use fiber optics to connect studios to a centralized router. During his tenure, Cumulus built its own streaming audio system, set up an HD2 to feed an FM translator, and explored visual radio.
Kline won Radio World’s 2009 Engineering Excellence Award. Kline grew up in Queens, New York, listening to AM stations in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and Detroit/Windsor, Ontario. At age 10 or 11, he took night sessions at the New York Hall of Science and built Radio Shack kits and circuits. As a child, he visited WQXR(FM) and did the NBC studio tour in New York. Kline attended summer engineering programs at Ball State University and the University of Colorado in Boulder under the National Science Foundation.
He also completed an internship at NBC Radio, which led to part-time engineering work. Technical and on-air employment paid for his business degree at Purdue. He worked as an engineer for ABC Radio, NBC Radio, Artistic Media Partners, and other companies. He did international consultancy. He calls himself a broadcast technology strategist, podcast engineer, visual radio, and IT consultant. UF, Benztown, and Atlanta Braves Network were clients.
In November, he attended a London broadcasting convention. He was active in the Audio Engineering Society, the Association of Federal Communications Engineers, the IPAWS Practitioner’s Working Group, the Media Security Reliability Council, the National Radio Systems Committee, the SBE Radio Frequency Coordination, and IT Strategy Committees, and the NAB’s Digital Radio Committee, Broadcast Engineering Conference Committee, and TAP Radio Discovery Group. Gary Kline’s achievement isn’t merely technical, but that’s important. 2009 Radio World profile