KP Whaley (Executive Director/General Manager)
KP Whaley has been involved in public and community broadcasting for nearly two decades. He joined 103.3 Asheville FM as the first paid General Manager in 2017, after nearly four years as a senior talk producer at Wisconsin Public Radio. He also cohosts a queer talk show on Asheville FM called Sweet Tea. He started his radio career as a volunteer and then News and Public Affairs Director at WORT Community Radio in Madison, Wisconsin in 2005. Between those two gigs he has also worked in community television, community food cooperatives, and as the manager of MAIN-FM (WPVM) in Asheville for a year. Once upon a time worked in the private sector in a variety of supervisory, management, and project management roles. KP and his husband also own and operate Tiny Bridge Farm in Hendersonville, NC, a small diversified organic vegetable farm for csa members, farmers markets, and wholesalers.
Hope Butterworth (President, Board of Directors)
Hope grew up listening to WUSC in Columbia, SC, where her love for local, eclectic radio programming was born. Hope has been active in non-profits in and around Asheville since moving here from Chicago in 1998. She has experience in fundraising, bookkeeping and finance, as well as community outreach and team-building. She has volunteered extensively in local public schools and neighborhood community organizations. She believes deeply in Asheville FM’s mission of amplifying voices to build connections across our community. Hope previously served as Treasurer of the Board at Asheville FM.
Christy Rhodes (Vice President, Board of Directors)
Erik Mattox (Treasurer)
Originally from New York, Erik has made Asheville his home for over thirty years. An avid record collector and music researcher, he has remained a part of Asheville FM since its beginning. His show, The UnCola has been airing since September 2009 every Tuesday night, and he was also the host of The West Coast Breeze from 2015 to 2018. Along with serving as the Publicity and Promotions director in 2010, he joined the Board in 2011, serving a term as President while Asheville FM made the transition to its FM signal. Erik is very appreciative to be serving as a board member again. You can also follow him at his blog, Music In the Key Of E.
Gray Wheeler (Secretary)
For Gray Wheeler, working with Asheville FM completes a full professional circle started in 1987 when he and friends launched an AM carrier current radio station in Charlottesville, VA, in anticipation of “soon-to-come” FCC changes allowing low-powered FM transmissions… which ended up not being enacted for another 23 years! He has worked in media corporate finance in New York City and media marketing consulting in Greenwich, CT. In 2013, Ernst & Young named him Entrepreneur of the Year for the Southeast.
In the non-profit sector, Gray held a fellowship at Yale University’s Program on Non-Profit Organizations. For two years he worked at the Partnership for the City of New York, re-structuring and giving grants to small businesses located in and around the World Trade Center on September 11th . Gray holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School, where his classmates elected him to be their graduation speaker. He graduated with highest distinction from the University of Virginia. He has lived in Asheville since 2011.
Annelise Kopp (At-large member, Board of Directors)
Ayana Dusenberry (At-large member, Board of Directors)
Ayana is from Jersey City, NJ where she dreamed of becoming a music publicist, an A&R guy, or the next Rick Ruben. Then September 11th happened, changed everything, and a needed road trip out of the city to visit Asheville turned into an unexpected life in Asheville. Here she’s been able to hone her love for PR and audience development through a career in marketing, primarily working in media and with independent businesses ever since. She was the first digital sales and marketing coordinator at Mountain Xpress, led marketing and events for WNC magazine, and is currently directing the marketing for several local brands, including restaurants and a brewery. In addition to being an avid listener, she’s been involved in underwriting and sponsorships with Asheville FM as a media partner since its launch and officially joined as a volunteer in spring 2023. She now helps the social media team and sits on the Development, and Publicity and Promotions Committees where she hopes to continue fulfilling her music industry fantasy all while supporting a radio station and community she loves.
Julio Tordoya (At-large member, Board of Directors)
Julio was born in Peru where he studied education and graphic design as well as photography and journalism. After teaching for four years in a rural community outside Lima in 2006 he moved to Charlotte NC to teach Spanish in an elementary school as a visiting teacher. After that, he moved to Asheville in 2010 where he got deeply involved with immigrant communities, working as a photographer in all of Western North Carolina.
After the US Social Forum along with Magaly Urdiales he founded MECA (Media Education for Community Action) to organize and train latinx people in areas of photography, reporting, editing, and broadcasting with the purpose to gain representation in the local media spectrum. Since 2014 he started JMPRO TV a local news channel running online. In 2018 Julio started La Neta a radio show on Asheville FM, with a series of segments and programs that are produced, recorded, and edited by members of our Latinx community.
At the moment Julio is working on creating new ways to contribute to the social justice movement from the side of the media, coming from the field of education he is willing to contribute their experience gained in the last ten years.
Misha Eli (At-large member, Board of Directors)
Misha has been a leader in the fields of Arts, Education, and Social Action for decades. In 2009, Misha graduated from East-West College of Natural Medicine, and as a Physician and Minister, formed Spiral Enterprises, a creative clearinghouse, in an effort to further build bridges across age and cultural gaps.
His portfolio includes projects such as Harvey Milk Festival, EARTHDANCE, Lovelight Yoga and Arts Festival, Volunteer Community Connections, TED, Florida Creativity Conference, Association of Florida Teaching Artists, The Flow Factory, FloydFest, LEAF Global Arts, Burning Man, Majestic Collaborations, Southern Atlantic Hemp & Arts Expo, and Art Army AVL. After moving here in 2018, Misha now dedicates his time “connecting the dots” in Asheville, as well as traveling the Globe, stewarding transformative experiences through Play.
Steve Plever (At-large member, Board of Directors)
Steve Plever, now retired after more than a decade of service in UNC Asheville’s communication office, also was host of Morning Edition on BPR, and before that, taught at both Asheville Middle School and Francine Delany New School for Children. Before moving to Asheville in 1999, he was senior press officer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood of New York City. In the 1980s, he was co-producer and co-host of Consider the Alternatives, a nationally syndicated weekly half-hour public affairs program that aired on some 100 radio stations. And he began his professional career at NPR affiliate WSKG in Binghamton NY, where he became the station’s first radio news reporter and news director. A jazz lover and music nerd, he informally majored in radio at Binghamton University and was voted manager of the student-run station, WHRW. He lives in West Asheville with his wife; their two children, graduates of Asheville City Schools, have grown and flown. Steve (DJ Shinytop) hosts Astral Jazz Travels, Tuesday nights (Wednesday wee hours) from midnight-2 A.M. on Asheville FM.
Jessica Rugh Frantz (At-large member, Board of Directors)
Jessica Rugh Frantz is a nonprofit leader with nearly two decades experience in fundraising and strategic organizational development. Currently, she is the Director of Development for BirdNote, the world’s leading nonprofit audio production company focused on birds and conservation issues. Previously, Jessica worked as the Director of Membership and Operations for the Public Radio Program Directors Association (PRPD, now the Public Media Content Collective), and formerly worked in the development department for Asheville’s NPR station. Jessica is a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) and a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. She holds a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Asheville. In her free time, she serves as a board member for the Foundation for the Alliance for Community Media and enjoys hanging out with her 80-pound labradoodle, Max.
Mark Drozd (At-large member, Board of Directors)
Mark Drozd is a long-time senior communications professional, with a career path that ranged from Chicago to New York. His forte is in helping businesses and organizations find real connections with their audiences and employees. For the last decade, he was a founding partner of a volunteer group that provided pro bono ad and design services to over 70 needy nonprofit organizations. Mark’s lifelong love for radio is rooted in that same idea of connecting communities. He lives in the AVL area with his wife Gail, a local artist, along with their 90-lb. Berner puppy Rosie.
Bryan Matheny (At-large member, Board of Directors)
Bryan Matheny brings over 40 years of business entrepreneurship with a commitment to social and environmental justice, and a lifelong love of community supported radio to 103.3. Born and raised in Denver CO, Bryan spent much of his life in the South with one side of his family and fell in love with Asheville in 1987. He and his wife Kelli moved here in 2019. His love for live music of all genres and being a lifelong musician himself, led to the creation of AVLFest in 2020 with a successful inaugural event in 2023.
Mary Alice Arre (At-large member, Board of Directors)
Mary Alice Arre created Global Heart LLC to oversee www.globalheart2heart.com, promoting art and poetry and host to Global Heart 2 Heart Radio, a 24/7 commercial free internet radio promoting and honoring music of all cultures in the name of Love for All and Mother Earth thus advancing Oneness of people and planet. She is a graduate of Colorado Media School. Mary Alice is a Board Certified Reflexologist who founded and operated New Jersey Institute of Reflexology for 20 years. She is a proud corporate drop out having held top managerial and training positions in food service, franchising and retail.
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TL Allen ( Board Member Emeritus (Deceased))
TL Allen (best known as CousinTL) has been a part of Asheville’s community radio for over 11 years now. In 2009 TL volunteered to help rebrand the Mountain Area Information Network to M@in-FM. At WPVM, he produced and hosted the highly-rated Supa Dupa Show, a talk show that was syndicated through the Pacifica network in 24 cities and distributed as a podcast in 6 different platforms. He later produced, revised, and hosted Asheville New Radio (to be retitled Asheville NU Radio). From 2014 to the present, TL has been producing, engineering, and hosting the popular show, CousinTL’s Stank Free Radio on 103.3 Asheville FM.
Originally from Detroit, Michigan, TL grew up as a fan of the city’s unparalleled radio market. Not knowing how good he had it, TL would consume shows from different radio stations in all genres (talk and music alike), listening to diverse radio personalities. He studied radio and television production in high school and later studied art direction and commercial marketing in college and art school. After that he went on to be certified in graphic/web design and animation. During this period TL moonlighted as a “mid-act” comedian, touring with headliners in the Great Lakes region (Michigan, Indiana, and Canada) and later, the New York/New Jersey circuits.
Since 2002 TL has worked in consulting for operational workflows that became ISO certified in corporations such as Ford Motor Company and Goldman Sachs. He would go on to freelance at different media companies (USA networks, Lifetime, American Broadcasting Company [ABC], and FOX Sports) assisting with the conversion from analog to digital HD.
As a freelance graphic designer, TL has worked on and has appeared in printed advertisements, publicity materials, newspaper comics, and social media, having created designs not only for corporate companies but also “Mom & Pops.”
From 2002 to 2008, TL would volunteer at Symposia Bookstore (a community center and internet café/ show venue and discussion forum place that happened to sell used books) in Hoboken, New Jersey. TL helped to create the nonprofit’s mission, as the store became a major asset to the Hudson County community. TL. Allen was awarded the Symposia Award for Building Community in Hoboken. This allowed him to speak at many seminars and workshops sharing the achievements (events, discussion groups, technology sharing, and fundraisers) with other community outlets and nonprofits for their benefit.
Cousin TL has been volunteering at Asheville FM since July 2014. Serving as a “self-proclaimed” older cousin, mentoring other volunteers on-air and off. In 2015, he became Asheville FM ‘s first production director. Then, TL served as an interim-program director to be named program director the following year. He continued to serve as an at-large member of the programming committee until January 2020. In 2016, with the encouragement of that year’s program committee, TL help developed an on-air “test the waters”-type opportunity for new volunteers. This experimental show is now known as The Sandbox Hour, and it has become a valuable part of the Asheville FM training protocol.