This post is part of our “Spotlight on NTIA” blog series, which is highlighting the work that NTIA employees are doing to advance NTIA’s mission of promoting broadband adoption, finding spectrum to meet the growing demand for wireless technologies, and ensuring the Internet remains an engine for innovation and economic growth.
You could say Lynn Chadwick’s career has come full circle.
After spending the early part of her career in community radio, she found herself in 2001 once again working with community telecommunications – this time from the federal perspective when she began working at NTIA first in the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP). Now, working as a federal program officer for NTIA’s State Broadband Initiative (SBI), Chadwick’s focus is on helping states use broadband technology to better compete in the digital economy and assist states in gathering data twice a year on the availability of broadband in their communities.
Chadwick is pictured while visiting an exhibition in
London of the English artist Lynn Chadwick.
Before joining NTIA, Chadwick had spent much of her career in radio. She first became interested in radio as a volunteer for the Feminist Radio Network in Washington, D.C., which was focused on programming by, for, and about women's issues, politics and the arts. The stint made a big enough impression on her that she decided to pursue a career in radio. Not sure where to start, she wrote every female radio broadcaster in the Washington area to get advice about how to break into the business. The only woman to reply was Robin Quivers, shock jock Howard Stern’s longtime sidekick. Chadwick notes that Quivers was encouraging and invited her to sit in on the show, which at the time was based in Washington.
Chadwick eventually landed a job in San Francisco at a production house that helped pioneer digital radio production. She laughs that she lived in the famous San Francisco counter-culture neighborhood Haight-Ashbury and rented a place from a woman named Hidden Mountain. After five years, she decided to go to graduate school. She graduated with a Master’s degree in public policy with a focus on telecommunications from the University of California at Berkeley.
After graduate school, Chadwick says she “got seduced back” into community radio and became the president and CEO of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, which represents public radio stations that are not licensed to an institution such as a university After about a decade with the group, she spent a few years as executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, which oversees Pacifica’s network of independent nonprofit stations. Her work in public radio was recognized in 1995 when she was honored with the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for her outstanding contributions to public radio.
In 2001, she moved back to the Washington area, where she spent part of her childhood, and landed at NTIA in the PTFP, the now defunct program that gave out grants for construction and upgrades to public TV and radio stations, American Indian tribes and other nonprofits to help bring cultural and educational programming to the U.S. public. She briefly left NTIA for a short stint at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. When she returned to NTIA, she was asked to help with the digital transition.
In 2010, she went to work for SBI where she was able to use her experience with grants and work with community radio stations to help grantees “navigate the challenging path of federal funding.” Her work is focused on helping grantees work through grant requirements, while monitoring progress on the ground to ensure U.S. tax dollars are spent properly. “Since I had received federal grants as a grantee before I came into the federal government, I have a lot of empathy and understanding for what it looks like from the other side,” she says.
Chadwick grew up in the Los Angeles area, but moved to the Washington suburbs of Virginia when she was in high school. Chadwick graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. In her spare time, Chadwick designs and makes her own jewelry, which she sells locally.