NBC Transmitter (Jan-Dec 1939)

10 NBC TRANSMITTER JknnitEi^aru, <JJI|tnu# The NBC Transmitter salutes these members oj the National Broadcasting Company who, this month, complete their tenth year ivith the Company. John Cusumano John Cusumano, from Sales Traffic, has his outside activities classified into three divisions: hobby — record collection; summer pastimes — swimming, baseball, and handball; winter pastime— pinochle. Concerning his hobby, he has about two hundred records of operas, symphonies, etc., and hopes soon to realize his ambition of making a complete collection of Caruso’s recordings. Johnny is a native New Yorker and graduated from Brooklyn Evening High School. Following this were two years spent at Columbia. In the meantime, and this also included the latter two years of high school, he was working on the NBC page staff. However, Johnny does admit to having had a lot of fun on that early job. And since that time, of course, advancements have come — through Musical Program and Sales to his present position in Local Sales Traffic. Having studied advertising at Columbia, he hopes, in the future, to become a salesman for NBC. Incidentally, when very young, he had the opportunity of actually acting out the childhood ambition of almost every boy. He lived in a firehouse and rode on the wagons to every big blaze that came along. And he can still tell you what the signals mean. John Romaine John Romaine is one of two men in the Music Division who are responsible for the avoidance of duplications of musical numbers for all network programs, both sustaining and commercial. A New Yorker by birth, he also studied in New York parochial schools. Before coming to NBC, Mr. Romaine was one of the budding Thespians of the New York stage. His last performance was as the merchant in David Belasco’s last production, the Passion Play. NBC claimed him as an employe in the Guest Relations division in June, 1929. His worth was soon recognized, and in the fall of the same year, after a series of transfers — Continuity, Production, Musical Audition — he entered the Music Division of the Program Department. There he first did clerical work, but soon worked up to the position he now holds. Mr. Romaine lives in Franklin Square, Long Island, with Mrs. Romaine and John, Jr., age twentytwo months. His chief extra-curricular activity is photography, but he also finds time to play a little baseball and to play any one of a number of musical instruments, although he confesses he has let that slip of late. Catherine Merrill About twelve years ago, Catherine Merrill came out of the Middle West with a violinist’s career in mind. One of her first stops was at NBC. Coming here for an audition, she decided it would be a nice place to work; but the opportunity for that did not come until a year later, for shortly after her audition she was signed for George Cohan’s Review. In the West she had gone to business school. The idea now was to ride along with this “between engagements.” Thus, the show Catherine Merrill closing we find her with NBC as secretary to Mr. Almonte, then in Sales. She stayed about two months, then left to join Lee Shubert’s Operetta, and was busy with this show for another year. When it closed, she thought once again of NBC. It happened that Mr. Almonte had just been made Evening General Manager, and on the day that Catherine came back had decided to hire a night secretary. She was elected. This time, however, she forgot the vio lin and continued on with Mr. Almonte. Catherine was born in Montclair, N. J., and although she graduated from high school at age sixteen, in the grades she spent an average of one day a year in school. Figure that one out for yourself. Philip Falcone The last decade at NBC has been a full and interesting one for Studio Engineer Philip Falcone. “Phil” entered NBC in June, 1929, as a night page while still in his last year at high school. He remained with Guest Relations until June, 1933, when he went to the Engineering office. After a year there his next post was a relief apprenticeship in Field Engineering preparatory to his present job, which he has held since November, 1934. During his first five years with NBC he was a student at City College of New York and the RCA Institutes. New York City is Phil’s bachelor home, and has been for all but the initial five years of his life. Those were passed in Tuckahoe, New York, where he was born on December 3, 1912. W2HIO, Phil’s “ham” station, is now in its seventh year of operation. A strong outdoor tendency is revealed in his hobbies of hunting and fishing, and anyone contemplating a piscatorial excursion to upper New York State can not go wrong on a tip from Phil (who gets it straight from the fish I . We all know the advantages of a vacation, and Phil is not one to be told. The first three weeks of June he spent on a West Indies Philip Falcone cruise. Thomas John Buzalski Although Thomas J. Buzalski’s engineering training included little formal instruction, it is not surprising that he is in charge of the NBC television transmitter on top of the Empire State Building. He had his first “ham” radio station before he had his first long-pants, and a commercial radio operator’s license before he entered