Tom Ray

Written by Jennifer Isenberg on June 3, 2025. Posted in Speakers.

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Tom Ray is JDA.media Executive Vice President.

Tom brings more than 40 years of local advertising experience to the table. A diverse background in both traditional and digital platforms gives Tom a unique perspective on driving results for local advertisers.

For more than 20 years, Tom has traveled the country 25-plus weeks a year, helping advertisers discover what works (and what does not) in local advertising. From finding your “one thing” to discovering your “point of entry”, Tom’s proven method is a results driven approach to local advertising.

As Tom states proudly, “I don’t win Addy’s, I only focus on results.”

His popular book, Branding is OUT, Results are IN! Lessons for the LOCAL Advertiser is a well-respected hit with marketing professionals achieving Amazon bestseller status. He released his second book in May of 2020 to help advertising professionals during the pandemic, Recession Lessons: Selling Through Adversity, which is also available on Amazon.

Tom is a member of the National Speakers Association and has earned the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation. Whether it is at NAB, SMTE conferences, at State Broadcasters Association event, or in front of a group of local advertisers, Tom delivers thought-provoking content wrapped in an entertaining, high-energy persona.

Tom and Darlene, his wife of more than 30 years, reside in Sarasota, FL and enjoythe Suncoast lifestyle.

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Derron Steenbergen

Written by Jennifer Isenberg on June 3, 2025. Posted in Speakers.

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Derron Steenbergen is the President and Founder of the Swagger Institute.

The Swagger Institute specializes in customer service training, sales and leadership training, motivational speaking and business and nonprofit consulting.

He is a founder and partner of the Ten Minute Trainer Network, one of the nation’s leading online training platforms.

Derron also spent over 30 years as the Chief Revenue Officer of Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation. Steenbergen has decades of broadcast sales experience, beginning as a local direct rep and advancing through the ranks of sales management.

His years training sales people led to the formation of Swagger.

Recently, Steenbergen saw a need to incorporate and adapt his sales expertise into winning strategies for the nonprofit arena, and formed Golden Rule Fundraising, the nonprofit division of Swagger Institute.

Steenbergen enjoys teaching simple steps that can help businesses and employees make more magic in their careers.

His high energy, audience involved seminars are making huge impacts with people across the country, both in person and virtually.

Steenbergen has recently been called “the most relatable sales guy in the country,” and “the modern day Zig Ziglar.”

He is also the past chair of the Kentucky Broadcasters Association where he served several years on the KBA board.

He is active with many civic organizations throughout South Central Kentucky. Derron also volunteers his time as a certified high school golf coach, serving as an assistant under the head coach, his oldest daughter Logan.

Steenbergen is a graduate of Western Kentucky University, married to Krista Steenbergen and has three daughters, Logan, Lyn Dawsyn and Landry.

When he is not working, Derron enjoys relaxing with a good cigar.

Oh, and he’s a certified American Bald Eagle Watcher!

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Tony Peterle

Written by Jennifer Isenberg on June 3, 2025. Posted in Speakers.

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Tony Peterle’s journey in broadcasting began in high school with a live, 15-minute weekly news program on his local AM radio station—a spark that ignited a lifelong career. From becoming Chief Engineer at his college radio station to serving in various roles on-air and in engineering, Tony has remained at the heart of the broadcast industry.

His career has included years spent in the skies, flying small planes and delivering live traffic reports in Honolulu and Seattle. He later spent nearly two decades with Worldcast Systems, working on high-impact projects for clients like Sutro Tower, ABC Television, and the NBA. Tony’s work has taken him across the U.S. and around the world, solidifying his reputation as a trusted expert in broadcast engineering.

In March of this year, Tony took the next step in his professional journey by joining LAWO, a German innovator in high-end audio and broadcast console technology. He continues to stay deeply engaged with the industry through regular participation in NAB and SBE events across the country.

Catch this speaker at the following:

SNMP for Remote Control /Transmission Line Imaging

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Prentis “PL” Laird

Written by Jennifer Isenberg on June 3, 2025. Posted in Speakers.

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Prentis ‘PL’ Laird is the Associate Vice-President of Broadcast Engineering and Operations for Sinclair Broadcast Group. Based in Nashville, TN, he oversees engineering and technical operations for 185 Sinclair owned and/or operated television stations across the US.

PL has been with Sinclair since 2012 and has been part of the Corporate Engineering Team since 2014. He has been involved in several major initiatives including Master Control and Production Control installations, the spectrum repack, ATSC 3.0 implementation, and most recently the migration of Master Control Operations to the cloud. He has overseen major station construction projects in New Bern, NC and Little Rock, AR.

Originally from New London, TX, PL served 6 years in the US Air Force as a Satellite Communications Technician and is a Desert Storm Veteran. He was based at Bergstrom AFB (before it became an airport) and for 27 years, he called Austin home.

PL’s broadcast career started in 1992 as an Engineering Technician at KVUE. For 9 years, he worked for Gulf Link Communications providing mobile satellite uplink services for the major networks including remote production, news gathering and sports backhauls. From 2004 to 2014, PL worked at KEYE-TV as a Broadcast Engineer where he led many station projects including the transition to HD.

PL enjoys spending time with his family of 3 children and 3 grandkids. He enjoys outdoor activities and is an avid camper. He loves to cook; his passion is smoking Texas style BBQ.

Catch this speaker at the following:

Master Control Automation in the Cloud

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Paul Shulins

Written by Jennifer Isenberg on June 3, 2025. Posted in Speakers.

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Paul Shulins is Co-Owner of Over the Air RF, LLC, a radio and tv broadcast consulting firm based in Portland, Maine, specializing in RF design projects, FCC applications, coverage studies for TV and FM, antenna protection systems, thermal imaging, and ratings metrics.

Previously, Paul joined Burk Technology as Vice President and Chief Technology Officer in September of 2017. Prior to joining Burk Technology, Paul had been the Director of Technical Operations for Greater Media Boston, Massachusetts five FM Radio Stations for twenty-nine years. He has been working as a Radio Chief Engineer for forty years.

Paul has been responsible for the planning and day-to-day management of one of the first major market studio consolidations in 1998 for Greater Media Boston radio stations. He has designed and constructed many custom, on-air program playback systems, technical facility monitoring and control systems.

He is a member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers and has held an SBE Radio Engineer Certification since 1982.

Paul is also a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and has co-chaired the BTS Broadcast Symposium for several years and was recently elected by the BTS AdCom as a distinguished lecturer.

Paul has presented numerous papers at the IEEE Broadcast Symposium, the NAB Broadcast Convention, and the NAB Radio Show. He has also been a frequent contributor to Radio World Magazine and authored several chapters in the 11th edition of the NAB engineering handbook. Paul has also served as an elected member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society’s administrative committee for three years. Today he is the treasurer for IEEE Broadcast Technology Society.

Paul earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Hampshire System in 1979 with majors in physics, chemistry and natural sciences. He is a private pilot, and enjoys astronomy, skiing, and photography, and operates his Arizona observatory remotely collecting deep sky images.

Paul was the recipient of the NAB’s 2025 Engineering Achievement award for Radio.

Catch this speaker at the following:

Drone-Based Troubleshooting at Tower Sites

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Wayne M. Pecena CPBE, 8-VSB, ATSC3, AMD, DRB, CBNE

Written by Jennifer Isenberg on June 2, 2025. Posted in Speakers.

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Wayne M. Pecena is the Associate Director for Engineering of Educational Broadcast Services who operates public media stations KAMU-TV and KAMU-FM at Texas A&M University.

Wayne has over 52 years of broadcast and IP network engineering experience and holds BS and MS degrees from Texas A&M University.

Wayne is a Fellow of the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE), a past President of SBE and holds the Certified Professional Broadcast Engineer (CPBE) and Certified Broadcast Network Engineer (CBNE) certifications including all specialty endorsements from the SBE.

He was named the 2012 SBE Educator of the Year and the 2014 Radio World Engineer of the year.

He is an author and a frequent industry speaker on IP Networking and cybersecurity topics for the broadcast and media technology professional.

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Aaron Davis

Written by Jennifer Isenberg on June 2, 2025. Posted in Speakers.

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Aaron is a thought leader and expert in the area of attitude, motivating audience members to be their best…

As a keynote speaker, Aaron’s high energy talks on the power of a championship attitude have helped countless individuals take action in their personal and professional lives. His personal experience as a member of the 1994 Nebraska football championship team provides insight into what it takes to be a true leader. As a cancer survivor he shares how a positive attitude played a big part in his healing and full recovery.

Audience members and meeting planners alike rave about Aaron’s ability to make them think, laugh and provide the motivation to reach their full potential. He speaks to his audience in a way that they can relate with and understand. They walk away with “real” tools to change their attitudes, hence changing their lives both personally and professionally!
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His dynamic speaking style, combined with is life experiences give Aaron a unique perspective and he can connect on a deep and personal level. He gets the audience actively involved and authentically shares many personal stories that are relevant to the audience, leading to improved morale and increased motivation to excel in their roles and pursuits.

Aaron is also very familiar with the broadcast industry, co-hosting a radio program every morning on 93.7 FM called the “The Drive.” Understanding how a radio station works both as an announcer as well as assisting on the sales side is one reason Aaron has been referred by other broadcasting associations. He understands what it takes to make a station successful.

Prior to any type of commitment, Aaron would be glad to setup a Zoom call and figure out how his presentation can most effectively impact the audience he would be speaking to. After input from the Texas Broadcasters Association, Aaron would customize his keynote and breakout to the specific items that are most relevant to your audience members. His website also lists his speech topics for review prior to a call.

Catch this speaker at the following:

2025 TAB Show Opening Keynote: “Attitude Over Everything: Attitude – It Isn’t The Only Thing, But It’s The Main Thing To Achieve Championship Results.”

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Natalie Morales

Written by Sydney Herrmann on May 30, 2025. Posted in Speakers.

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Natalie Morales is a CBS News correspondent and 48 HOURS contributor based in Los Angeles, a position she started in November 2022.

An award-winning journalist and anchor, her reporting will be featured across CBS News platforms including true crime series 48 HOURS, CBS MORNINGS, CBS SUNDAY MORNING and others.

Morales is also a host of CBS’ Daytime Emmy-winning talk show THE TALK. Before joining CBS in 2021, Morales was the west coast anchor of “Today,” a correspondent for “Dateline NBC” and the anchor of “Behind Closed Doors with Natalie Morales,” a series presented by Reelz.

Previously, she was host of “Access,” co-host of “Access Live” and was news anchor of “Today,” where she co-hosted the third hour. She joined “Today” in 2006 as a national correspondent, reporting for all of NBC News’ platforms including “NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt” and MSNBC.

During her two decades of reporting for NBC News she covered many major national and international breaking news events, including such stories as the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting, the Boston Marathon bombing, the rescue of Chilean miners in 2010 and the 2009 presidential inauguration. In August 2008, Morales had the exclusive jailhouse interview with the infamous Clark Rockefeller.

Her other notable reports include Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005 and the election of Pope Francis in 2013. She also reported on the royal wedding in 2011 and the birth of Prince George in 2013.

Morales’ work has been honored with three Daytime Emmy Awards as part of “Today’s” recognition as best morning news program. She’s also earned a Robert F. Kennedy Award, three Gracie Awards and a National Headliner Award.

Morales, who speaks Spanish and Portuguese, was born in Taiwan and spent much of the first 18 years of her life living overseas in Panama, Brazil and Spain. She graduated summa cum laude from Rutgers University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and Latin American studies and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons.

Catch this speaker at the following:

Awards Gala

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Ben Downs

Written by Beth Bobbitt on June 26, 2024. Posted in Speakers.

Kalahari Resorts & Conventions
Round Rock, TX

Ben Downs is the Vice President and General Manager of Bryan Broadcasting in Bryan-College Station, along with being an operating partner for the stations.

During the intervening years, he has operated two statewide groups of broadcast stations in Texas.

Sonance Broadcasting owned stations in Lubbock, Midland, Killeen, and Waco. He also managed stations in Nacogdoches, Lufkin and Tyler.

In addition, Downs has served as Chairman of the Texas Association of Broadcasters twice!

In 2010, TAB honored him with the “Broadcaster of the Year” Award.

He also served as a Board member of the National Association of Broadcasters and was part of the NAB Legislative Leadership program.

Catch Ben at the following:

State of Play – TAB Annual Business Meeting

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