Dick Cassidy
Executive and Technical Director
Dick Cassidy has been a broadcaster since he was a teenager following in the footsteps of his father, who was a classical music host in Los Angeles for 45 years.
Dick started with a neighborhood radio station broadcasting to neighboring houses in Inglewood, Calif., during his teen years. At Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, he took charge of the university station KXLU as manager, chief engineer, and program director. He then joined Metromedia in 1966, where he was chief engineer for stations in San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
In 1971, Dick heard “they’re hiring” at this “new public radio network” NPR. He was first chief engineer, then Vice President of Engineering, for NPR until he decided to strike out on his own in 1984. He ran his own broadcast engineering consulting group for the next decade with clients including ABC, Seiko, and Tribune Broadcasting. A call for information technology (IT) help from WAMU’s chief engineer brought Dick to WAMU in 1997 to serve as the Director of IT and New Media. He spearheaded the inauguration of WAMU’s successful bluegrass Internet radio station, BluegrassCountry.org, in 2001.
Jen Hitt
Production Director
Jen’s passion in life is music — of all kinds. She’s been singing in choirs since the age of 4. At Rice University she learned to sing opera and studied classical composition, but since she was in Texas, she balanced school work with performing in a folk duo: playing guitar and singing. After college, she worked at House of Musical Traditions in Takoma Park, MD where she learned more about Bluegrass, world music and all the instruments that go along with it. She has spent several summers working as a sound engineer the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, absorbing all the traditional music the Smithsonian has to offer. Jen also holds a Masters in Music from University of Miami in Media Writing and Production. She was a DJ at KTRU Houston for 4 years and at WVUM, Miami for 2 years. A Washington DC native, she joined the BluegrassCountry.org fold in November of 2005.
Jerad Walker
Music Content Assistant
Jerad Walker is the Music Content Assistant for Bluegrass Country. A self-confessed music fanatic, he has been surrounded by music, in one form or another, for most of his life.
Born and raised in the traditional music hotbed of Southeast Georgia, he unsurprisingly fell in love with country, gospel, and bluegrass at an early age. Through childhood visits to Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans, Jerad’s parents actively encouraged this fascination, and by the age of 12, he was playing the guitar and building a sizable record collection. In 2004, he enrolled at the University of Georgia. He eventually earned a Bachelor’s Degree in International Affairs and briefly studied comparative political analysis at Oxford University. In addition to his studies, Jerad regularly performed live and learned how to record music. After graduating, he moved back to his hometown of Waycross, Georgia and formed an alternative country band, The Shingles. They independently recorded an album before disbanding in late 2008 when Jerad moved to Washington, DC and subsequently joined the staff of Bluegrass Country.
