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.