Mark Czerniec
Information Director

I was born in Chicago but while I was still a toddler, my father was advised in a dream to whisk me north to the land of milk and bratwurst -- Kenosha, Wisconsin.

As a young man I worked on a cabbage farm, sold vacuum cleaners and TV sets, and programmed computers at an electronics factory. Clearly this career path was leading directly toward radio, so I set my sights on working with the most interesting broadcaster I had ever heard — Steve Dahl. When, in 1981, Buzz Kilman was abruptly prohibited from providing Steve with his daily All My Children Update, I recognized my chance and immediately began interrogating my mom and sisters about the soap.

Working with Steve every day for three and a half years was magical, but I eventually tired of All My Children, so we parted ways. Having become close friends with Steve's former producer Dan Falato, I joined Dan's Saturday overnight show on WLS. I spent a summer managing a tiny WGN-affiliated radio station in a gazebo at Great America. I worked for years at Kenosha's public station, WGTD, reading news, hosting classical and big band music and organizing pledge drives. I worked at Kenosha's AM station, WLIP, hosting an evening talk show that had no listeners except my wife Amy, but I repeated the phone number anyway.

When the World Wide Web showed up on my desk one day, I saw it as a handy way of combining my interests in mass media, computers, and working from home, so I developed a Web site all about Kenosha and eventually began communicating with people all over the world — former Kenoshans living in Tokyo and Addis Ababa, and former Italian soldiers looking for old comrades here. Eventually, companies began asking me to make Web sites for them, so I did.

After we all spent the morning of September 11, 2001 dumbstruck by what was unfolding on TV, Dan — who had recently returned as Steve's producer — asked me to spend the afternoon monitoring events for the show. Afterward, Steve asked me to do this every day and I jumped at the chance.

I love this job. Each weekday morning from a spare bedroom in my home (now in Racine, Wisconsin), I laugh along with Steve and Buzz and look up whatever obscure details they may reference. At the same time, I also keep an ear on news stations and an eye on TV news while surfing the Web for anything that might be of interest to the show. 

These tidbits are all continuously posted to a running weblog that everyone down at Jack FM can view.

In my spare time, I keep a personal website at www.czerniec.com and enjoy food and music. Curiously, I do not dance.