Sonja got her start in public radio in 1993 as a volunteer music host at KFSK in Petersburg, Alaska and then became Operations/Program Director. She also worked at public stations in the lower 48, including KPCW in Park City Utah as Program Director. Sonja Lee returned to Alaska to be the Program Director at KBBI in Homer. Sonja Lee started with John Sutton & Associates in 2007, and is now President and partner of Sutton & Lee, LLC. S&L helped WQXR, KDFC and KING classical stations with the transition from commercial to public. They also helped Rhode Island Public Radio in an independence campaign from WBUR. You can reach her at 240-565-3664 or sonjalee@radiosuton.com.
John Sutton
John founded what is now Sutton & Lee in 1997 after 10 years at NPR where he ran NPR’s Audience Research department, ran NPR’s on-air fundraising and on-air promotion service to stations, and founded the CPB-funded On-Air Fundraising Partnership. As a consultant, he served more than three dozen public radio stations, participated in several major industry research projects, including Audience 98 and The Listener-Focused Fundraising Project. He is currently the General Manager of 90.5 WESA, Pittsburgh’s NPR News Station, where he practices what he preached for decades as a station consultant.