New KRCL general manager Vicki Mann says she hopes to be a "stabilizing force"

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The board of trustees at non-profit community radio station KRCL just named Vicki Mann as the station's new general manager, although Mann started work last week.

"It was in the middle of radio-thon," Mann said about the fund-raising campaign. "It was a baptism in fire."

"She hit the ground running," said Eugenie Hero Jaffe, station publicist with Bombshell Music & Media.

Mann was selected from an applicant pool of 32 in a search that began last summer, said Margrit Schneider, chair of KRCL's board of trustees.

It was Mann's diversity of experience, enthusiasm and a history with radio that made Mann appealing to the board, Schneider said.

"It sure helps when you have radio experience," Schneider said.

Until Mann's arrival, the station had been under the leadership of membership director Amy Dwyer and former program director Ryan Tronier since October 2010. When Tronier left the station last year, Dwyer was the sole interim general manager.

Founding staffer Donna Land Maldonado retired as general manager in 2009 after three decades with the station, and Brolly Arts founder Amy McDonald succeeded her in the position until October 2010. Schneider would only say that McDonald left because "things didn't work out."

Mann has more than 30 years of radio experience, including stints at stations in Chicago, San Francisco, Boise and Bozeman, Montana. Most recently she was station manager of 88Nine Radio Milwaukee.

She also has experience in Utah, having served as advertising manager for the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Prior to RadioMilwaukee, Mann spent eight years in Salt Lake City, including time at Clear Channel Radio, Trumper Communications and KCPW.

Mann was fan, listener and supporter of KRCL when she lived in Utah, and said she believes after several years of changes at the station, she can be a "stabilizing force" who can "steer this station in the right direction." She added that her staff at KRCL was supportive and welcoming and that the station "is ripe for a wonderful thing."

The mountains also attracted Mann back to Utah, she said. Mann grew up in the metropolises of Los Angeles and Chicago, but would spent summers going to tennis camps in Sun Valley, Idaho.