Keith Boyd’s journey to a lifelong career at Microsoft began in 1995 at KUGS, and, specifically, in bringing KUGS to a whole new platform: the internet.
As Boyd, ’95, B.A., political science, recalls, KUGS had a problem: With a 100-watt transmitter, the broadcast just didn’t carry. Most of campus, much less Bellingham, couldn’t receive the FM signal.
A fellow student, Gavin Shearer, ’02, B.A., general studies, had the idea to take their signal to a digital platform.
“He used his connections to secure sufficient bandwidth to maintain 16 concurrent streams,” Boyd says, “no small feat back in 1995.”
With a single Mac and help from some friends, KUGS entered the streaming world, only the second radio station to do so.
“We would’ve been first, but it was KUGS’ 21st birthday, and we had decided to go online on the birthday. University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill beat us by a few days,” Boyd says.
As with launching a satellite, they sent out the signal and waited to see how far it could go. And it went far—they heard from a listener in Antarctica!
“That was so cool—to know we had reached the farthest place on the planet. The person told us how comforting it was to be all the way out there and hear us.”
Today, Boyd’s son Aiden is carrying on the family KUGS tradition as a student, broadcasting on KUGS every week. Dad and son share a lot of music, but not necessarily musical taste.
“I just love seeing what he’s into and learning about the music he likes,” says Boyd.
Not only was Boyd a part of the team to bring the radio station to the internet, when he became station manager in 1997-98, he also broadened the signal.
“We were competing with KPLU for bandwidth, and we ended up petitioning the FCC to get an 800-watt transmitter,” he says. “And we did it.”
Boyd says of his experience at KUGS, “It’s a constant reminder in my career to continue to take chances, to not be afraid of failing fast, and to do the best that I can to enable and empower my team, even when their ideas seem crazy. If a tiny group of college students can change the arc of broadcasting history, why can’t my team accomplish goals that seem difficult or even impossible?”
As for Western, he loves coming back to campus. “One of the amazing things about Western and KUGS is that most of us alumni want to come back and be here.”
