APRE Honors David Layer of the NAB

The Board of the Association of Public Radio Engineers is pleased to announce that the awardee of the 2023 APRE Engineering Achievement Award is David Layer, Vice President, Advanced Engineering for the National Association of Broadcasters.

The APRE Engineering Award is granted on an annual basis to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the art and/or science of radio engineering that has made a significant impact on, or improvement in the state of the public radio industry.

According to APRE President Victoria St. John, “In the midst of the dramatic changes in our industry over the past several years, David has been a great and supportive colleague to the public radio engineering community. David’s service to all broadcasters has been exemplary.”

The Award will be presented at the final event of the upcoming Public Radio Engineering Conference, April 13 and 14 at the Tuscany Suites Hotel, Las Vegas just before the 2023 NAB Show. Details available at the APRE Website https://www.apre.us/ Reservations for the 2023 APRE Engineering Awards Dinner alone can be made at the PREC Registration Page.

Educated as an Electrical Engineer at the University of Maryland and Purdue University in Indiana, David Layer worked as a hardware designer for COMSAT Laboratories in the earlier part of his career, focusing on digital communications technologies for geosynchronous satellite systems.

When radio broadcasting started going digital in the latter part of the 1990s, David was hired by NAB to apply his digital communications expertise to the testing and standardization of broadcast radio technologies including digital audio broadcasting and data transmission over digital FM subcarriers. As an administrator of the National Radio Systems Committee (NRSC, co-sponsored by NAB and the Consumer Technology Association), David participated in the evaluation of the HD Radio system which would be adopted by the FCC in 2002 as the digital radio standard for the US.

David is actively involved in NAB's technical conference planning and technical publication activities, and has been an author and contributing author for numerous technical publications, including IEEE Spectrum magazine (a leading journal of the Electrical Engineering profession), the McGraw-Hill Yearbook of Science and Technology, and the 9th, 10th and 11th editions of the NAB Engineering Handbook. David is an occasional author of NAB’s Broadcast Blog covering timely radio and TV broadcasting-related technical topics.

David was the recipient of Radio World’s 2015 Excellence in Engineering Award and was recognized by Radio Ink Magazine in November 2010 as among the top ten best engineers in radio. In 2014 David received the Consumer Electronics Association Technology Leadership Award. The IEEE BTS awarded David the Matti Siukola Memorial Award for the Best Paper of both the 2014 and 2018 IEEE Broadcast Symposia.

David Layer Joins a notable group of contributors to the past, present and future of engineering and technology that has helped support public broadcasters:
 

Rich Parker, Director of Engineering at Coast Alaska, Inc, Juneau, Alaska

Jeff Welton of Nautel, Inc

Bruce Wahl, NPR

Dan Mansergh KQED

Ralph Hogan, past founding president of APRE

Ralph Woods, NPR

Bud Aiello, NPR

Gray Frierson Haertig, Consulting Engineer

Michael LeClair, chief engineer for WBUR(FM)

Mike Starling, former Vice President, Technology Research Center and NPR Labs

Roger Karwoski, Assistant Manager and Director of Engineering for KBIA 

Donald Creighton, VP of Technology for Minnesota Public Radio and APM

Richard Cassidy, Director of IT and New Media for WAMU(FM), Washington

The late Wayne Hetrich, one of NPR's 30 original employees

Chuck Leavens, Director of Engineering and IT management for WDUQ, Pittsburgh

Marty Bloss, former Director of Technology at NPR

Don Danko, Vice President for Engineering, Cincinnati Public Radio

John Kean of NPR Labs, part of NPR Distribution's Technology Research Center

The late Jim McEachern of NPR

Mike Pappas of KUVO in Denver

Doug Vernier of V-Soft Communications 

The late Chuck Mellone, PTFP/NTIA – 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award 

Dennis L. Haarsager, NPR, Northwest Public Radio – 2010 Technology Vision Award

David Layer