"Dorothy Brunson" (March 13,1939-July 31,2011)

She was born in Glensville,a small town in Georgia,the future executive was

the daughter of Wadis & Naomi (Ross) Edwards.Her daddy was a laborer who worked in painting and construction.Her mama was employed by United States for more than 30 years as a matron (attendant),and was one of the first African Americans to fly out of John F.Kennedy Airport in New York the family moved to Harlem in 1940,where Dorothy was raised.She went on to graduate from Empire State College,in New York City,with a B.S. in business & finance.In 1964, she married James Brunson,an electrician with whom she had two children,Edward & Daniel.Initially,Dorothy worked in advertising,placing ads in newspapers for the curtain division of a discount department store known as W.T. Grant.She was always interested in radio and television,and she moved on to work at Sondering Broadcast Group when the company programing some of its stations for African American listeners in 1962.She became assistant controller of WWRL-Radio on Long Island,New York,obtaining her position both for her skill and for her ability to reach out to the African American community that suddenly interested the company's owners.
She rose rapidly through the ranks,becoming controller in only three months  and later becoming assistant general manager and corporate liaison to the company's board of directors.In 1969,she cofounded Howard Sanders Advertising,one of the first African American owned ad agencies in the United States.In 1969,the business world was highly segregated,as was the world of media,and for African Americans to develop African American-oriented ad campaigns was virtually unheard of.High levels African Americans executives were also rare,and Dorothy faced an uphill battle in the business world as both an African American and a woman.
Dorothy left the ad agency in 1970 with $115,000 in buyout money (money given to buy part of a business from one of its owners),which she used to purchase a dress shop.When that enterprise failed,
Dorothy helped cofounded Inner City,Broadcasting,a new communcations company that owned the African American oriented radio station WLIB-AM.The call letters "LIB" were short for "liberation,"reflecting the station's commitment to African American empowment.Dorothy was brought into the group in order to seek investors.
After four months in operation,Inner City Broadcasting hired her as general manager.The job was not an easy one-the fledging company was already more than one million dollars in debt-Dorothy had several ideas for how to improve the operation's finances.She cut the staff from 35 to eight and restructured (made new arrangements with lenders for how interest would be charged and payments would be made).Despite these cost- cutting measures,
Dorothy also made a bold move:She obtained a loan to buy WLIB-FM,an African American-oriented music station that she renamed WBLS.Her plan was to operate both stations with a single staff,increasing the potential for ad revenues while keeping costs low.She also had WBLS expand their playlist past rhythm & blues known as exclusively "black"music-to include some white artists that African Americans audiences liked.This mix became known as "urban contemporary," and it made the station very popular with both listeners and advertisners.
Inner City Broadcasting profited accordingly.By 1978,their annual sales had skyrocketed from $500,000 to $23 million,and they had gone from owning a single station to having seven.Sometime around 1976,Dorothy divorced.Dorothy wanted her own chance to build a radio corporation,in 1979 she bought WEBB-Radio in Baltimore when singing star James Brown was forced to sell it in a bankruptcy proceeding,making her the first-and for a while,the only African American woman to own a radio station.Dorothy soon discovered,that her station owed a huge sum in back taxes and had several Federal Communications Commissions (FCC) violations to its name.Local stations with minority programming resented her adding another African American-oriented station to their city,while neighborhood organizations protested her construction of radio towers in an area where they feared the
towers would interfere with existing radio and TV reception.For the first four years of operation,WEBB ran a deficit-and for the first year,Dorothy refused to take a salary.
Somehow Dorothy managed to raise the capital that she needed,and within seven years she had lifted her station's ratings from the bottom of her 35-station market all the way up to 10th place,while she raised advertising sales $100,000 to $800,000.In 1981,Dorothy WIGO-AM in Atlanta,Georgia;within a few years the station's revenues had more than doubled.In 1984 she acquired WBMS-AM in Wilmington,North Carolina,under the Umbrella of her media Brunson Communications.
She saw her work in radio as giving the African American community  a voice as well as reaching African American people with educational,enligtening,messages.In Baltimore,she engaged in such community activities as sponsoring a basketball team and offering Father's Day awards for African American daddies.
In 1984,Dorothy began negotiations for WGTW-TV,a Philadelphia television station.It took her two years to obtain the station's license.To build the station,she sold all her radio properties for about $3 million.It was difficult to
get the station on the air,as it had been out of operation for ten years.The building had ben vandalized,and equipment had broken down.In August 1992,after two and a half years of work,the station began to broadcast again.
WGTW-TV completes with much larger and better-funded corporations,but it has managed to holds its own.The station features mainstrain programming with some minority focus,and is committed to having a racially mixed staff.
Dorothy was always aware that her position as an African American woman executive was a precarious one.In a 1996 Black Enterprise article,she spoke of needing to find additional financing,which she said was difficult despite her company's solid rate of profit and its annual growth of rate of 30 percent."Most people would look at these barometers and say that the company is doing well," she said."But because I am a woman,my company is seen as a fluke."
In 2004 Dorothy was working with her sons on their ventures.Daniel started one of the first African American Internet Service Providers (ISP),Nuroots.com,in Baltimore,Maryland,while Edward founded a Philadelphia-based production,Amina,to produce documentaries and record African American historical events.Dorothy died from due to ovarian cancer at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore.