January 2006 - Jennifer Freel's former boss Bob Cavallo, Chairman of Disney's Buena Vista Music Group, presented her with a platinum award for Hilary Duff, Jesse McCartney & Breaking Benjamin.

JENNIFER FREEL
eCOMMERCE OPERATIONS
UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP
(Universal City, CA)

I was in RTV-10-93. I can't believe it's been that long. I was able to visit the new school several years ago and I was blown away! I thought I would say hello to all of you and share with a little bit of what's happened in my career over the last 14 years.

I spent 3 years at Oakland University before coming to your school -- bored, uninspired and absolutely no fire in my belly. I honestly don't remember what brought me to the school, but my admissions rep, Audrey, was so excited; and the spark ignited.

I finally felt like I was on a path of my own choosing, something I loved, and something that I really had a passion for. Radio was something so exciting to me, and the thought of being able to work around music and technology everyday made me giddy -- and it even made my parents proud. Their support of my dreams and your direction brought me to where I am today.

Before I even graduated from Specs, I had found a job at WIQB in Ann Arbor doing overnights making $6.50 per hour. Eventually, I was promoted to 7-midnight and raked in a whopping $7.00 per hour. I drove from Clarkston to Ann Arbor every day -- the job really only paid for my gas, but I didn't care. I was blissfully happy because I was doing something that I loved.

I worked at several stations while in Detroit -- WIQB, WJR, WWJ, WJOI, and WPLT (WDVD). I moved into marketing & promotion (after I realized what those people were making) and moved to Los Angeles 7 years ago.

I came out here without a job and only a few contacts, but soon landed a job at an indie record label. From there, I went on to work at Disney for 5 years for their record company (Hilary Duff, Rascal Flatts) and I'm now doing eCommerce Operations (digital distribution) for Universal Music Group -- the worlds biggest music company.

The group here consists of brilliant minds who have designed a series of advanced digital systems to help develop, distribute, sell and track products in the evolving eCommerce marketplace. My focus is music video with partners such as iTunes, AOL, Yahoo, MTV, YouTube and many, many others.

Lesson Learned

On one of my first overnight shifts at WIQB, I was all alone in the station-- a shack & transmitter located in the middle of a corn field straight out of a horror flick. I had to play a Pink Floyd track. I put the CD in, selected the appropriate track, and let it run. Unbeknownst to me, the actual composition is split between two tracks on a CD. I checked the duration on my log, but cocky me assumed it was a typo. The song abruptly cut off and I realized my mistake. I pressed play on the next cued CD. The phones lit up. I ignored them.

Thankfully, it was about 3am and the PD was asleep, but I knew I was in deep doo-doo. Pink Floyd fans all over the greater Ann Arbor area were calling me, enraged, to let the little girl from Clarkston know what a moron she was. I went on the air and apologized for our technical malfunction. Oopsie!

An hour later, I had to take a transmitter reading. There was some math involved and quite honestly, I couldn't tell you how to do it anymore, but I always had sweaty palms when taking the reading.

I pulled the clipboard off the side of the box and noticed that every DJ before me had marked down the exact same number for the last 2 days. I did the calculations and discovered my number was totally different. I did the math again, and again. I was right. All the other morons were wrong. Clearly, they didn't have Dick Kernen's class -- how on earth did they get their license? I wondered.

Discovering the errors in the transmitter readings from the jocks before me, my little Pink Floyd fiasco seemed like chump change. The world wouldn't end over Pink Floyd, but I was pretty sure someone could get nuked if the transmitter was out of whack. I suppose now this is why it's all digital and engineers are usually involved.

While working in production at Disney, I always spoke out against ghost and hidden tracks -- and especially the multiple-track compositions. I was often found in a Disney conference room saying "For the love of God, please don't do this. I know you're expressing artistic hoopla, but come on -- no one cares. Your seven minutes of pre-gap silence is just pissing people off. No one wants to download silence." Not to mention some little punk DJ in Ann Arbor who might screw it up.

Graduation Day 1994

I remember playing my demo for my mother in Jim Bell's office (pictured left) the day of my graduation -- she was so proud of me, and I know she would still be today. If not for my education at Specs Howard I certainly wouldn't be where I am today. Thank you all for your direction, leadership, support and most of all, the education.