George Geesey papers

George Geesey was born on January 20, 1933 in Hagerstown, Maryland. He graduated from Hagerstown High School in 1950 and attended Hagerstown Junior College for two years. In 1952, he transferred to American University, graduating in 1954. He also attended two years of graduate study at American University.

Geesey also graduated from the Electronics Theory and Operation courses at the Army Signal School in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. He was certified after six months of training in Fixed Station Terminal and radio equipment operation at the U.S. Navy Research Lab and the Army Map Service in Washington, DC.

In 1958, Geesey was certified in Electronic Instrument Repair and Satellite Tracking Equipment at the Satellite Tracking Station of Fort Stewart, Georgia, where the United States tracked the first Sputnik and Vanguard satellites.

In 1961, Geesey became the first manager of WAMU-FM radio station at the American University. This station began at the same time as the establishment of the Eastern Educational Radio Network (EERN), which connected public radio stations in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington by a live terrestrial network line so that each of the four stations could originate material for the others to broadcast.

Geesey brought this network experience with him when he became the Director of Operations (and Engineering) for National Public Radio (NPR) in November 1970. He was the eleventh person employed by NPR. In that position, he helped design and build the first studios on M Street in Washington. He conducted seminars for regional meetings for the network station managers and engineers. He also worked with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) on the development and growth of the data communications network (DACS). Geesey conducted the first national stereo audio tests by satellite and demonstrated to the stations the feasibility of NPR moving from a terrestrial network to a satellite distribution system.

In 1976, Geesey was assigned to the Satellite Interconnection System Project Office (SISPO) as the Radio Coordinator. He helped find sites for the receiving satellite at each member station and was instrumental in getting the stations to include up to fifteen uplink sites for the origination of material in to the network programming. At the end of the SISPO project, Geesey continued to work on adding another ten stations to the satellite system.

After his work with NPR, Geesey also spent time with WETA-TV and WRC-TV in Washington, DC. In 1989, he became the Chief Engineer for the television facility at The George Washington University. There he was involved in upgrading to digital equipment and the installation of satellite antennas for the 60-channel closed circuit campus cable system. Geesey retired in May 1999.