Richard Mertz lost a battle with cancer, bringing to an end a 40-year career providing engineering services to the communications industry. He had been with firm Cavell Mertz and Associates for the past 25 years.
Friend and partner Gary Cavell passed along the highlights of Mertz’s career, which we will pass along intact:
“Richard joined the firm in 1994, bringing 25-years of broadcast experience with him. Richard’s chapter closes after more than 40 years in broadcast television and radio, cable television, and communications. Richard’s engineering career in the Washington, DC area spanned several decades and included tours as a staff engineer and project manager at Jules Cohen & Associates, P.C., Director of Engineering for United Broadcasting Company, Inc., and manger of technical operations for NBC’s WRC-AM. Prior to coming to Washington, Richard worked at several of the major-market Jefferson Pilot Broadcasting radios stations. He was the technical operations manager at WBT(AM)/ WBCY(FM), and the Jeffersonics audio recording facility in Charlotte, North Carolina. Before WBT, he was assistant chief engineer for Jefferson-Pilot Broadcasting’s WQXI-AM and FM in Atlanta, Georgia, where he designed and built studio and transmitter facilities. Over the years he presented technical papers at NAB conventions and at the IBC convention in Amsterdam, served on panels of industry groups, was a columnist for Radio World Magazine, and was a contributor to one of the NAB’s publications on station multiple ownership and consolidation of facilities.
“He will be sorely missed by his friends, clients and colleagues.”
