Rising Stars: Meet Marcos O’Rourke of Centennial

Today we’d like to introduce you to Marcos O’Rourke.

Hi Marcos, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was raised in southern California for my whole life. All of the major life events happened there (except being born, which happened elsewhere). I got into radio through my passion for graphic design. At the time I was heavily into graphic design and one day at college the radio station people got up and said that if you’re interested, come see them. I thought that would be interesting and maybe I could help them with some graphic design work. Long story short, I ended up working in radio for the next twenty years. In 2022, life had some major changes, the station I was working at started feeling a bit hostile towards me, and it was the right opportunity to make the switch to network radio. That’s how I ended up out here in Colorado. I love my job and I love the industry. It’s a great blend of creative and technical. That love for the field led me to start a YouTube channel that pulled the curtain back on this unseen part of the industry. Everyone sees the behind the scenes of the DJs in the studio, but no one really understand or appreciates what it takes to make that happen. I call it the behind the scenes of the behind the scenes.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
In the over twenty years in broadcast engineering, there have been some challenges. One of the joys of my job was getting out of the office and up into the mountains where our transmitter sites were located. Those roads were not always dry and free from obstructions. I learned a lot about having perseverence from having to navigate these crazy back mountain roads. Moving out here was some of the hardest choices I’ve ever had to make in my life. My family and friends and support group are all in southern California, but to move out here to a job was stepping out into the unknown for me.

Meanwhile, I’ve been trying to plug along with my YouTube channel exploring the broadcast engineering side of the radio and content delivery industry.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
While the bread and butter of my livelihood is in network radio as an engineer, my creative outlet is my YouTube channel. I get to talk to the people who make radio and content happen, as well as get to tour some really cool and exciting facilities. Some that have an amazing history and others that are brand new and state-of-the-art. I love being able to take some of the strange concepts of radio and be able to explain them to the casual observer.

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
In my formative years, I grew up in the mountains outside of San Diego, and that gave me a love for the outdoors ad the mountains. I remember spending so much time outside hiking around.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://thebroadcast.engineer
• Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/@TheBroadcastEngineer