For several years, Eileen Spath (Class of 2014) chaired the Banquet Committee. When we all come back to Syracuse every year for one of our favorite weekends, we may not realize what happens behind the scenes to get this show "on the air." Today we go behind the scenes.
We start, however, with Eileen's story - how she got to Syracuse and then found Citrus TV and WJPZ. And while she loved her time on the morning show, Eileen also excelled behind the scenes, serving in various roles from human resources to broadcast consultant. In her time since graduating, she's worked several jobs, ending up at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany. She is now their communications director, overseeing a "small but mighty" team.
When she took on the job of running the Banquet, she of course leaned heavily on her predecessor, Dena (Giacobbe) Laupheimer, forming a great friendship.
In addition to the usual Syracuse weather challenges, the Banquet has thrown Eileen various curve balls. In fact her first Banquet as Chair was 2016 - the year we had to move Banquet back a month, due to construction at the Syracuse Sheraton. The only problem was: the new date was Final Four weekend. Every sports guy in our group (and there are many) assured her there was no way the Orange would make the Final Four. Until they did. And as for the "construction" at the Sheraton: it never happened.
Eileen also helped navigate our annual event through the pandemic - from a cursory concern in 2020, to going virtual in 2021, to finally coming back in 2022. To bookend that last year of her tenure, there WAS an issue at the Sheraton - necessitating a last minute venue change to Drumlins.
While today's guest is quick to credit the team around her, she deserves a lot of credit for keeping this event going for the better part of a decade. As for this year? She's happy to be a resource for new Banquet Chair Sam Kandell ('18), but is also looking forward to working a little less in Syracuse.
Join Us in Syracuse for Banquet on March 4th: https://bit.ly/WJPZ50BanquetTickets
The WJPZ at 50 Podcast is produced by Jon Gay '02 and JAG in Detroit Podcasts
JAG: Welcome to WJPZ at 50. I am Jon Jag Gay. We are headed down the thruway a little bit east today to Albany talking to the great Eileen Spath from the Class of 2014. Welcome to the podcast.
Eileen: Thanks. Thanks for having me.
JAG: There are so many questions I wanna ask you. So much to get to, and so delighted to have you on the podcast.
Let's start at the beginning. How did you end up at Syracuse and finding the radio station?
Eileen: Oh, that alone is a story in and of itself. I had no idea where I wanted to go to school. I applied to 10 colleges. I had it down to, really, it was between an engineering school in Syracuse and it came down to financial aid and the engineering school never got back to me.
So I said, great, I'll try this communication thing out. And I think it was a little bit of Fate playing a hand because I definitely ended up where I was supposed to be. And then the radio station, I originally joined Citrus TV. I did that for four years. It was a wonderful experience. Z89 was right next door.
All my friends were doing it and it seemed really fun. It was music, didn't have to worry about being on camera. So I joined sophomore year much to my own regret. I wish I'd joined sooner and I never looked back. It was a blast.
JAG: It's so funny, you are maybe the 10th person so far on this podcast to say that exact same thing.
I wish I'd gotten involved with WJPZ sooner. I feel like that's a common thread throughout all of our guests. So what did you do at the station while you were there, Eileen?
Eileen: I did a little bit of on-air and a lot of, bit of administrative side of things, so I joined as a Zoo host. Pretty much right off the bat.
The station wasn't as well attended at my time there, so it was a little easier to get on air and have a DJ shift. And then from there I joined the executive staff as the, what's now called the human resource manager. Ended up being broadcast consultant, so I had a lot of fun pulling the strings, doing the behind the scenes stuff as I got older, and that's where I gravitated toward professionally.
I am not a broadcaster by trade, unlike many of your guests. I imagine. Though I'm doing my best .
JAG: No, that's why we're so happy to have so many people who have done so many different things at the station and so many different things in terms of career. Tell me about your career path in the eight years since you've graduated.
Eileen: So my first job out of school was at a bank for three months, and I couldn't have quit it fast enough. And then I worked at an insurance company, briefly, doing some marketing and broadcasting, and then I moved over to Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany, which is where I am now. Started as an admin and have had a few different titles, but I'm the communications director, so WJP Z is serving me well, even if it's not broadcasting.
There's a lot of storytelling in my day-to-day, which I would credit Z89 for giving me a strong foundation.
JAG: Absolutely. So you alluded to it there, Eileen, just the ability to communicate and get a message out that you learned at JPZ. Are there specific stories or general things from the station that you've taken with you that have helped really shape your career and how you do things now?
Eileen: I'm gonna pivot a little bit. I know I mentioned storytelling, but I think being the human resource manager actually probably has served me better. Amazing how important it is to learn how to work with people, and WJPZ was such a wonderful little petri dish of that. It really was. We had students from all over the country, people, cultures that I'd never been exposed to growing up.
And then you're also working with anyone from freshmen to seniors. I came in as a sophomore on the exec staff, human resources. Managing seniors. I think it was Internal relations director was the name of it when I was a student. There's just so much interpersonal work that had to go into something like that, and I know everyone says this, but we had such a good group of students there with me, like they were so sweet, so nice, so talented.
And to be a part of that in that interpersonal way was really cool. And now as a manager in my day-to-day, I use it all of the time.
JAG: How many people are on your team?
Eileen: We're a team of three, so we're small but mighty. I oversee two staff people now, but we work with 14 different offices, so there's a lot of management of staff and management of projects and working with colleagues in the field. It comes into play at every single step of my job is working with people.
JAG: All right, so speaking of people, and you mentioned, working with the best people, which again, there are a number of impressive alumni that were there at your time, present company included, of course. Talk to me about some of the relationships that you built with folks at the station that were your colleagues at the station that you've stayed in touch with over the years, and then if there are any alumni you've connected with as well.
Eileen: Oh wow. That's a loaded question.
JAG: It's like asking people to choose between their kids. I realize that, or their pets. But talk to me about just some of the enduring relationships you still have that you've built through JPZ.
Eileen: Yeah. One obvious example comes to mind is there's a pair of JPZ'ers who met through the station, Molly Nelson and Alex Brewer, and I was their maid of honor in their wedding.
We still keep in touch. They live in Syracuse now. I stay with them anytime I visit. And then another obvious pair, and I'm gonna stop after this because I'll get in trouble if I don't mention everybody, are my fearless co-hosts, Joey Cosco and Corey Crockett. We were in the trenches together. Waking up at five in the morning to get on air every Tuesday or Thursday, depending on the year.
They saw me at my most tiredest griest, sleep deprived self. But all that we had to do is blast some good music to start the day, and they turned that right around. And I've kept in touch with all of them and so many other people. So if you're not one of those were the easy ones to mention. I love you all.
They've been such a big part of my adult life in a way that I never would've imagined when I was 19 and meeting them all for the first time. Here we are over a decade later and I know I can call them up in a heartbeat if I have any sort of professional need, personal need. They all regularly proofread for me.
JAG: Oh, wow. And it's funny because we had Alex and Molly on the podcast recently and you were the first name that came up for them as someone who they've stayed in touch with over the years. And we're gonna have Corey coming up on an upcoming episode of the podcast as well. So looking forward to talking to him.
And it's funny, I asked that question of everybody and everybody gets that same look in their eyes as like somebody accepting an Oscar or an Emmy on stage. Oh my God. I don't wanna forget to thank anybody. , I don't wanna forget, I don't wanna forget. I'm afraid to say any names.
Just thank you everybody. So it's really speaks to the family atmosphere that we've cultivated at JPZ for 50 years now.
Eileen: It really does, and I think that's the beauty of this community is you go to school with the people you go to school with, but then you become an alum and your network increases exponentially.
And your closest friends in the WJPZ community could have graduated. 5, 10, 15 years before you, or down the road, you may make a wonderful bond with somebody who's 5, 10 years below you. And I've experienced both. It's just such a good feeling.
JAG: I'm gonna put you back on the spot then, Eileen, you were in charge of the banquet for the better part of a decade up through this past banquet.
I gotta imagine there are some alumni in putting together the banquet that you really got close with and learned a lot from throughout this whole process.
Eileen: Oh, . I would be remiss if I did not give Dena a shout out. So Dena was the banquet chair prior to me, and she really showed me the ropes and got me involved and it was such a pleasure.
I can't tell you how many hour plus long conversations we had while she was commuting home from work on Long Island because anything in Long Island takes about an hour. And we talked everything about dogs and her now husband to the logistics of Banquet. Yeah, that was lovely. She has been such a pleasure to work with and get to know personally.
JAG: And you've passed the torch over to Sam Kandell this year, right?
Eileen: To Sam, yeah! And she's doing a great job. It's been lovely for me cuz I am doing very little this year. I feel like I'm on a bit of a vacation . She is running with it in the best way. I can't wait to go and attend as a guest and just have a good time.
JAG: So let me dig it a little bit deeper on this with you, Eileen, because one of the reasons I'm doing this podcast is to, obviously drum of support cuz we're celebrating 50 years "On Z Air" as we've been saying. Talk to me a little bit about some of the behind the scenes stuff that goes into planning the banquet.
Because there are so many of us who this is like the highlight of our calendar.
She's getting stressed out. I can see with the look on her face as we're talking here.
There are so many of us, like this is red Letter, circled on our calendar every year, one of the highlights of our year. We look forward to coming back every year, and it's such a amazing experience.
But I don't think the folks listening to this podcast, myself included, understand what a colossal undertaking this thing is behind the scenes. What are some of the steps? What are some of the logistics that you have to work out putting together the banquet so that we can all come up to Syracuse and have a great time in the dead of snowy winter every year?
Eileen: I'll start with, since you mentioned winter, if there are a lot of prayers and good faith, but out there that everyone gets there and back safely, that's probably the most important.
JAG: It's a good thing you work for the archdiocese. Now you've got some connections.
Eileen: I'd say we almost always run into bad weather, but everyone is careful.
They do their best. We've had a couple people stranded in an airport, but by and large, we're all used to it, right? We know how to deal. And then honestly, it's just a lot of details in getting our ducks in a row. The banquet chair role is almost more of a project manager or stage manager for a play.
We're getting everyone where they're supposed to be and we're trusting them all to do their job well and they always do. We've got great keynotes every year. The awards committee always does an excellent job picking Hall of Fame honorees. The students go above and beyond every year to accommodate us with on air shifts, with showing us a good time.
And really we, as alumni going into their space and they're still welcoming each and every year. So coordinating all those pieces and then dealing with crises as they appear. But we have a great network, so I always knew that alumni would be a call away if I needed their help. And now as banquet chair emeritus,I hope I'm on Sam's shortlist now, so she can always gimme a call.
JAG: I'm sure you are. Okay. I have to ask, I feel like we're past the statute of limitations. Now that you no longer hold the title anymore. You've gotta take us behind the scenes and tell us about a couple of curve balls that you were thrown over the course of the years and putting this thing together where you didn't see it coming and you had to scramble to solve a problem.
Eileen: I wouldn't say it was a problem .
JAG: How diplomatic of you.
Eileen: My first year, we had to push the date back. My first year chairing Banquet because the Sheraton was supposedly undergoing construction, that never happened, so we re scheduled the whole thing to accommodate this construction, recognizing the only realistic date was Final Four weekend, but also recognizing that the Syracuse basketball team was bad. And I asked all of the sports people I knew, what are the odds that Syracuse sends up in the Final Four?
Come Elite eight weekend, Syracuse sends up in the Final Four and I had a minor meltdown of how are we gonna accommodate this? Everyone's gonna be so mad at me. And it ended up working great.
We had turned it into a watch party. We had music during the commercial breaks. I think Rick Wright and I ended up doing, like, the Cha Cha Slide together at one point. We had a ton of fun. It just was a big party and the keynoter still did a great job. We still had all the pomp and circumstance.
JAG: Was that the year Erica Farber came back?
Eileen: Yep. Bright orange sneakers that she was showing off are light up sneakers. She was awesome. She was a really fun first keynote for me.
JAG: That was your first banquet, Eileen?
Eileen: Yeah, that was my first chairing. So I had done banquet previously with Dina the year before.
And then that was my first, this is my show. Talk about baptism by fire.
JAG: No, and it's funny because I remember having the conversation with Josh Wolff leading up to the bank because Josh and I of course are very close, and I'm not as much of a knowledgeable college basketball fan as many of our alumni, but I know a little about sports.
And same conversation. Josh was like, Jag, there's no way Syracuse would be in the Final Four, right? No, there's no way they'd be in the Final four this year. And then lo and behold, and I gotta say it's probably almost like a stroke of luck that we had like our first ever returning keynote speaker that year cuz she had done the banquet before.
She knew the lay of the land. She knew what we were all about. So it's probably easier for her to pivot to the part of this watch party cause having already been there and done that in a way I'd imagine.
Eileen: Yeah, I'd imagine it would be difficult for someone going in blind to that kind of event.
We're a fun group, but we can be a lot.
JAG: Yeah. ask any spouse.
Eileen: They all handle it beautifully though. I love the Z89 spouses. They are troopers in every sense of the word. But yeah, it was good having her back and she just rolled with it and jumped in with both feet.
JAG: And this is a credit to you too, and I've told the story in the podcast before, but briefly, my wife Ellen had always said, I talk to like three people from college.
I never understood why you talked to so many Syracuse people until I came with you to Syracuse and saw what an amazing, warm, large, welcoming group this is. And we've welcomed so many spouses over the years and some spouses have come and said, okay, this is a lot. You go, you have a good time. And there are some spouses who are like, oh my God, this is amazing.
I'm gonna come back and hang out with this group every year. And Ellen will come some years, but there's some years if other spouses are coming that she knows, she may come. But otherwise she's, go have your boys weekend, go have your cigar with your boys, go have fun. But it really is such a wonderful group and that's a credit to you and Dena and now Sam and everybody else who's run the banquet, that it's always inclusive, it's a big tent.
Everybody's welcomed whether you went to the station, what year you went to the station, what you did at the station, whether or not you also worked at WAER. If you're a spouse, it doesn't matter because everybody just is welcomed into this big group, and that's certainly a credit to you and your team.
Eileen: Oh, thank you. At the risk of being humble, I think it's an easy culture to foster when it already exists, and it's certainly something that existed when I was even a senior. Part of the reason I wanted to take up the mantle to be a part of that and be a part of that culture and fostering it even further.
So that was my motivation there. So that means a lot that you said that.
JAG: Other banquet horror stories, you had the will we or won't we for 2021 with Covid, having to go digital. In 2020, we got in just under the wire before we realized that this Covid thing might actually be real and scary. And we're like, oh yeah, it's this little thing that's going on. We're not missing our trip to Syracuse. We all went. Then like a week or two later, the world shut down and we're like maybe it wasn't great to share a hundred wings among 50 people off the same plate. Who knows? But I've gotta imagine that era, your last few years were stressful with so many n
Eileen: yeah, a lot of people might not know this, but we did have a bit of the, will they, won't they conversation in 2020, not too intently. We're like, yeah, we'll be fine. But to your point, maybe sharing wings, space, air wasn't the best idea. Fortunately, everyone was fine and hindsight is 2020. And then the digital banquet was really fun to produce, but a whole other beast.
And then this past year was also another pivot year with the Sheraton. So I went out with a bang .
JAG: Yeah. Literally as that pipe burst and was last minute, we had to move it to Drunlins. How far away from the banquet was that where we had to move the venue?
Eileen: Within two weeks? I can't remember. Oh my God. I think I blacked out for part of it.
JAG: You've suppressed that memory from a year later.
Eileen: I gotta say at that point, when you've done it for a few years, you're just like, all right, we'll figure it out. Because we always do. And that's not a credit to myself, just a credit to our crew. Stephen Donovan is always Johnny on the spot.
No matter what venue you were in, Kevin Rich was like, yeah, do whatever you gotta do. And we figured it out. It was great.
JAG: You got the buses. We had a little bit of an upgrade in the food cuz we went from the Sheraton to Drumlins. I know that's been a hot topic among several alumni, but the food was great and it was, again, you would think that we were planning on doing Drunlins the whole time because you and your team just pulled it off.
Eileen: Every time too. It always just ends up being a ton of fun no matter what headaches or hiccups or crisises we have going into the weekend. Once everyone's there and everyone is together, we cannot help but have a good time. I think everyone goes away feeling fulfilled and recharged and re-energized if a little worse for where, from the weekend.
JAG: If you're comfortable sharing this, what is one piece of advice you gave Sam in taking it over this year?
Eileen: I think it was mostly like, you got this, she has event planning experience. She's not gonna have any problem. I let her know I'm your ally. If you ever need an ally, I'm your sounding board. If you ever need a sounding board, I'm sure she won't mind me sharing that she's taken me up on it a few times, but by and large, she's just hit the ground running and is not looking back in a really good way.
JAG: Before we wrap up with you, Eileen, if you can you think back to your time as a student and share a funny story or two that you still look back on when all your classmates come back, whether it's Alex and Molly or Corey or whoever it is, and you say, remember the time when, and you still laugh about it.
Eileen: There's so many, but I think one of the things that I'm proudest of being a part of and was very fun and continues to this day, was in part with Allie Gold. My senior year was the inaugural Watson Cup. So Allie was the general manager at the time, and she organized a pick up kickball game against Citrus TV and WJPZ.
No commercials, no mercy. Took home the cup. And to my knowledge, they still do that to this day as an annual tradition. And it was so fun. And I was a part of both stations.
JAG: So you did play for Z 89, right?
Eileen: Poorly, I'll admit. I don't think I helped with the win, but I was on the team .
JAG: I once struck out in a game of kickball, so don't feel bad saying that you play well to me.
So yeah, I kicked two foul balls and the third one I just swung and missed. It was bad. Anyway, any other funny stories where you still crack up thinking of this all these years?
Eileen: None that I would feel comfortable sharing on air. How's about that?
JAG: Ah, but we're not on air. We're on a podcast. You can say whatever you want.
Eileen: Ooh, just a lot of really good moments that built upon one another to add up to this really wonderful tapestry of memories I talked about the relationships I've made and the connections I have to this day, and how I never would've expected those relationships to still exist in the way they do.
And I think all of those late night ordering pizza Thursday until 2:00 AM to plan a morning show or walking home from Faegan's with my friend who were fellow JPZ'ers, I never would've expected all of those little moments to get us. And that is really cool. So not laugh out loud funny. I'm not much of a comedian, but that's probably my biggest take away.
JAG: That's okay. We can leave it there on warm and fuzzy. I'm good with that.
Eileen: I like warm and fuzzy.
JAG: Eileen Spath, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for all you've done, both as a student, as in an alum putting the banquet together for many of these previous years. Your effort and hard work have not gone unnoticed and we appreciate you being here on the podcast.
Eileen: Thanks for having me. Really, it's so wonderful. I loved my time at Z. I love my time as an alumni. I'm still enjoying it. So to be a part of this 50th in this way, also another just wonderful memory I'll get to tuck away.