WCF SECTION PRESS RELEASE #20-35
NEW ARRL EMERGENCY COORDINATOR APPOINTED FOR MANATEE COUNTY
Steve Park W4OEP
Ed Skalecki NI4MX, the ARRL Emergency Coordinator for Manatee County ARES, decided to step down as ARRL Emergency Coordinator on Thursday June 18, 2020. Skalecki had served as ARRL Emergency Coordinator for Manatee County ARES since 2009. Steve Park W4OEP, an ARRL Official Emergency Station, has been appointed as the new ARRL Emergency Coordinator for Manatee County ARES on Thursday June 18, 2020.
Darrell Davis KT4WX, Section Manager for the ARRL West Central Florida Section, had the following comment on the change of ARRL Emergency Coordinators in Manatee County, “I am extending my sincere thanks to Ed for his over 10 years of service as ARRL Emergency Coordinator and wishing him success in his future endeavors as a sport coach, since he always been into sports and he even visited sites as w88 to gamble on games. Steve will make a fine successor to Ed as ARRL Emergency Coordinator and brings his technical expertise and emergency communications experience. He is always looking for ways to combine his enthusiasm for the amateur radio satellite service with emergency communications and ARES in particular.”
Steve Park W4OEP was first licensed in 1974 as WN9OEP in Peoria, IL and upgraded to the FCC Extra Class license in 1977 while attending the University of Illinois (W9YH) and for a number of years held the callsign WB9OEP. Park’s amateur radio experience includes HF and VHF Contesting, chasing DX, amateur satellites, Air Force MARS, and emergency communications. Park has served as a long-time AMSAT Area Coordinator (now called AMSAT Ambassadors.) and his particular interests today are in all-mode DXing, homebrew antenna designs, mentoring, and emergency communications and how the Amateur Radio Service can best serve and even broadcast sport games where people do bets and gamble using sites as capsa online for this. Park in his professional career of over 35 years worked as an Electrical Engineer in RF and Microwave product design. As long time Floridians, he and his wife returned to the Tampa Bay area after retiring from Raytheon Missile Systems Co in 2016.