Ellen Rocco, NPR Biography
Station Manager, North Country Public Radio
Ellen Rocco has been with NCPR since 1980 as both its first Development Director (1980-85) and its current station manager (1985-present). Since her arrival, and under her direction, the station has grown into a highly respected regional station. Since the 1980s NCPR has installed nineteen transmitters, and expanded its service to include most of upstate New York, much of western Vermont, and parts of Quebec and Ontario. The news division at NCPR has received national recognition for its excellence in recent years, with honors from organizations that include The National Federation of Community Broadcasters and Public Radio News Directors, Inc.
Rocco has been involved in numerous educational and community based pursuits all of her life. While in college, she was actively involved with the Academy of American Poets as an administrator of Young/New Poets in the School program. After graduating from City College of NY with a BA in political science in 1967, she began working as a caseworker for the NYC Department of Social Services.
In 1971, she moved to the North Country, north of the Adirondacks in the St. Lawrence Valley. She bought an old farm and took on a wide array of jobs, ranging from substitute teacher to project manager for a senior citizens/low income block grant. During this time she was also president of a regional safe/alternative energy organization and was active in the women's rights movement. From 1976 until 1980 she worked as a weekly environmental issues columnist for Gouverneur Tribune Press, as an assistant editor at Rootdrinker Magazine, and as a grant writer for a low income advocacy organization.
She has served on the board of the NY Council for the Humanities, and on media panels for the NYS Council on the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts. She has also been involved with numerous social issues campaigns through organizations such as Upstate People for Safe Energy Technology and the Adirondack Center for Writing. She has just completed a six-year stint as school board member in her son's district.
