(bright upbeat music) - Paula Kerger is the President and CEO of PBS, the nation's largest non-commercial media organization.

She is the longest serving President and CEO in PBS history.

So many honors, so many speaking engagements, plus giving of her time to great national organizations.

We learn what it takes to get ready, Paula, be Paula Kerger.

Hi to you, Paula.

- Very nice to be with you, Shelley.

- Yes.

Next best thing get yourself back to our West Michigan for that in person, it should happen before our both of our times are over, but, Paula, - And I hope so.

- Congratulations to you.

I have to ask what was the favorite PBS, well, show you watched as maybe a 12 year old?

- Oh, when I was growing up, I guess the programs I think about a lot were, there were two.

One, every day when I came home from school, I watched something called "Hodgepodge Lodge" which was produced by our local public television station.

And it was all about the natural world, which I had a lot of interest in and it was hosted by a woman who actually looked a little bit like Julia Child.

And she had that sort of larger than life personality and she was really fantastic, but I also, our family used to watch a "Masterpiece" on Sunday nights.

And that was really a tradition for us.

And I think about it a lot as one of those moments when our family all came together and we watched television that I still think about to this day.

- And little did you know, March, what?

2006, you signed some dotted line.

- Yes.

- Nice.

Well, congratulations.

- Yeah, it's hard to believe.

Thank you.

- Yes.

Yes.

Did you seek out leadership in the beginnings?

- No.

And actually when I was young, I always felt like a chronic underachiever because I didn't really have a strong understanding or fix in what I wanted to be when I grew up.

I still sometimes wonder what I wanna be when I grow up.

When I was really young, I thought I wanted to be a veterinarian, and, 'cause I loved animals.

I loved my time outside ergo "Hodgepodge Lodge".

But when I went to college I failed organic chemistry.

And so my idea becoming a vet or a medical doctor was shelved and I took a lot of humanities classes 'cause that's actually what I was really interested in.

And I love to read, I love literature, I love art, although I have no talent in any artistic endeavor.

But I didn't really understand what I wanted to do with my life.

So leadership really was a surprise.

- Yes.

Yet obviously well versed at it at this point.

Tell me a little bit more about your educational journey.

- Yeah.

So after my little epiphany that, you know, the medical career was not gonna work out, I got a business degree and then graduated and actually got a job at a bank, which I worked on and off throughout my college career.

And when I graduated I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do.

I didn't think I wanted to stay within banking and it happened on an ad in the newspaper for a job working for nonprofit organization, UNICEF.

I've been in the nonprofit sector all along.

From there had an opportunity to work at the Metropolitan Opera, raising money for them, by the way, not singing.

- Yeah, that was my- - That was be terrifying.

And I was in that job when I got a call one day asking if I'd be interested in working in public television, working for the public television station in New York.

That got me into public television.

That was 30 years ago.

And the first job I did was helping them raise money, then by that point spent a fair amount of time developing a career.

And I thought it would be interesting work for a while, but it was in that job that I was tapped to become station manager eventually and then COO.

And it was in that position I was tapped to come to PBS.

- Nice.

From this journey, what's been a challenge, a surprise and/or a thrill?

- Yeah.

Well I think actually all three of those all relate to relationships and people.

And I actually say to this day that I think my greatest days are when I see the results of great work of people that I have the privilege to work alongside.

And the worst days are the ones where you have to make hard HR decisions.

It is fantastic to work with someone, to mentor someone and to see them achieve great success, and it is also heartbreaking when someone quite can't quite make all the pieces come together.

And for me, as someone who actually grew up being pretty shy, I'm actually even, I will admit being a little bit of an introvert.

When I'm in a professional circumstance, I hide it pretty well 'cause I have a job to do, but you know, left to my own devices, a cocktail party is the worst place I can find myself, having to go up and introduce myself to people I may not know.

But I think that having the empathy of being a leader and tapping into that side of myself, that sometimes has to push a little bit more.

I think to me has been the greatest surprise.

How that part of my professional life has developed and being able to, you know, to guide and mentor people along the way is not something that I would've thought when I was a young person, is how I would end up spending frankly most of my time.

- Nice speaking of young persons, how does a woman find her voice, find her niche, find her passion, ladder to climb?

- Yeah, that's a really good question.

When I was young, I used to wear my hair pulled back 'cause I thought it made me look a little bit older.

And when I was really young, I used to look very carefully at the people around me and tried to figure out what about them I could emulate.

Pretty early on I realized that the most powerful thing that I could do and needed to develop was use my own voice.

And I say that to a lot of young people now.

When I started out in my professional career, many of the jobs that I was in, many of the circumstances I found myself in, I was surrounded largely by men.

And I realized that what I brought to the table and in conversations as a woman and with my own experiences was genuine to me.

And that is always the advice that I give to young people that I talk to, particularly young women, is you have to recognize your own authentic voice and use that.

Because that is who you are and ultimately that's what you're gonna tap into as you, you know, develop in life and particularly when you get to leadership positions and have to make tough decisions, you have to be really comfortable in your own skin and who you are.

- Taking a risk, making a decision when you are asked to take on a new challenge, is it important to always say yes or say yes when perhaps you are still doubting yourself?

- Well, I'll tell you, I have an analogy that I use with a lot of young people when I'm in conversations and I will tell you what it is and with the disclaimer around it, that I've never actually done this thing, which is I encourage young people to take the risk and jump out of the airplane.

And what that means if you think of it as an analogy, you know, skydiving is not for everyone.

Leadership is not for everyone.

You make the decision to do it.

When you stand on the edge of the door ready to lean forward, it has to be absolutely the most terrifying, but you also will know that it will, it could be the most exhilarating.

The important thing about it is that you don't get up in the air by yourself.

You get a lot of help, you get a lot of training before you take that first leap.

And the other thing is it may be that you never do it again, but you will never go through your life wondering what if.

And so I do think that it's important to take risk, not crazy risk.

You know, you have to evaluate everything as it comes.

Some risks are worth taking, others maybe not.

And you have to understand how much tolerance you have for risk.

You know, the worst thing that's gonna happen is for the most part you're gonna end up on the ground, you're not gonna be hurt, and it will have either been that experience that you can check off your bucket list or it could have opened up a whole new passion for you.

Now, I recently told this story with a group of women at University of Virginia as part of a leadership development program, and someone raised their hand and said, actually I was injured when I did my first leap.

- Oops.

- So I say usually you end up on the ground in one piece, but I do think that the point of it is really important.

Is that you don't wanna get to the end of your career and wonder what if I taken another path.

- Are women needed for this public media niche?

Let's brag about the power of public media.

- We have a lot of extraordinary women in public media, and it's been part of its history from the very beginning.

You look at well, there is now many, both documentaries, and now a series on HBO max about Julia Child.

I mean, she was a extraordinary person who really changed the way that we think about not only cooking but also created, she was not the first person to do a cooking show on television, but she certainly was one of the most successful from the get go.

People like Joan Cooney who created Sesame Street and had this idea that some of the principles that were used frankly in advertising could potentially be applied to teaching children about letters and numbers and those core concepts that are important at the beginning.

You know, you look at great journalists like Charlayne Hunter-Gault, or Gwen Ifill or Judy Woodruff and others that have come along.

You know, producers, the current producer of "FRONTLINE" Raney Aronson or the producer of "NewsHour", Sara Just.

I'm in an industry that is filled with extraordinary women, and I think it makes our entire enterprise quite strong that we bring together people from many different backgrounds and perspectives and men and women together who are committed to using media, not just as a tool for entertainment, but when we really hit our mark to also be educational and inspirational.

- Yes.

And let's move on to, of course my research included looking at your Facebook page, is your profile picture of a triathlete?

- It is.

And which is something I attempted to do after the age of 50, I will say.

- Yes.

Yes.

- Actually it was my 50th birthday, pledged to myself that I was gonna try something crazy.

I had a friend that participated in these races and I went to races and I saw you have to put your age on your calf.

I know that sounds horrible, 'cause you're competing against people of your own age and so that's how you realize who you're competing against.

And I saw women that had numbers on their cabs that began with twos and threes and fours, we expect that, fives, sixes and sevens.

And I thought, hmm, I wonder if I could do that.

And so I did about 13 of them.

I haven't done one in a little while, but I'm really glad that I did it.

It was very hard , but it lifted me out of myself and tested... That was one of my airplane moments, I'll tell you.

Jumping in a big pool of open water, that's definitely an airplane moment.

- Do you have a go to motto as we look to say our goodbyes?

- Well, I guess I talked about it already as I talk about my airplane moment, but it's to lean into opportunity and challenge.

And we try to do that each and every day, not to stay passive, but to really look at each challenge as it comes or, you know, as Winston Churchill once said, "When you're going through hell, keep going."

You know, you just keep pressing forward.

And that's what I say to myself every day.

- Future of PBS in fine shape?

- I think we're in excellent shape.

I think when I look back, we just celebrate our 50th anniversary at PBS.

And I think our best days are ahead of us.

I see extraordinary opportunities for service to our youngest viewers, all the way through our adult, lifelong learners who come to PBS for information that hopefully make a difference in their lives and we're very excited about what that represents as we look at our programming ahead.

- Paula Kerger, thank you for joining us here.

Sharing obviously your experience, your mottos and your inspiration for many.

So appreciate you sharing your words here on this edition of POWERFUL WOMEN: LET'S TALK.

- Thank you, Shelly.

(bright upbeat music) - Hello everyone.

It is time for POWERFUL WOMEN: LET'S TALK.

Thanks so much for joining us today.

I'm Jennifer Moss, and it is a pleasure to bring you today's powerful woman, Kristyn Bomberg.

Kristyn is the Education Supervisor right here at WGBU Public Media.

Her career has centered around working with marginalized and vulnerable children in a variety of school settings, including schools, hospitals, and recreation programs, prior to her current position at WGVU, Kristyn worked as a K-12 teacher and coordinated educational programming in higher education.

And so we are glad to welcome you, Kristyn Bomberg to POWERFUL WOMEN: LET'S TALK.

- Thanks Jennifer.

- Well, we're happy to have you here.

A little more about you before we dive in, you are passionate about creating equitable access to opportunities and resources that support all children, families, and educators, and meeting education outcomes, and strongly believe that listening to the community is key to developing effective programming.

You say that through trusted relationships within the ecosystem in which children learn you have focused on actively working alongside partners, parents and educators on local initiatives, along with curating PreK-12 educational content and experiences based on community needs.

You work with your team here at WGVU to share WGVU's free tools and the resources that you have for students, educators, and families in order to foster that curiosity and nurture lifelong learning.

You expand the scope of voices and provide trusted windows to our diverse world of possibilities.

Now you've also been involved here at WGVU in "By Leaps & Bounds".

It's a radio series and podcast, right?

And PBS Edcamp West Michigan, "Cool Teacher", Education Celebration and a lot more.

I read a bit about you, but I'd love for you to share a little more about your details about your work and education and really why it is important to expand the scope of voices, I mentioned that, and then to curate content based on the community's needs.

Tell me about that.

- Yeah.

I think it's really important to ask the community what they need.

Parents are the experts on their children, teachers are the experts on their students, and it really makes sense.

We have these great resources and it really makes sense to create something that they need, that they want, that they'll use that really benefits children and their educational outcomes.

And, you know, we know the importance of representation in media, in books, in learning for children and how powerful that can be to creating meaningful learning and for just boosting their sense of self.

And when kids feel safe, when kids feel seen, they're more likely to take in that learning piece.

So at WGVU we have a ton of really great free resources and it's really getting them out in the community.

And there is so much in west Michigan organized around education, especially early childhood.

Each county has different things going on, and so it's really coming alongside those things that are already happening and seeing where we might fit, how we can support using our platforms to help amplify what's going on there and just being a presence, letting them know that we are there to support what they're doing and to plug in a way where we can bring something to the table as well.

- And those tools and resources that are provided free again from WGVU they're very popular, aren't they?

People are really utilizing those tools.

- Yeah.

One of the big ones is learning media, which is a platform PBS has, its free, and there is about 30,000 different resources that are state and national standards aligned.

And the other platform is PBS KIDS for parents.

There is a ton of resources on their activities and things that parents can specifically do with their children.

- So tell me, what is your favorite thing about education?

- I think-- - Let you count the ways, right?

There's probably so many.

- I really love being with the kids.

The things that I was able to get my students to do, that they were willing to do was so much fun.

And I love going back into classrooms, especially, I will say especially the early childhood and early elementary classrooms.

It's fun, I'll often, you know, get to sit down and kids will make me something to eat in their play kitchen or want me to dress up or they want read a story with me.

But a lot of times you just kinda leave with a hug and kids are just such wonderful little beings.

And I just feel so strongly that every child deserves the opportunity to discover the love of learning and to find their full potential and to chase their dreams.

And we can't do that adequately without giving every child that opportunity.

And that means making sure that every family and every school have equitable access to resources and all of those kids have equitable opportunities in their learning, but also in meeting some of those other needs.

A lot of schools, especially early childhood programs, have parent coalitions or parent groups or outreach with parents to help kind of, again, create that cohesive school-home connection, which is incredibly important.

- Absolutely.

And discovering the joy of learning is so key for our young people.

Now I wanna ask, so we should mention that you and your team have won awards for the "Cool Teacher" contest.

That's the Michigan Association of Broadcasters or MAB Awards.

As well as being a finalist for the NETA awards "by leaps and bounds."

Tell us about "Cool Teacher".

I love that, and I think that it's something that, you know, really brings the community, the students together in ways to honor their teachers, which again, teachers being so important to our community.

Love "Cool Teacher".

Tell me about that.

- Yeah.

It's a program where students nominate their teachers, so they write in, they fill out a form and tell us what's great about their teacher.

And it's a program WGVU has been doing for about 20 plus years.

So I've only been part of it for about the last five, but it's a really fun way to help students have that opportunity to say thank you, to give back, and for teachers to have the opportunity to have that accolade.

It really is meaningful to many teachers.

They are always so taken aback and very nervous to be on camera and obviously having a camera come into their classroom, but we bring, you know, a snack or a treat or an activity, and we just kind of come in and we really wanna highlight what's going on in classrooms, give people a real picture of what education today might look like.

Writing doesn't look like kids sitting at their desks with paper and pencil.

It looks very different.

There might be all kinds of different activities that are building those literacy and writing skills that, again, people may not realize that that's what it truly is.

And because it looks different than maybe when they were in school.

- [Jennifer] Absolutely.

So it's a really great program.

It's fun.

And we get to...

The schools are so welcoming and excited, and I love going into the schools and seeing, you know, the different artwork they have hanging up the student work, just all the creative ways that they, you know, put together their school community.

- Absolutely.

That is awesome.

And so, as we look at POWERFUL WOMEN: LET'S TALK, you know, we take a deeper dive into not only what women do, but how they got there and how sharing their journey might help others.

That's kind of our purpose and point.

So as you've traveled along your journey have you encountered perhaps any barriers along the way?

- I wouldn't call it a barrier because it was a choice I made and I think having choice is really important and empowering, to be able to have that choice, but I made the decision to step away from working full time to be home with my kids and it was wonderful and crazy, and I think there's something about teachers where we're so used to having so much on our plate that we have all of this, I had all of this extra energy and all this mental energy.

So I kind of drove my family, maybe a little crazy with my...

I could do that.

I'd see something and think I could do that type of a phase.

And so, you know, I think the barrier came in when I decided that it was time to go back and I had to figure it all out again.

It was almost like starting over.

Where I had to figure out what do I wanna do?

What am I qualified to do?

What-- - A lot of women face that though, when they decide to stay home and then reenter the workforce.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And interviewing can be really tough and you have to push through that frustration and not feel discouraged, and I just really wanted to do something that was meaningful, something that was involving education, but it was hard to know what that was or what that looked like.

- So my easy breezy question, what makes you laugh?

Because in today's age, with everything from the pandemic to so many things going on in life, we need laughter, is good for the soul, what makes you laugh?

- Probably, I mean, my family, my husband and my kids make me laugh a lot.

We have a lot of dry humor and definitely some sarcasm sprinkled in there.

So I think I laugh hardest when someone in my family does like a kind of a smart funny mic drop moment, where, you know, you didn't really expect it and they weren't really trying to be funny, but it just ends up, - [Jennifer] It turns out that way.

- Yeah.

- And I think too my pets and my dogs and I have a cat and they, I love animals.

And so I think-- - I was going to say you are an animal lover, right?

- I am.

Yeah.

In fact, I recently noticed I'm on like all of the animal talks on TikTok.

And so I do think maybe I could secretly some days be maybe a hobby farmer or maybe a zookeeper, but then-- - The secret life of Kristyn Bomberg, right?

- But also, I, you know, maybe I should go back to my career plans when I was nine and be a marine biologist.

So, you know.

- It's never too late.

Right?

- Right.

- But we love you doing what you need.

So I'm not saying anything like that, no.

We wanna keep you here so.

- Yeah.

It's just, you know, it's little things, you know.

The little things in life that just bring that little bit of joy.

- Absolutely.

Little things can be really big things Actually.

I'm so glad you joined us.

And I truly am glad, Kristyn Bomberg, that you joined us for today's edition of POWERFUL WOMEN.

And of course we wanna thank you too for joining us as well.

We'll see you next time.

I'm Jennifer Moss.

(bright upbeat music)