It all started when…
…my parents made “a mistake” and gave a little black microphone to my 5 year old self in the 70s and let me try to record myself talking into the connected Radio Shack Realistic tape recorder. I then interviewed my aunt right after she sang along to song by “The Pointer Sisters” that was playing on St. Louis radio station KKSS. After I criticized her for obviously not knowing all of the lyrics to the song (to my mother’s horror and my aunt’s delight), I then went on attempt to interview my 1-2 year old sister, who really couldn’t even speak yet, but only getting gooos and gaaahs.
It was apparently ON after that.
The first time I got behind the mic on a real radio station was at the student run KMNR at the University of Missouri - Rolla, where I was studying aerospace engineering. Then I went back to St. Louis to the University of Missouri - St. Louis to study mass communications and got a slot on the student-run station KWUR at Washington University - St. Louis at the same time.
Then, all around the same time, I got an internship at the big NPR affiliate on the UMSL campus, KWMU, that ended with me getting a paying job on the air Saturday and Sunday mornings local hosting news for Weekend Edition and other weekend entertainment programming. I simultaneously got a slot on the very unique community radio station KDHX and created my own program, “The Show with Rod Milam”, and hosted a live, call in cable television show “Fill In the Blank” on HEC-TV that helped high school students get ready for college and college life.
After my runs on community radio and TV, I continued at KWMU, but was also hired at the St. Louis largest station, KMOX to work in both the the news and departments. KMOX was CBS Radio’s largest owned-and-operated station in the country and considered the “New York Times of Radio”. There I worked as a reporter and covered US Presidential visits by Bill Clinton and the visit of Pope John Paul II to the city. I also covered highway protests/shutdowns (Al Sharpton), home run record chases (Mark McGwire & Sammy Sosa), and worked with Hall of Fame broadcasters like Jack Buck and Bob Costas.
While there I was also able to work as a corespondent for CBS Network, CNN, and Radio France Internationale, among other global outlets…getting to put my French and Spanish language studies to use.
Then after a few months in Madrid, Spain, I moved to Tokyo, Japan where I taught conversational English and worked as a freelance journalist. The plan was to be there in Asia for a year and a half and then take the offered job in Paris at Radio France. But because of the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC on September 11, 2001, I ended up stuck in Japan and did my last reports from the US Embassy there before heading back to the US.
I gave up the position in Paris to be closer to family, but moved to New York City 6 months after the fall of the World Trade Center buildings in 2002. For almost 7 years I was out of media and worked as an assistant and, eventually, a trainer of computer software in charge of The Americas since I could speak French and Spanish (and fake my way through Portuguese).
After the recession started in 2008, I went back to my broadcasting roots and taught myself video production