Following more than four decades of dedication to public service, Frank Lanzone is retiring from his role as President and General Manager of KCBX Public Radio. The reach of Lanzone’s legacy extends far and wide as he worked tirelessly to continually improve and successfully sustain not only the fiscal aspects of the station, but also the station’s equipment, employee morale, and community engagement to carry on the legacy of KCBX, which was founded over 50 years ago in 1975 by Steve Urbani and Steve Burrell. Lanzone will continue to serve in several roles for KCBX and as the executive director of the Live Oak Music Festival, a well-loved KCBX fundraising event that is currently in preparations for its 38th annual festival.
Lanzone first came to KCBX as general manager in April 1980, when the station was housed in its second home on Chorro Street in downtown San Luis Obispo. Since then, Lanzone has guided KCBX through many significant transitional periods related to ebbs and flows in federal funding, as well as broadcast opportunities throughout the Central Coast and the surrounding areas.
One of the first challenges Lanzone faced as general manger was reacting to the end of a four-year period of financial support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the private nonprofit organization that distributed federal funding to KCBX and other public radio stations. The following year, the Reagan administration recommended a 25% reduction of CPB funding with even deeper cuts promised in the following years. Throughout the next 45 years, Lanzone continued to successfully navigate the stable and unstable periods of federal funding, right up through the present-day elimination of federal funding for public media and the closure of the CPB.
In response to immediate needs for expanded local support in his first year as general manager, Lanzone increased (and achieved) the fundraising pledge drive goals and continued hosting additional fundraising events, including a series of big band concerts, an annual public auction at Mission Plaza, an art auction in a private home, and the KCBX wine tasting, the precursor to the Central Coast Wine Classic.
Simultaneously, Lanzone and Steve Urbani, KCBX co-founder and board chair, pursued new opportunities with the support of a grant awarded to KCBX to fund the installation of five translators to serve Cambria, Cayucos, Avila Beach, Shell Beach, Santa Ynez, and Santa Barbara, expanding the reach of KCBX programming to the surrounding communities. In later years, the Lompoc translator was established in response to and funded by the Lompoc area residents who were yearning for relevant, local news and curated music programming. Lanzone also grew the station significantly by establishing the KCBX Newsroom in 2014.
Throughout his tenure at KCBX, Lanzone continued to cultivate successful, long-standing fundraising events. The KCBX afternoon wine tasting grew into a four-day event that became known as the Central Coast Wine Classic, which ran from 1985 through 2003, not only raising funds for KCBX, but also supporting multiple nonprofits and foundations with focuses on the arts, health, and education in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. In 1989, Lanzone and a small team of dedicated volunteers hosted the first Live Oak Folk Festival at Biddle Park in Arroyo Grande in southern San Luis Obispo County. That small, one-day community concert grew into what is now the Live Oak Music Festival, a beloved weekend-long family campout event that features musicians performing a variety of genres, including funk, soul, folk, gospel, roots rock, Americana, jazz, bluegrass, blues, world music and more. This year, the Live Oak Music Festival will take place at El Chorro Regional Park in San Luis Obispo County from June 19th through 21st, 2026.
“Since joining KCBX in 1980, Frank has built upon our humble beginnings and made the station a strong, successful community asset,” said Steve Urbani. “His ability to establish a news department is a tribute to his management and fiscal abilities. Even more, Frank has become one of my very best friends.”
You might say Lanzone was destined for career in radio, judging by his interests in technology that were evident as early as age 5 or 6. In sixth grade, Lanzone could be found drilling holes in his family’s living room floor with plans to wire a whole-house speaker system before heading to bed hours early to tune into a radio drama program on his new transistor radio. This fascination evolved into a passion when Lanzone found the radio and TV broadcast station at the College of San Mateo, which would later become his “home away from home” for the next 13 years. “I watched my classmates all head for commercial jobs in San Francisco, but I never left public radio,” said Lanzone. “In fact, my first job in public radio in 1970 – the same year NPR was incorporated – was made possible by the very first CPB grant available to stations. Today, the satisfaction of being part of an amazing team of people is as strong as it was 45 years ago.”
As Lanzone winds down his work at KCBX Central Coast Public Radio, Assistant General Manager Chris McBride officially stepped into the role of president and general manager on February 1, 2026, and will continue to guide KCBX through this next phase, with her sights set on the next 50 years and beyond. “I believe Chris to be an outstanding choice to meet the expected and unexpected challenges ahead of us,” said Lanzone. “Her expertise in planning, fundraising, collaborating, troubleshooting will serve KCBX well.”
