Virginia Voice Staff
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Yvonne Mastromano joined the Virginia Voice team in January 2022 as the Chief Executive Officer. Although she now feels that her feet are firmly planted in Virginia soil, Yvonne is an upstate New York transplant. She attended Ithaca College, where she earned her Bachelor of Music degree with an emphasis in piano and a minor in voice. After graduation, Yvonne was recruited to be the Assistant Director in the museum where she spent her summers during college as a tour guide and three years later was promoted to Executive Director of a museum in Yonkers, NY.
After moving to Virginia, Mastromano decided to make a career change to broadcast television and was hired by the local NBC affiliate, WWBT-12. Yvonne had the opportunity to become the first person in Richmond to do live traffic reports and quickly earned the moniker of “Traffic Lady.”
In 2012, she returned to non-profit work as the Executive Director for the Innsbrook Foundation, where she remained for nine years before being drawn to the mission of Virginia Voice. She is currently focused on expanding Virginia Voice’s reach to serve more individuals with blindness, vision impairment and other disabilities, raise awareness, increase funding, and build brand identity.
Yvonne is a 2020 Leadership Metro Richmond graduate and serves on several local non-profit boards. When not working in the community, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their two sons at the family restaurant and at home walking their two fur babies.
After moving to Virginia, Mastromano decided to make a career change to broadcast television and was hired by the local NBC affiliate, WWBT-12. Yvonne had the opportunity to become the first person in Richmond to do live traffic reports and quickly earned the moniker of “Traffic Lady.”
In 2012, she returned to non-profit work as the Executive Director for the Innsbrook Foundation, where she remained for nine years before being drawn to the mission of Virginia Voice. She is currently focused on expanding Virginia Voice’s reach to serve more individuals with blindness, vision impairment and other disabilities, raise awareness, increase funding, and build brand identity.
Yvonne is a 2020 Leadership Metro Richmond graduate and serves on several local non-profit boards. When not working in the community, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their two sons at the family restaurant and at home walking their two fur babies.
Kenneth Wene joined Virginia Voice in August 2013 as Administrative Assistant, and was promoted to Office Manager in July 2017. Kenneth spent almost ten years as a Retail Systems Consultant for IBM and CapGemini. Prior to that, he worked for many decades in the retail industry designing and managing merchandise distribution systems. Ken was also a volunteer reader for many years starting in 2006, reading for the Science Today program and doing the live read of the Saturday Richmond Times-Dispatch, “retiring” as a reader at the end of 2018. In January 2022 he was promoted to Operations Manager, in recognition of the fact that he is in charge of managing all of the administrative operations of Virginia Voice.
Alex Childress joined Virginia Voice as the Studio Manager in January 2008. Alex has a BS in Technical Theatre from Radford University. Outside of the studios he can occasionally be spotted at one of the local breweries or playing disc golf. Otherwise he enjoys meeting friends for board games or curling up with a good book next to his wife and their two tiny dogs.
Felicia Smith joined Virginia Voice in November of 2022 as the Community Engagement Coordinator and the primary contact for the Live Audio Description Program. She grew up in rural Virginia and moved to Richmond in 2020. In 2018, she obtained her BA in psychology from the University of Mary Washington with a minor in business administration. Currently, she is on her way to obtaining her MA in library and information science at Old Dominion University. Felicia’s hobbies include reading, hiking, and petting her cats. She also enjoys playing disc golf, video games, and card and board games.
Teri-Gene Conlin joined Virginia Voice in March 2023 as the Development Manager. Originally from northern New York, she moved from Wisconsin to Virginia in 2022 and now lives in Chester with her husband. Teri-Gene holds an Associate of Applied Science degree and is now attending the University of Arizona’s online program, working towards a BA in Business Leadership. She has worked in the non-profit sector for over 10 years, most recently as the Development Director for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwestern Wisconsin. Outside of the office, Teri-Gene loves to repurpose and refinish furniture, travel, and ride with her husband on their motorcycle. Family is everything to her and the top priority in her life.
Dennis Waldron joined Virginia Voice in January 1981 as a volunteer board operator and sometimes reader. He also assisted with other production work, such as engineering recordings of radio dramas produced by Virginia Voice’s Out-Sight Players. When not needed as a board operator, he prepared books on CDs for broadcast. Dennis retired from Overnite Transportation Co., a Richmond, Virginia-based trucking company, in 2016 after 39 years of service. He worked in the Operations Department, managed a public warehouse and was a manager in Employee Communications, where he was the editor of Over the Road, the company employee publication. In addition, Dennis served as the corporate photographer. His induction into the Virginia Voice Hall of Fame in 1984 is his most cherished recognition from any organization.
Tim Vogel joined Virginia Voice in March of 2023 as the Program and Volunteer Manager. Tim was born and raised in Easton, Pennsylvania and attended college at Penn State University. After graduating, Tim began a career in sports radio at WEEK and WTKZ in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In 2009, he moved to New Orleans, Louisiana and spent nearly 14 years at WRBH Radio for the Blind & Print Handicapped as a studio engineer, Program Director, and Associate Executive Director. Then, when the opportunity to join Virginia Voice became available in the spring of 2023, Tim and his family quickly knew that this was the right move for them and that Richmond would be their future home. When not at work, Tim enjoys traveling, attending festivals, hiking, camping, video games, running, and going to the beach with his family,
Becky came to work with Virginia Voice in 1986 and continued until retirement 28 years later, 26 of those years as Program Director. As it was a very small staff (3) in those first few years, she worked in nearly every aspect of the service, managing volunteers, issuing radios, keeping up with listeners, managing programming, reading, operating the studio, and managing part-time studio technicians. As Virginia Voice expanded in staff, service and facility, Program Director tasks changed to include the move to digital programming which allowed Virginia Voice to increase broadcast hours to 24 hours daily, the addition of a website and online programming and a full-time Studio Manager. After retirement, she realized she was addicted to Virginia Voice and continued to volunteer, delivering radios when needed and reading the weekly program “Looking Back.” Now she’s happy to return as part-time studio assistant, feeling right at home in the studio and happy to reconnect with long-time volunteers and meet more recent ones. She’s very excited to be part of the continued growth of Virginia Voice. She lives with her daughter Soo, who is waiting for a kidney transplant, and they share a love of horseback riding. Becky can often be found trying her hand at gardening, with very little success, and lawn maintenance. Other hobbies include reading and traveling and spending time with her grandchildren.