Las Vegas - Apr 14, 2007 - Charles T. Morgan, former senior VP of engineering for Susquehanna Radio, announced his retirement as chairman of the National Radio Systems Committee (NRSC), a technical standards-setting body co-sponsored by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). Morgan has been at the helm of the NRSC for more than 20 years. During his tenure, the NRSC developed a series of AM broadcast standards to improve the quality of AM radio, the RBDS standard and the in-band/on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcasting standard. Although he will no longer serve as chairman, Morgan will remain active in the committee and its subcommittees.

Replacing Morgan as chairman will be Milford K. Smith, Jr., vice president radio engineering for Greater Media. Smith will leave his position as cochairman of the NRSC's Digital Radio Broadcasting (DRB) subcommittee, a position he held for the last decade, and from which he, along with cochairman Michael Bergman of Kenwood, oversaw the development of the NRSC-5-A digital radio broadcasting standard.

Andy Laird, vice president and chief technology officer for Journal Broadcast Group, will replace Smith as co-chair of the DRB Subcommittee. Laird has been an active member of the NRSC for more than a decade, and was previously the chairman of the DAB (now DRB) Subcommittee's Test Guidelines Working Group and Test Procedures Working Group that were responsible for developing the test procedures used in the NRSC's evaluation of IBOC digital radio.