Lansing, MI - Mar 15, 2013 - The Michigan Association of Broadcasters (MAB) presented its most prestigious engineering award to a pair of Michigan broadcasters who, combined, have served in the industry for nearly seven decades. The Carl E. Lee Broadcast Engineering Excellence Awards were presented during the Engineering Luncheon at the MAB's annual Great Lakes Broadcasting Conference and Expo (GLBC) held March 13, 2013, at The Lansing Center in downtown Lansing. The Carl E. Lee Broadcast Engineering Excellence Award winners are:

Radio Winner: Robert Lumbert, director of engineering, WGVU-AM/FM/TV (Grand Rapids)
Robert Lumbert is the director of engineering for WGVU Public Media. He has more than 34 distinguished years of experience in the field of broadcast engineering.

Lumbert earned his associate's degree in radio-television service and a bachelor's degree in broadcast electronics technology from Ferris State University, where he later returned to work as a telecommunications specialist in the Department of Television Production.

He has played an essential role at WGVU-TV, formerly WGVC, as the television area maintenance engineer, and now as WGVU's director of engineering, overseeing the technical facilities for two full-power television stations and four radio stations, directing all facets of WGVU's technical operations.

Lumbert has been an active member of the MAB and the MAPB, winning the MAPB Pioneer Award for his contributions to the broadcast engineering field. He headed the 1999 Michigan Engineering Study for Digital Conversion of the state's public broadcasting stations, including statewide interconnect facilities planning. Throughout his many years of service in the broadcasting industry, Lumbert has helped train and mentor those less technically inclined, giving countless hours to providing technical guidance for members of his community.

Television Winner: Chris Arnaut, IT Manager, WDIV-TV (Detroit)

Chris Arnaut is the IT manager for WDIV-TV and has more than 25 distinguished years of experience in the field of broadcast engineering. He has provided engineering support for more than 40 AM, FM and television stations.

Arnaut graduated from Specs Howard School of Media Arts in 1988, where, upon leaving, was offered a position as assistant engineer for WCZY-FM. He went on to hold the position of chief engineer for WCAR-AM and WKMG-FM in Detroit.

In the mid-90s, Arnaut started his own business as a self-employed contract engineer providing support to dozens of stations in Michigan's Lower Peninsula, northern Ohio and Indiana. He later achieved his career goal of working for WJR-AM, initially as a bench technician and remote engineer until he became the network engineer for the Enco DAD, which, at the time, was one of the largest DADpro32 networks with 40+ workstations.

In 2007, after nearly 20 years in radio, Arnaut made the switch to television working as the IT manager for WDIV-TV, overseeing the IT infrastructure for the television station as well as the management of the WAN finical servers for Post-Newsweek stations.