The melodious baritone voice heard on several recent Heartland Institute audio and video productions may sound familiar to Chicagoans—it’s that of Alan Crane, a Heartland donor and a former radio reporter. Alan’s contributions to The Heartland Institute have exceeded expectations, as he has helped to develop additional capacity in new media by offering his time and expertise.

For many years, Alan was heard by Chicago radio listeners as a political and financial reporter and commentator, first on WBBM-AM and then on WMAQ-AM. Having early become an active investor in real estate and stocks, Alan always intended to enter the financial services profession one day. “Radio is a great business for a young person, but it’s not easy running around all day and night chasing stories.” Alan now serves as vice president - investment for Oppenheimer & Co., an investment bank and full-service brokerage company.

Raised in downstate Illinois, Alan grew up in a hard-working family, from which he learned one of his main values: “In a system that encourages people to work hard, advance, and enjoy the benefits, both the people and the system will be better off for it.” Politically, Alan considers himself in the “conservative camp,” not totally libertarian while sharing many views with the libertarian right, believing that the less government involvement the better.

Alan didn’t originally intend to get into radio; his profession happened upon him while taking a break from his studies at the University of Illinois to work as a bank teller. Alan had decided he needed to make a little more money, so he applied for a second job at WDAN in Danville as a radio announcer and disc jockey. To his surprise, he was given the job without hesitation because the station manager recognized him from his high school musical performances and thought his talents would translate well on the air.

Although Alan was a member of his high school radio club, this was the first professional position he held in the field. The part-time position soon grew from a mere 20 hours a week to 60. After working full time in radio, he eventually went back to school and finished with a degree from the school of business, with a major in advertising and sales management and a minor in economics.

Upon graduating, Alan went to work as a television news reporter at WICS-TV, Channel 20 in Springfield, where he was assigned to cover the state legislature. This position deepened his interest in government and, as he admits, quickly made him realize that our education system didn’t provide much background in civics.

Since Alan had always wanted to work in Chicago, he returned to radio in 1967 and took a job at WBBM-AM, “Newsradio 78,” where he was a reporter for 19 years, a position that often involved coming to work in the wee hours of the morning. “News is a 24-hour operation,” said Alan, “a tough job when you’re out on the street as a reporter.” His experience and interest in investments led him to financial reporting at WMAQ-AM, “All News 67,” where he spent eight years covering business, featuring live reports from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Alan now lives in Winfield, Illinois with his wife Marylou, who has been very active in state and local politics and government, including service as the first executive director of the Illinois Lincoln Series, a mentoring organization for women seeking policy-making positions in government. Between them, they have five grown children, two sons and three daughters.

Due to his many years surrounded by bias and misinformation in the media, Alan’s current interest and passion is accuracy and balance in journalism. He is looking into establishing a scholarship fund for broadcast journalists to fill the gaps where the education system is lacking. He hopes the fund will help to create a program for journalists to receive adequate educational opportunities in both economics and business.

“I am dismayed when I think of the lack of understanding of business and economics that we find in the news media,” Alan said. People casually throw around talk of bad economic times and terms like recession, he says, without really understanding what they mean. “In Springfield I worked very hard to present both sides of a story. I saw a period of great change when advocacy journalism developed, and journalism hasn’t been the same since.”

Alan became a donor to Heartland in 2007. He heard of the organization from one of his colleagues at Oppenheimer, Craig Allen, a founding member of Heartland’s Board of Directors. Craig had introduced him to Heartland President Joe Bast, and last year, deciding it was time to get more involved in policy issues, “I called Joe, talked to him a little, and got out my checkbook.”

Knowing of Alan’s radio background, Joe asked him to volunteer his voice for some of Heartland’s productions. Alan has narrated the audio track for a PowerPoint presentation on carbon taxes; done the introduction for an eight-minute DVD of Czech President Vaclav Klaus’s speech to the UN on global warming, which was distributed with Environment & Climate News; and has just recorded voiceovers for a video version of a Heartland Policy Study, “Understanding Visual Exhibits in the Global Warming Debate.” Plans to record audio versions of Heartland’s 10 Principles policy series are in the works.

“Think tanks, like Heartland, play a role by educating and informing people. I am happy to make whatever contribution I can to get the message out there,” said Alan. “You want to support those causes that can make a contribution to further your own thinking. That doesn’t mean we agree on everything. We all have individual approaches to how we create change. I work with Heartland because I want to give back a little more and make a real difference.”

Written by Cece Forrester, senior development associate for The Heartland Institute.