Cory Willis, a December 2000 UNCW graduate and former WLOZ personality, has offered the Student Media Board (SMB) his time and talent to help bring the station back on the air.

Willis, who has worked in radio for five years, is currently employed by Sea-Comm, Inc. He has offered to help train the station’s next general manager and bring radio knowledge and experience to WLOZ. The SMB will consider his written proposal at their next meeting on Thursday, February 22.

“I want to see the station resurrected for people who genuinely care and want to put out a good product,” Willis said. “Hands on experience is extremely necessary.”

According to Willis, he would like to help make improvements to different aspects necessary for a radio station to be successful; such as station sound, promotions, sales and production.

“There needs to be a sense of unity at the station, where there isn’t right now,” Willis said. “I really want to see WLOZ grow and become a source of pride for the university.”

Willis expressed concern about the station being off the air, and would like to see it broadcasting near the end of this semester. He is worried about the perception it is creating on campus, with potential advertisers and record companies.

“The longer WLOZ is off the air, the less chances there are for getting underwriting,” Willis said.

He believes the station needs to focus its attention on the campus community audience and cater to what they listen to.

“You have to think about your demo, women 18-27 make up 70 percent of the population on campus,” Willis said. “If you don’t care about your audience, you’ve lost your listeners.”

Bill DiNome, student media coordinator, said that while he has a few concerns, he thinks that Willis’s ideas might work.

“As long as we’re not doing anything that’s either unethical or cross purposes in any way, I think there’s some potential there and I think we should explore it,” DiNome said. “So far, I like what I’m hearing.”

Willis, a native of Hickory, came to Wilmington with hopes of pursuing a career in acting. He quickly found that many other people also had similar dreams. That is when a friend encouraged him to consider a career in radio.

Willis began his radio career with WGNI in April 1997, where he worked overnight monitoring automation equipment. When he came to UNCW, he worked at WLOZ to learn how to be more creative and better train his voice for radio.

“WLOZ provided me with a chance and helped me discover what I wanted to do [for a career],” Willis said.

Willis started at WLOZ with a Wednesday morning show, entitled “the Morning Hangover.” Eventually as more time slots became available, the show expanded to Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings.

Willis was then offered a position with “Jammin 99.9 FM” in October of 1999, shortly after its inception. He currently also works with another station owned by Sea-Comm, 93.7 FM “the Bone.”