Mark Burg, Assistant Chief Engineer of Fox 25-48 is retiring after nearly 34 years of service to the station.  Mark moved from the Green Bay area in 1988 to join our current Chief Engineer Jay Matthews, forming an engineering team that has been together for over three decades.  His final day at the station will be Friday, October 22^nd.    

A patriot through and through, Mark first joined WLAX TV on July 4^th, 1988.  You Gotta Have Faith (#1 song 1988, George Michael) was surely playing as Mark united with Jay Matthews in wrestling a signal from our 30 KW transmitter keeping WLAX on the air.  We were an independent at the time as Fox was just a dream and local News and NFL an even more distant dream.   Together our two veterans Jay and Mark operated from vans in fields (blowing snow, frigid temps, cows!) and finally from our current building and transmitter site.  They were creating the foundation for what would become FOX 25-48.  

“Everyone in town was hoping we were going to be Fox, and this was before Fox even had the NFL” Burg remembered as we discussed his beginnings here at the station.  “When we became Fox people were happy.   When Fox got the NFL and Packers, everything changed.  It was great.” he added.  “Then we kept adding to it, one step at a time, expanding and growing” he said.

In the course of the ensuing 34 years Mark witnessed a lot of change.  We added a second transmitter in Colfax, christening WEUX on February 8^th, 1993.  We broadcast our first Green Bay Packer Game (against the Minnesota Vikings) on September 4^th, 1994.  The Packers defeated the Vikings 16-10 that day at Lambeau Field.  The fine people in DMA market 126 saw it LIVE on Fox 25-48, for the first time.   Other highlights include the launch of (then) Fox News at 9 on August 28^th, 2006.  We converted WLAX to HD in January of 2008 and WEUX in September of 2009.  The engineering team really stepped up in March of 2011 when we rushed to help our fellow broadcaster WEAU.  The NBC affiliates tower collapsed and we began to simulcast their signal to help keep the viewers served in our area until they could rebuild.  We launched our digital platform wiproud.com in December of 2014. 

A lot has happened, technology has evolved, transmitters have been upgraded, people have come and gone, ownership changed three times before coming home to Nexstar in 2015.   But two things have remained steady:  Jay Matthews and Mark Burg have been working tirelessly to keep WLAX-WEUX TV broadcasting.

Now we bid farewell to Mark.  His hope for the station and the people that makes it special?  “I hope everyone enjoys it.  I hope they all help take it forward and that everyone always believe in themselves.  We’ve always had to overcome and persevere.   People out there like who we are, that makes me feel really good about what I’ve been able to contribute to the station, along with so many others.”

Thank you Mark Burg for your contributions.  Thank you for persevering and helping build something special that we all enjoy being a part of today.