Kip Campbell

Kip Campbell was born Willard Guy Campbell January 7, 1944. After graduating from Milton (VT) High School in 1962, he attended the University of Vermont. He served two tours of duty in the Army in Vietnam, earning a Bronze Star. His work setting up communications systems taught him the fundamentals of RF engineering.

After his service, Campbell began his career in 1967 at Vermont Educational Television where he rose to the position of Chief Engineer. In October 1981 he came to UNC-TV in Research Triangle Park, NC as associate director of engineering, a post he held through June 2010. Kip’s service to the people of North Carolina stretched over decades. While other broadcasters included closed captions as they happened to come, Kip ensured that UNC-TV treated captioning as a priority and found ways to expand their use.

Working in public television meant stretching his engineering skills to the utmost. Every piece of equipment needed to last beyond its planned end of life and needed to do more than it was designed to do. Kip’s innovative work designing studios, origination facilities, transmitter operations and building in redundancy and future-proofing systems allowed UNC-TV to blanket the state. As a member of the PBS Engineering Advisory Committee for many years, Kip’s work set the standard for every public broadcaster in the country. Kip was a brilliant engineering who went far beyond the limits of the technology of his time.

Though he always preferred to work behind the scenes, Kip won a Telly Award for Kip’s Tips, interstitials that helped explain the 2009 digital TV transition to viewers.

Kip’s many friends endowed this scholarship to keep his memory alive. To inspire new engineers with an example of the very best. If at the end of your career, everyone who knows you respects your skill, innovation, and generosity; if when you figure something out, your first thought is to share it; if hundreds of people have a story to tell about how you made their lives better with your work and your service… then you will have succeeded.