Staff

Executive Management

Ben Kutner

Director of Fundraising and Development

Ben oversees the organization’s approach to fundraising and is responsible for expanding the organization’s resources. He brings a background in nonprofit administration, fundraising, and grant writing. Prior to his work with nonprofits, Ben worked in classical music as a composer.

Nantz Rickard

President and CEO

President and CEO of DCTV since 1994, Nantz is also one of its founders, having worked for DCTV since 1987. She provides visionary and strategic leadership and management to DCTV in the realms of public policy, legislation, and cable franchises. Nantz ensures that DCTV’s mission is supported with excellent capacity at all levels. For Nantz, being at DCTV isn’t a job – it’s her calling and an opportunity to fulfill a long-held vision. She loves supporting a really unique mission that empowers people and communities, plus the opportunity to work with a talented and knowledgeable team.

Outreach, Communications and Membership

Julia Reardin

Director of Programs and Services

As a photographer and digital media artist, her work encompasses portraits, landscape, environmental photography and video production. Julia is also an avid filmmaker and has worked on several film productions and digital art projects. Most recently, Julia packed up her life in Yosemite National Park, where she was teaching photography at The Ansel Adams Gallery, to persue her career in media production in the nation’s capital.

One of Julia's lifelong dreams has been to work for a non-profit organization. At DCTV, she desires to engage the community using media as a tool to share information, express ideas and learn in creative ways.

When away from the office you can catch her exploring new places and learning local history, especially if it involves camping, long hikes and the great outdoors.

 

 

 

Production and Training

Sydni Whitfield Flowers

Director of Production

Sydni Whitfield Flowers is a media executive with more than 35 years of television experience. She is a pioneer in the cable industry, playing a major role in the start-up of reality tv and the explosion of digital streaming. Sydni’s career began in news in Detroit Michigan, and she later moved to Washington DC to cover Capitol Hill & the White House, interviewing 4 Presidents. After producing stories on everything from the Gulf War to the National Spelling Bee, Sydni traded in her news credentials to work for a young cable network called The Discovery Channel. As Senior Director of Production Management at Discovery, Sydni managed TV productions around the world and the newly formed company, Warner Bros. Discovery, is now the largest media company in the world. 

Following her years at Discovery, Sydni went back to her first love, news, as the Senior Production Manager of the PBS NewsHour, where she managed the production of the nightly newscast and hosted the 2020 Presidential Debate in Los Angeles. Currently, Sydni is the Head of Production at DCTV, utilizing her network start-up experience to create original programming that has a meaningful impact in the DC community. 

Carmen Stanley

Operations Assistant

Hailing from Dallas, TX, Carmen started out as a DCTV intern and now assists the Programming, Operations, Training and Production departments as a Media Operations Specialist. She enjoys working along side the team at here while furthering her knowledge in TV production. When not supporting our staff, she can be found on the couch binge watching her favorite TV series or in the studio volunteering on shoots.

Programming

Karen Beasley

Manager Programming

Since 1998, Karen has served as the Programming Manager at DCTV. Her duties include developing monthly program schedules, assigning series and individual time slots, reviewing program submissions, and providing support to our producers. Karen loves meeting and collaborating with people to bring their visions, issues, and points-of-view to the airwaves.

Jacque Rearden

Master Control Coordinator

As Master Control Coordinator, Jacque monitors signals, troubleshoots signal failures, oversees community bulletins and maintains logs of playback activities.  She began as a DCTV volunteer playback technician in 1996.  As an attorney for over 20 years, she is the former Director of Legal Services for the Philadelphia Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts; and was the coordinator at  Hart & Chavers for the “Introduction to the Practice of Entertainment Law” CLE Course.  Jacque enjoys learning new techniques to enhance the quality of  telecasting.

The DCTV capacity building grant program offers eligible nonprofits an array of benefits that build organizational communications and storytelling capability and provides an ongoing presence on cable television. We designed these grants to offer training and expert guidance to the nonprofit community, which enables you to robustly expand your impact within the DC community.

“Grant Level” is the amount of money your organization contributes to receive the grant. The grant term is initially one year and requires a very small organizational match. DCTV will provide documentation so that you can appropriately record “in-kind” services in your financial records. Grants may be extended or renewed with DCTV approval.