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At its annual spring membership meeting, the Society of Broadcast Engineers (SBE) made Richard W. Burden ’53 only the seventh member in its 41-year history to receive its Lifetime Achievement Award.
Remembering the events that led up to the surprise of the award, Burden thought nothing of a friend’s request to walk into the meeting together and sit up front. The meeting began with a presenter talking about an SBE member’s 55 years of service, then stating the recipient’s SBE membership and certification numbers. Even though the numbers were the same as his, Burden dismissed the remarks, thinking that the numbers were mistakes. He finally realized that he was the recipient when the presenter listed all of his accomplishments. Walking toward the podium, Burden also learned why his friend requested that they sit up front when his daughter appeared from the back of the room and greeted him.
“It’s quite a feeling,” says Burden, who also was selected by the Audio Engineering Society (AES) as one of 25 people worldwide who have made significant contributions to the industry in the last 50 years. “It was totally a surprise. It’s kind of neat to know that over the years the things you’ve done are recognized by your peers. I didn’t expect any of this. I even had trouble sleeping [that night] because I was so wound up.”
His interest in radio broadcasting began in high school. After heeding a guidance counselor’s advice to get a liberal arts education, Burden attended Lafayette and was chief engineer of its radio station, WJRH-FM.
“Today I still can think of all the things I learned at Lafayette in the field of economics,” he says. “As an engineer, you have to think of economic consequences of what you do. It’s given me a very solid foundation in the business side of the things I do.”
After graduating from RCA Institute with a First Class Radiotelephone License, Burden taught at Signal School in Monmouth, N.J., as a civilian and then as an Army Reservist and chief military instructor. He was released from the Armed Forces Radio Service in New York with citations as a staff sergeant.
He opened Burden Associates after working for General Precision Laboratory. Burden still oversees his second office in Canoga Park, Calif., and offers his expertise to college radio stations and the Traveler’s Information Service, an AM radio service that he founded at Los Angeles International Airport to relay highway traffic to motorists.
“One of the neat things is that I have friends all over the country and all over the world,” he says.
Burden is originally a SBE member of Chapter 1 in Binghamton, N.Y. He helped organize SBE Chapter 47 in Los Angeles and was Chapter 47 second chairman and program chairman from 1979-81. He holds a patent for his work developing a system of FM stereo broadcasting in conjunction with Multiplex Development Corporation. He served on the National Stereophonic Radio Committee, AES Standards Committee, Broadcast Transmission Systems Committee on the study of stereophonic sound of TV, National Radio Systems Committee, and as an AES representative to the Joint Committee of Intersociety Coordination.
He is a certified professional broadcast engineer and still serves as SBE certification chairman for Chapter 47. He was the AES Los Angeles section chairman and Western Regional vice president. Burden also is a fellow of both AES and SBE.