Rick Schneider is President & CEO of Community Television Foundation of South Florida, Inc. CTF operates WPBT Channel 2, the community-licensed public television station located in Miami. WPBT serves South Florida from the Treasure Coast to Key West and produces Nightly Business Report for the national PBS system. He joined the station in 2004 and has served on the Board of Directors of PBS since 2003.

From 1998-2004, he was President & General Manager of Channel 5 Public Broadcasting (KNPB), the public television station serving the Reno/Lake Tahoe region. During his tenure KNPB launched its digital television signal and conducted a $6 million capital campaign for the conversion to DTV.

He previously served as news director (1990-1992) and then station manager (1992-1998) at WUFT-TV, the PBS station licensed to the University of Florida in Gainesville. As news director he taught television reporting in UF’s College of Journalism & Communication. He hosted the public affairs program North Florida Journal and was honored with a Scripps-Howard National Journalism Award for his television documentary, A Community Crisis: The Gainesville Student Murders.

His early career was in commercial broadcast news, including positions as a reporter and anchor in Gainesville (WCJB), West Palm Beach (WPTV), and New York City (WPIX), and as a Washington correspondent for Post-Newsweek Stations, including WPLG in Miami.

He is an honors graduate of the University of Florida College of Journalism & Communication and holds a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he was awarded a McCloy Fellowship for reporting in Germany. His broadcast career has included assignments as varied as AM Top 40 radio disc jockey, radio traffic reporter & pilot, and hosting TV coverage of UF homecoming parades.

He was born in Germany, immigrated to the U.S. as an infant, and speaks fluent German. He grew up in Gainesville, Florida. He and his wife Karen have two children.