Bio

Lisa began her career as a news reporter and jazz music announcer at WLSU, an NPR-affiliate station at WU-La Crosse. After graduation, she took a job in commercial radio as the morning show news sidekick at WISQ. They fired her for taking a vacation during a ratings period. Next she worked as a news reporter and music announcer at WCOW, nick-named Cow Country, in Sparta.

In 1987, she moved to Madison and became a news reporter at Q106. Nothing full-time was available, so Lisa sought a job outside of radio. She took a position as the office manager at WIBU, the new polka station. The first day, while cleaning dead flies (not files, flies) out of the studio, her new boss told her she was going on the air, temporarily. It lasted three + years, and she eventually became operations manager. Lee Harris, the GM, encouraged creativity, and it was like working in old-time radio. One promotion launched the listener's top ten favorite polkas to the moon. A fake "live" dance with Uncle Ozzie every Saturday night always brought wayward old folks looking for the Polka Palace. WIBU sold polka music, polka t-shirts and Polka-Cola. Lisa escorted a group of listeners to Germany and they went to Oktoberfest!

In addition to voicing commercials every day in radio and TV, Lisa worked on some fun projects over the years... She sang backup vocals on Rocky Rococo's "Kitchen Licks" album. She voiced answering machine on-hold messages for a bowling alley. She acted in television commercials. Pat McCurdy wrote a song for a comedy club and Lisa recorded him and produced a jingle. Before one station could afford professional jingles, she arranged and recorded a bunch of classic Christmas music into :30 music beds.

After the polka station, Lisa was hired in Madison as the traffic & continuity director at WIBA-FM, and for extra dough pulled weekend shifts on WMAD, Lite 96 and WIBA-AM. Her favorite job at the Clear Channel group was the afternoon master control gig - recording, mixing and editing commercials. And the best part of working there was the free concert and sports tickets.

Her musical background paid off when she was hired to create music for the Horicon Marsh. She took actual recordings of birds and wove them into music for PSAs that aired on radio stations throughout the state of Wisconsin. Lisa composed and produced the music, and played most of the instruments.

In order to make more income, Lisa decided to explore the marketing side of media. She was the WMAD business manager, then sales office manager for six stations in the Clear Channel group. Lisa left radio for cable TV advertising. After a few years, she was promoted to regional marketing manager representing over 100 salespersons in two states. She developed an internal web site and provided materials and information to Charter Media ad sales divisions throughout the country.

Because she loves public radio, she volunteered at WORT-FM in Madison and helped develop a marketing plan for the listener-sponsored community station.

Lisa currently lives in Sheboygan with her husband John, near Lake Michigan. She continues to record voiceovers and has her own business, Lehmann Photo Art & Design.