Dave Beck

Including all of Dave Beck’s long career accomplishments in one bio is no easy feat (multiple awards for producing, interviews, and journalism, a family history of building rockets and airplanes, and a seat as president of the Seattle Youth Symphony board of directors, to name a few), so bear with us as we navigate the many talents of one very talented host.

As a skilled musician who has played principal cellist of the Bellevue and Seattle Philharmonic Orchestras, Dave’s first love is music. A cello to be specific. But when he began working at KUOW in 1985, starting as a host and music director, radio quickly became an important part of all things ‘Dave.’ Throughout his on-air career Dave has earned national and regional broadcast honors including the Public Radio News Directors Incorporated (PRNDI) Award for Best Interview and the Society of Professional Journalists Northwest Regional Excellence Award, as well as winning awards for his on–air conversations with historians Stephen Ambrose and Nathaniel Philbrick.

With three generations of Dave’s family working at Boeing (building rockets and airplanes), Dave went his own way when he took the radio route. Though Beck family roots still run deep as Dave sights his favorite work-related interviews as those with space pioneers Buzz Aldrin, Scott Carpenter, Bonnie Dunbar, Donna Shirley, Alan Shepard, Steven Squyres, and Don Brownlee.

Dave’s love of music originally drew him to radio; And his life in the Pacific Northwest kept him in it. As a University of Washington alum, his first on-air radio experiences were as a classical music, jazz, and folk host at community stations KBCS in Bellevue and KAOS, Olympia.