Legendary radio sales executive Gene Mann died this week after a month long illness. Gene Mann’s funeral will take place at 10.30 am next Monday, 31 October at St Francis Xavier Catholic Church, 20 Mackenzie Street, Lavender Bay.

 

Former radio manager Chris Joscelyne offers this tribute. I met Gene for the first time in 1969 at 3AW. Gene had just returned from a splendid lunch. He spoke about the lunch with great eloquence … a new restaurant he had not tried before.

I will miss Gene and his delightful expansive speeches on any subject that took his fancy.

On that day I met Gene I had been invited to come to 3AW to discuss a job offer from 7LA. Ron Fowell and Don Craig met me there to outline the offer and seek my expression of interest. For those that can recall, Ron and Don were close personal friends ofNorman Finlay, and Don was an external director and mentor to 7LA manager Ron Ward.

Gene was the champion of the “Have a Happy Day” promotional package which ran on 7LA. See images top right.

The promotion originated at the NBC Radio Network (radio station WRC – Washington DC). Gene told me that Macquarie paid a lot of money for the Australian licence.

Here is the link to the jingle that ran on the Australian radio stations that embraced Gene’s enthusiastic sales pitch.