A few years ago, Matt Murphy, the general manager of WERU, kept seeing Kristen Spalding helping out at community music events, and decided to ask her if she’d like to help host a radio show. It was part of an effort to bring younger people into the fold at the community radio station, which is based in East Orland and had a graying pool of volunteers.
Spalding, a longtime WERU listener, became a regular host, and in August will take the helm as general manager. Murphy is retiring after about 27 years in the role.
“I’m just really excited and honored and looking forward to continuing the amazing legacy of WERU,” said Spalding, who grew up in Bucksport and most recently worked in development for Bagaduce Music in Blue Hill.
Murphy, who was not involved in the hiring process, said he was delighted when Spalding was hired.
“I couldn’t think of a better person for the job,” he said.
Spalding understands the station, since she grew up listening to it and has gradually expanded her role as a volunteer there, he said. And she brings both empathy and strong strategic and leadership skills to the job, he said.
“She’s got the head and the heart,” he said.
Spalding and Murphy agree that the leadership transition comes at a moment of strength for the station.
After Congress defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting last year, WERU lost 20% of its revenue. The community stepped up, raising more money in 2025 than in any other years — including $100,000 in a single week. Currently, 80% of the station’s budget of approximately $650,000 comes from listener memberships and donations, Murphy said.
The outpouring was “outrageous” and “wonderful” Murphy said. Now the question is whether the station can count on that level of support in the future, or whether it was a form of “rage giving” fueled by anger at Congress’s actions, he said.
Murphy intends to stay on as a volunteer at the station and will support Spalding as she transitions into the role.
Murphy’s tenure at the station has seen seismic shifts in the world of music, media and technology. When he started, the radio station was only an FM signal and was headquartered at a former chicken barn in Blue Hill owned by Noel Paul Stookey. Over the years, the station added a website, streaming, and a smartphone app, as well as archives. Today, DJs still use vinyl but tapes and minidiscs have largely fallen by the wayside, and streaming is common.
The station is powered by volunteers and a small staff. In its early days, it was an intergenerational crew, Murphy said, but by the late 2010s the core group had started to age and fewer and fewer young people were taking part.
“We started saying, ‘we’re going to fade, we’re going to age out,’” Murphy said.
After a concerted effort to recruit younger people to the station, the station now has a board that is half under the age of 45 and half over. And the station’s volunteers range from a 14-year-old to people in their 70s.
And Murphy, who is in his mid-60s, is making way for a new generation of leaders like Spalding, who is 41, and co-founded the Bangor Contra Dance and other music and dance programming. She also plays fiddle and banjo and sings.
At a time when algorithms curate playlists and sometimes create the music too, there’s a growing hunger for the sort of human touch and local sensibility that WERU offers, Spalding said.
“I think more and more people are going to want to take a stand for something that is human, that is curated by humans, and that is created by humans,” she said.