Jim Wulliman
Jim Wulliman was the longtime Director of Engineering for the Journal Broadcast Group, including WTMJ-AM, WKTI-FM and WTMJ-TV, Milwaukee. Prior to that, he was responsible for the design and construction of Milwaukee’s public television stations, WMVS-TV and WMVT-TV, and served as their chief engineer and assistant director of operations. During his career, Wulliman was very active in the National Society of Broadcast Engineers and is well known as the “father” of the world renown SBE Certification Program, begun in 1977 as the industry’s standard to test and measure the qualifications of broadcast engineers. He served as SBE’s Director of Certification for many years, was the Milwaukee SBE Chapter’s first President, and was the President of the National SBE. He also has received the SBE’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
He died in November 2022. He was 98.
Following my TV Broadcast Engineering studies at Milwaukee Area Technical College, I had the honor and pleasure to work with Jim Wulliman as a WTMJ-TV summer replacement engineer in 1976. Mr. Wulliman was a calm, steady, bright leader and was always interested to hear what you thought. I remember looking at the RCA TK-76 at a local SBE meeting, and later being involved in discussions with other engineers about the impending deployment of Electronic News Gathering (ENG) cameras. He was a fountain of knowledge and always carried himself as a gentleman. I feel blessed to have had the experience of working with him.