For a man who likes to perform and inform, but is hesitant to face a huge crowd, a job in front of a microphone or camera provides the ideal working conditions.
“I like working in radio and television because you reach a lot of people, but you’re not looking at the audience,” says WILL’s Mike Sola. “I’m actually sort of shy, and I can imagine I’m talking to one person at a time out there listening and watching.”
As the youngest of 10 children growing up on the south side of Chicago,
Mike didn’t have far to look to find an audience. He simply headed for his parents’ tavern or laundromat, and he had a ready-made crowd. “I was always a ham,” he
says.
Mike joined the staff of WILL as a radio weather producer in
2000. He was the morning weathercaster on WCIA-TV in Champaign from 1993 to 1998.
He has a degree in broadcasting from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and was also a general assignment reporter during his 16 years working at WCIA.
That background, along with high school years in the small Illinois agricultural community of Piper City, makes him enthusiastic about reaching out to the community.
His first child was born during the period he was on the air at WCIA, he
says, and people he doesn’t know still recognize him and ask about his family.
Mike says he feels equally comfortable in either radio or television.
“It doesn’t matter to me whether I’m on TV or radio,” he
says. “It’s the deciphering and relaying of information about the weather that really inspires me.”
For a man who likes to perform and inform, but is hesitant to face a huge crowd, a job in front of a microphone or camera provides the ideal working conditions.