Kathryn K. Potos

Pride in being the son of immigrants. An abiding belief in the importance of education. A commitment to community service. These qualities defined Andy Potos and are the inspiration for the UW-Milwaukee Scholarship Fund that bears his name.

Andy Potos was born in Milwaukee in 1927 to parents who immigrated from Greece. He graduated from Lincoln High School and served in the U.S. Army. Thanks to the GI Bill, he was able to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history and became a teacher of History and English at Washington High School. In 1961, he made a career change to the growing field of local broadcasting, joining Milwaukee’s WITI-TV as an account executive. His skills in building business relationships and partnerships led to promotions within the company’s national corporate sales division.

Those successes led to Andy’s return home, this time to become Vice-President and General Manager of WITI. He led the station from 1981until his retirement in 1996. Throughout that time, his priorities were well-known and well-recognized: news excellence and community service. WITI was repeatedly named “Station of the Year” for news and community service by the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and enjoyed local and national recognition for its journalism and civic projects. He was known for the hiring and promotion of women into leadership roles on his team. In 2013, in recognition of his career, he was inducted into the prestigious Silver Circle of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.