Rob Schaefer is a senior producer in the newscast department at NPR. He leads the team of editors, anchors, and associate producers who deliver the newscasts during NPR’s flagship show, All Things Considered. He started with the network in September of 2000, after years in the news business. A year later, Schaefer contributed to the NPR newscast coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks, which received a Peabody Award.

Before coming to NPR, Schaefer worked at NBC and Mutual Radio Networks. He was there for 13 years, rising from part-time overnight tape producer to senior producer, managing a newsroom in delivering newscasts that aired simultaneously on two networks. While there, he also produced and directed live coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial, Clarence Thomas’ confirmation hearings, the 1996 Olympic Park bombing, and the first Gulf War. Along the way, he’s had stints at CNN, Cancerpage.com, WKYS, and Fox 5 in Washington, DC, where he was an assignment editor. He got his break in network news as a radio engineer for the NBC Radio Network in 1982.

Schaefer began his life in public radio at WBFO in Buffalo, New York. He started as a volunteer in 1979 while in college at the University at Buffalo. He eventually had a jazz show there, and became an operations manager and traffic manager. For a time, he worked as a jazz announcer at both WBFO and another public station across town, WEBR.

Schaefer discovered public radio as a listener when he was a teenage boy and is very proud to work at NPR all these years later. He is a devoted husband and dad who enjoys Ultimate Frisbee.