Just the facts…
Before Creative Voltage, you’d find Lonnie on the front lines of today’s most dramatic headlines -- covering seminal events like Southern California earthquakes, the L.A. riots, and at least three “trials of the century” in her 25 years as a TV news reporter in Los Angeles, Nashville, Chicago, and New York.
Lonnie enriches the Creative Voltage experience though poignant storytelling — a skill she honed as an award-winning journalist. As an entertainment reporter for FOX-TV, KABC-TV, and KCBS-TV, she covered the Oscars, the Grammys, and the Emmys. She interviewed many of Hollywood’s A-listers, countless icons in pop music, and prominent newsmakers from coast to coast. Along with Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, and Jimmie Johnson, Lonnie joined the on-air broadcast team for the first season of the award-winning FOX NFL Sunday.
The perfect fit….
Today, working with some of the world’s top CEOs and corporate executives, Lonnie has learned that everyone — no matter how accomplished or famous — sometimes needs help unlocking unrealized creative potential. The synergy between her wide range of cultural, broadcast, and business experiences and unbridled passion for art and creative thought — make Lonnie Lardner an incredibly effective corporate muse.
All in the Family….
Lonnie comes from a long line of news and entertainment professionals. Her father Rex served as head writer for the trailblazing “Ernie Kovacs Show” in the 1950s; her grandfather was national editor of The New York Times in the 1930s; her great uncle Ring Lardner is acknowledged as one of the best sports humorists of all time, and his son Ring Jr., is a multiple Oscar-winning screenwriter.For the last 25 years, Lonnie’s other passion has taken her to the most impoverished streets of inner-city Los Angeles, where she teaches children the value of art and self-expression. For this work she was honored as “Volunteer of the Year” by the Mayor of Los Angeles in 2004. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the historic Los Angeles Art Association.
Lonnie graduated from the University of Denver with a B.A. in English and French. She spent her junior year abroad in Avignon and Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, studying painting at L’Ecole Des Beaux Arts.
Lonnie Lardner
Unauthorized Biography (that I wrote myself)
Lonnie Lardner CV
Based on conventional wisdom, my story should start like this: “When I was a 6-year-old girl, growing up in Great Neck, Long Island, my fondest memories were the times when I was able to convince my mom to give me just 10 more minutes to color, or paint, or draw, before lights-out.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would one day make my living surrounded by art, creating art, inspiring art. The trouble is, I’ve never had much of a relationship with conventional wisdom, and truth be told, my life today is exactly what I dreamed of. The steps, adventures, and careers along the way? That’s another story.
I attended The University of Denver, and majored in English, French and Art. Why? Well, I tend to get obsessed with the things that interest me, and have very little patience for the things that don’t. As a result, I earned a degree that offered very little in the way of marketable skills. Here comes Fork in the Road #1.
Needing to earn some dough right out of college, I got a job as a page at NBC in New York. Among the highlights:
1. I manned the studio door for the first ever Saturday Night Live broadcast (please don’t do the age math).
2. I wound up having dinner with Frank Sinatra, twice. (That’s a story for another time).
The page job led me to a gig in the WNBC-TV newsroom as a production assistant. Possessing more luck than brains, and more ambition than skill, I made an on-air demo tape, and sent it around. That led to a reporter position in Little Rock, Arkansas where I shared a desk with another reporter named Gennifer Flowers. (If you don’t know the name, it’s worth googling). Four months in Little Rock, and I got an offer to come anchor the news in Nashville. Five years there led to a short stint in Chicago, before moving on to Los Angeles. Over the next 10 years I reported, anchored, won some awards, and got burned out.
Fork in the Road #2.
Returning to my first love, and maxing out my credit cards I opened an art gallery in Beverly Hills. It was called Artique. The less said the better. I realized that retail art was not at all what I loved, so I went back to broadcasting (Fork in the Road #3), made some money, and plotted my next move.
Now, the word “plotted” conjures visions of strategy sessions, deep thought, introspection, things like that. In my life, it means waking up one day and saying, “Enough.”
I want to do something that excites and fulfills me. That set the stage for Fork in the Road #4, or as I like to call it “Fork Everything.”
That was the impetus I needed to give birth to Creative Voltage, the corporate justification for spending the rest of my life playing with all things artistic.