Class of 1968 Bios

Michael Grasso has more than 40 years of experience in the field of film production. An accomplished strategist and marketer, Michael’s vision and expertise have been tapped by every major advertiser in nearly every category of the industry. His directorial work in the commercial production field has garnered major awards and worldwide recognition. He has won numerous awards including the prestigious Gold Lion from the Cannes Film Festival. He has twice been nominated by the Director’s Guild of America for Director of the Year award.

Michael began his career in 1970 at KXTV in Sacramento, Ca. There he worked in both the art and film departments. 1973 found him at KMUV in Sacramento where he worked to help put the fledgling new UHF station on the air. His commercials for local advertisers got the attention of WADE Advertising which Michael joined in 1976. There, he wrote, produced and directed spots and campaigns for KCRATV, Crystal Dairy, River City Bank and a number of political campaigns. By 1977 Grasso Productions had been formed, an independent production company which continued to work for WADE Advertising and their clients, along with a broad range of national advertisers which included KPIX in San Francisco and WABC and WPIX in New York.

The production company moved to New York City in 1985 , but by then Grasso Marketing and Advertising had been formed for the express purpose of handling the advertising for KCRA-TV and River City Bank.

Eventually Grasso decided to dedicate all of his time to commercial directing and eventually joined a New York production company. His work on the national level took him around the world. In addition to the U.S., Michael has produced and directed in China, Italy, France, Germany, England, South Africa, Australia and Argentina.

His client list includes: NESTLE, IBM, AMERICAN AIRLINES, DELTA AIRLINES, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES, USPS, OSCAR MEYER, PILLSBURY, JC PENNEY, CHUPA CHUPS, ADVIL, MAZDA, WALT DISNEY, MCDONALD’S, NATIONAL CITY BANK, ANHEUSER BUSCH, COOR’S, MILLER BREWING, PONTIAC, DR. PEPPER, AMERICAN EXPRESS, VISA, DISCOVER CARD, U.S. ARMY, NATIONAL CAR RENTAL, HOME DEPOT, KELLOGG’S, BANK OF AMERICA, FANNIE MAE, FORD, CHEVROLET, CHRYSLER, LEXUS, TOYOTA, HBO, CINEMAX, WPIX NY, WABC NY, HONDA, SEARS, PUBLIX FOOD STORES, OHIO LOTTERY, PIZZA HUT, MERRILL LYNCH, DEAN WITTER, CHASE BANK, SPRINT, MCI, ATT, MERCK, COUNCIL FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY. BLUE CROSS, BLUE SHIELD. JOHN DEERE.

His work with celebrity talent is also notable. They include: Willy Nelson and Waylon Jennings, Diana Ross, Bernadette Peters, Billy Crystal, Rachel Ward, Arnold Palmer, Howie Mandel, Sugar Ray Leonard, Alex Trebek, Delta Burke, Ellen Degeneres, Aretha Franklin, Liberace, Ronald Reagan, George Carlin. Dolly Parton. Kenny Rogers. Christopher Reeve, Blair Underwood, Andre Agassi, Wilford Brimley and Don Ameche.

The Umbrella Man, an original motion picture co-written and co-produced with his brother Joseph Grasso and directed by Michael, is his first feature film. Set in Pittsburgh in 1983, The Umbrella Man charts the downward spiral of Peter and Annie Brennan after the death of their young son. The boy's death and the subsequent acquittal of his killer kindles a conspiratorial paranoia in Peter that threatens his sanity and their marriage. As an escape, Brennan becomes fixated on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and his decent into the underworld of conspiracy sub-culture ends up providing a place of emotional refuge for him. The Umbrella Man is now available on iTunes and Amazon Prime.

Michael Grasso currently resides with his wife, Maureen Hanley Grasso, in Carlsbad Ca.
9/21/18

Broadcast journalist Tom DuHain will say goodbye to KCRA Channel 3 today after a 46-plus year run in which he became a fixture in Sacramento-area living rooms.

“It’s been much more than a job; it’s been a lifetime,” DuHain said earlier this week, sitting in a conference room off the KCRA newsroom. “I’m going off into uncharted waters to find a new normal. My wife (Susan Kennedy-DuHain) just retired from UC Davis, and our goal is to find the things we like to do, now that we have the time to do them together.”

DuHain, 64, has been a much-respected fixture in the Sacramento media market and a familiar face to generations of viewers. His straightforward style and authoritative voice have brought gravitas to KCRA’s news broadcasts.

“Every newsroom needs a Tom DuHain – somebody who has the institutional knowledge and integrity, and knows where to find the stories,” said KCRA news director Lori Waldon. “Some may watch him work and say it’s old school, but it’s really just good journalism.”

“He’s a legend who has survived all kinds of changes,” said media observer Barbara O’Connor, emeritus professor of communications at Sacramento State. “He is among TV’s trusted authority figures.”

DuHain became interested in broadcasting at an early age. At 15, he had a back condition that put him in a brace “from my waist to my chest for almost two years,” he recalled. “Like any (teenager) I wanted to get a job, but I (wasn’t mobile). Someone said to me, ‘You ought to go on the radio and just sit there and talk into a microphone.’”

DuHain moved quickly and acquired an FCC broadcasting license. By age 16, he had found jobs at local radio stations. Two years later he went to KCRA as a full-time news-radio assistant while attending American River College. (At the time, KCRA owned an AM radio station.)

DuHain struck up a friendship with KCRA star meteorologist Harry Geise, who told him, “I need an assistant, so let me teach you everything you need to know about meteorology,” according to DuHain. A few months later, he was filling in for Geise during the weatherman’s vacations. DuHain ultimately assumed his mentor’s role from 1969 through 1979, when he shifted to the news side.

DuHain had other jobs at the TV station, as co-host of the pioneering news magazine “The 7:30 Show,” and as a daily news anchor and reporter with several beats, including utilities and energy, one that provided huge opportunities.

“One day (in 1979) I was told, ‘There’s been an accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. We have twin reactors south of town – go there.’”

That directive resulted in DuHain covering the Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station for 10 years, at one point broadcasting “the first live shots from within a reactor building,” he said.

On that beat, DuHain was “very fortunate to find a conscientious SMUD employee at the power plant who had serious concerns about its safe and competent operation,” he said. “He was afraid there would be a nuclear accident. He led me to other contacts, and I began hearing a lot of stories.”

Those “stories” culminated in DuHain’s one-hour special in 1981, “Trouble at Twin Towers,” which delved deeply into the plant’s disturbing operational issues.

In 1984, a power plant employee was arrested for distributing drugs at the facility. “Out of the blue her boyfriend called me and spilled the beans about the widespread distribution and use of cocaine and marijuana at the plant,” DuHain said. “What really caught our attention was when he said, ‘Oh, and we delivered drugs to the control room, too.’

“The issue was so explosive that I contacted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s head of security for the Western region and briefed him before we went on the air (with a live five-part prime-time series),” DuHain said. A public referendum led to the closure of the plant in 1989.

Dozens of other reporting highlights have marked DuHain’s career, including the “profound experience” of spending a week reporting on Palestinians in the Middle East in 1984. “I’ve had guns pointed at me in a couple of places, and that was one of them,” he said. For that one, the National Council of Christians and Jews awarded him a Gold Medallion, its highest national award.

On the lighter side, “I got to do two series (for which) I should have paid the station.” One was a five-part special on Windham Hill Records, “which started out of a garage in Auburn” and became a major force in the new-age, acoustic and folk music worlds. “We profiled (founder) Will Ackerman, his company and its artists. We went to recording studios in L.A. and to Ackerman’s home in Marin County, and went on a raft trip on the American River with him and some of his people.”

DuHain went behind the scenes at Paramount Studios for two specials on the “Star Trek” TV franchise. “I was a kid in a candy store,” he said. “I went on the set and got to sit in the captain’s chair and say, ‘Make it so.’ ”

But the world turns, and DuHain has seen his share of changes at KCRA and in the news business in general, including the shift into the digital universe.

“It’s been a learning curve,” he said. “I’ve been flexible and adaptable, and have recognized that different owners and managers want different styles. As changes have occurred, I’ve been renewed in the process. Part of (surviving change) is periodically getting yourself recommitted and recharged, though basically I’ve been the same person doing the same job.”

Once off the job, DuHain will most miss the camaraderie with his colleagues when big news is breaking, and the “excitement and satisfaction of being successful with reporting in the field. I’ll also miss going places and meeting people. That’s stimulating.”

What he won’t miss is the daily grind. “There is pressure every day, and after a while it’s wearing,” he said. “This is a young person’s game, and you don’t see people my age in the newsroom anymore.”

Tonight during its 6 o’clock broadcast, KCRA will air DuHain’s “goodbye speech” in the form of a video touching on his career highlights.

Part of that will reveal “the one story I’ve always wanted to cover, but could never convince the last three news directors to let me do it. I have video and pictures from the location, though, which is across the country. There’s a Sacramento connection, and longtime Sacramento residents will be amazed.”

As for the stories he has covered along the way, DuHain said, “I’ve tried to remember they involve real people experiencing real events. There’s a human side do it. I’ve found that most people are good and honest, and respond well to kindness.”

KCRA Channel 3 will salute its retiring reporter Tom DuHain tonight with a “career highlights” segment during its 6 o’clock news hour.
http://www.kcra.com/tv/about/14-photos-that-prove-tom-duhain-was-sacramentos-newsman/30748150

Meanwhile,watch the video of DuHain bidding farewell to Sacramento, atwww.sacbee.com/news/local/article6541164.html.