Lynn Everett Cheney, who helped shape Comrex Corp. into a prominent broadcast audio equipment manufacturer, has died. She was 80.
Radio World Editor in Chief Paul McLane, writing at Cheney’s retirement in 2006, described her as “a forthright, capable leader who competed for business vigorously, was always affable with her competitors and has genuine affection for her employees and clients.
“She contributed to, and then presided over, the growth of a successful — and proudly efficient — equipment manufacturer, through decades that have seen great change in radio and in the company’s business model.”
According to that profile story, it had not been her intention to enter a career in broadcast electronics. She studied French at Wellesley when professional opportunities for women were limited. “At the time I went to college, you got married,” she said.
She wed George Distler and took a job for the Sudbury newspaper, where she was paid by the column inch. While covering the government, she met local appeals board member John Cheney, who had started a company in 1961 making wireless mics. Business had slowed and he was doing mostly consulting work for other manufacturing companies. But the transistor age was giving Comrex new life.
“John designed a crystal-controlled UHF wireless system that came out just about the time ENG cameras for television hit the market in a big way. This 450 MHz product was a success,” Radio World reported.
“He needed someone to help answer the phones, so [in 1974] he offered journalist Lynn Distler a position working three hours a day, three days a week. He didn’t know he was hiring his future wife and business partner. It was also Lynn’s baptism into business.”
The company soon made a splash with frequency extension technology and expanded into increasingly sophisticated audio codecs and other products.
George Distler died in 1981. Lynn would eventually marry John Cheney and continue to grow in her role as manager; she called Cheney “the best teacher I’ve ever run into.” When John passed away in 1998, Lynn became president and led the firm until 2006. (For more about her time at the company, see McLane’s 2006 profile “Cheney Era Ends at Comrex.”)
Her obituary notes that before retiring as president of Comrex, she organized and launched a successful employee stock ownership plan, “believing in the importance of workers having a stake in the company and benefiting from its success.”
After retirement she lived in Maine and was active in several community organizations.
Lynn Cheney died on Feb. 11 at the home of a daughter in the U.S. Virgin Islands. A cause of death was not given.
Her obituary said her passions included horses, gardening, international travel and card-playing. “She was a paragon of patience, strength and kindness, always willing to lend an ear, then usually a hand, to anyone she met.”
A memorial concert is being planned, to be held in Blue Hill, Maine.
