Marion B. Brechner

Marion Brody Brechner, a well-known Central Florida broadcasting executive and philanthropist, established the Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project with a major gift to the Joseph L. Brechner Center for Freedom of Information in 1999.

Mrs. Brechner is a native of Chicago, Illinois. She attended Chicago public schools and the university of Maryland. She served as a records supervisor at the Pentagon in Washington DC, during World War II. It was during that time she met and married Joseph L. Brechner, who served as an air force officer during the war.

Following the war, the Brechners established radio station WGAY in Silver Spring, Maryland. They later acquired and managed radio stations in Erie, Pennsylvania; Charleston, West Virginia; and Orlando, Florida.

In 1958, the Brechners began the development of a new television station, WLOF-TV, and later WFTV-TV, (Channel 9) in Orlando. The station went on the air in 1959, and Mrs. Brechner moved to Orlando the next year, becoming producer of a daily one-hour variety morning show at the station. She also served as director of community relations, public service programming and promotion, in addition to her duties as a managing partner.

WFTV won many local and national awards for its community service projects, including the Alfred I. Dupont Foundation Award for General Over All Performance and Outstanding Service to the Community and to the Nation in 1964.

After the sale of Channel 9 to Cox Communications in 1984, the Brechners established a new company, Brechner Management Company, which purchased WMDT-TV in Salisbury, Maryland and KTKA-TV in Topeka, Kansas. The business, with Mrs. Brechner as vice president, also purchased radio stations in Topeka and Wilmington, Ohio.

Upon the death of Mr. Brechner in 1990, Mrs. Brechner became president of Brechner Management Company and currently retains that title.

Joseph Brechner was long active in press freedom causes, including support for the fledgling press freedom center at the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications since 1981. He endowed the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information with a gift of more than $1 million in 1985.

Mrs. Brechner has long been active in the Orlando arts, literature and education. She is a past president of Orlando Friends of the Library and an officer of the Orlando Shakespeare Festival Theater. Recently, a major gift from Mrs. Brechner was the key to the establishment of the Joseph L. Brechner Research Center at the Orange County Regional History Center.

A major gift from Mrs. Brechner also established the Joseph and Marion Brechner Fund for Jewish Cultural Reporting at the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. She also provided funds to the Anti-Defamation League for the establishment of a Joseph L. Brechner Fellowship Program.

Mrs. Brechner has one son and three grandchildren. Her son, Berl, is also and executive in the Brechner Management Company.

---