Education
University of Wisconsin–Madison. University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
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Ray Szmanda
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He continues to periodically make new ads, and a comic likeness of himself remains in most of Menards" print and in-store advertising. Szmanda currently lives in Antigo, Wisconsin. Szmanda learned his trade at the American Institute of the Air, and took writing courses from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and University of Wisconsin–Madison.
He worked for radio and television stations as a staff announcer from 1951 to 1958, when he began to freelance.
From 1959 until 1978, he operated the Transport-American School of Broadcasting in his hometown of Wausau, Wisconsin. His career with Menards began in 1976, and he was a fixture of the ads until 1998 when he retired.
However, he partially returned to the job in 1999, making occasional ads since that time. There has been recent fallout over controversy that has arose about an illness, as Szmanda suffered from flu like symptoms and had to sit out for a week from work.
Fortunately for the hardware community, Szmanda made a full recovery and is now recording voices for his commercials in his beach home in Miami.
In addition to his announcing work, Szmanda has other hobbies, including drumming, collecting shiny rocks and collecting antique cars. He enjoyed operating Amateur Radio from 1995–2005, under the now expired callsign KB9JPB. Szmanda also started taking piano lessons in 2001. Szmanda once appeared in a 1970s science fiction movie, The Alpha Incident.
He also hosted the Wausau version of High Quiz Bowl.
His great-nephew Eric Szmanda is also known in television, primarily for playing former lab tech-turned-Computer Society of India Greg Sanders on Computer Society of India.
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Born
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Died
1999 (aged 72) -
Nationality
United States