Dave Wheeler has been a mainstay on radio in Winnipeg since 2003 when he teamed up with Hal Anderson to form Wheeler & Hal on Power 97. The show was a successor to the well established BJ & Hal show and it was big shoes to fill. (BJ being BJ Burke who went on to continued success in Halifax at Q104)
I had the opportunity to work with Dave from 2006 to 2012 at Power 97 and really loved how he would create radio without a safety net: I'' define that as "Not stopping the creative process to water down or negate an idea." Great ideas are refined and shared with the end game of making the listener laugh.
I was invited out to Dave's newly built Safety Net Studios to catch up on life and talk about his accomplishments to date. We didn't hold back discussing the parts of his career that wound up making news. Notably his departure from Power 97, his former co-host Phil Aubrey's recent departure back to Power 97, and the online video incident from April 2016 - which led to the creation of Safety Net Studios.
Yes this is a long podcast but there was a lot of catching up to do.
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That moment when Dave Wheeler met his future wife, Candace Rae, was captured on video in 2009. I was always curious about exploring the social media side of radio and loved using my Flip Mino to record after the show parts with guests. Who knew this would be the moment that would lead to marriage?
Special thanks to Drew Dalby for permission on sharing the clip of how Rena Jae came to Winnipeg. That podcast is called the "Off Mic Podcast" and is now in the capable hands of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology who use it for teaching purposes.