Sidney Shumate
Senior Appraiser and Director of Engineering BIA

Sidney E. Shumate is the Senior Appraiser and Director of Engineering for BIA. Mr. Shumate has inspected and appraised broadcast and media-related properties in 42 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. He is BIA's primary review appraiser, and has prepared reports for litigation support and testified as an expert witness.

Mr. Shumate received his B.S.E.E. from West Virginia University Institute of Technology in 1974, and received EIT certification in 1975. He holds a FCC General Class Radiotelephone Operators License, and a Virginia Contractors License endorsed for building, electrical, and specialty construction. He is a member and former chapter Chairman of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society. He also serves on the Advisory Committee (ADCOM) of the IEEE-BTS. Mr. Shumate is also a Candidate member of the American Society of Appraisers.

Mr. Shumate's broadcasting career started as a part-time Engineer, DJ, and Account Executive at WSLW, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia in 1973. He has served as a Radio Chief Engineer and later as Senior Engineer, Assistant Chief, and, from 1979 to 1995, as Director of Engineering at WVIR-TV in Charlottesville, Virginia. In between, he was employed as a Senior Engineer at WPGH-TV, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and as Director of Engineering for WAFF-TV, WHOS and WDRM-FM in Huntsville and Decatur, AL. At WVIR-TV, he designed and built new studios, initiated the first stereo TV broadcasting in Virginia, and designed and built an upgraded five-megawatt-omnidirectional transmitter site utilizing the largest common-mode TV transmitter built to date. He has also designed and built microwave relays, ENG vans, remote production facilities, and a television translator with a custom nulling antenna system. He concluded his active broadcasting career by temporarily returning to his home state as the founder, promoter, builder and original owner of WVGV-TV (now WVNS-TV), the CBS affiliate serving Lewisburg-Beckley-Bluefield, WV. Mr. Shumate has also served as an independent consultant and contractor, as the owner of Blue Ridge Video Services. Since joining BIAfn, Mr. Shumate has spoken twice before the NAB Broadcast Engineering Conference, in 1998 and 2006.