Irwin Gratz
Morning Edition ProducerIrwin was born and reared in New York City and, while he never hiked miles to school, he did walk up six flights of stairs every day to the apartment his family lived in until he was nearly 19. Irwin remains a lover of subway rides, egg creams, and the New York Mets.
He moved to Maine in 1978 and worked a dozen years in commercial radio in Sanford, then Portland, before beginning to freelance for Maine Public Radio in 1990. He has been the local anchor of Morning Edition since September 1992.
Irwin served as chairman of the Maine Association of Broadcasters in 2015. From September 2004 to October 2005, Irwin served as national president of the Society of Professional Journalists, the nation’s largest and most broad-based journalism organization. He holds a master’s in journalism from New York University. Irwin won a Yankee Quill Award in 2011 from the New England Newspaper and Press Association for his “broad influence for good, both inside and outside the newsroom.”
Irwin also has an interest in astronomy, which he indulges to this day as an occasional show presenter at the Southworth Planetarium in Portland. And he swims, a lot. Irwin has completed seven Peaks Island-to-Portland swims. Irwin is married and has a teenage son.
-
Personal income falls in Maine in the 2nd quarter after a bump caused by federal stimulus aid.
-
Governor Janet Mills new Senior adviser on housing, Greg Payne, begins his work for the state. -
The Maine Turnpike to finally open a new toll plaza in York after more than a decade of delays.
-
The exit will be closed to allow workers to install additional parts of a new system to catch rainwater and prevent a mixture of rainwater and sewage from flowing, untreated, into Back Cove.
-
It's called eDNA, the E stands for "environmental," and the National Science Foundation is spending $20 million in Maine to see how it can be useful.
-
The state labor department says Maine actually produced 1,200 more jobs last month, but the number of people who set out looking for work was higher, so the jobless rate rose.
-
When China stopped importing recycled paper and plastic in 2018 it created a glut. By July of 2020, Ecomaine and others had to pay plants to take used paper, which caused Ecomaine to increase charges to its member communities.
-
What happened to four men who had key roles leading up to and just after Maine achieved statehood 201 years ago.
-
The Maine Department of Labor reported Thursday that 769 initial claims for state unemployment benefits had been filed. That's down from 808 the week before and 915 the week before that. The first-time claim numbers tell just part of the story. About 7,900 Mainers filed continuing claims with the state in the most recent week. But that number was down by some 640 people, who may have gone back to work.
-
As part of its delayed bicentennial celebration, Maine is creating a time capsule to be partly sealed until 2120, the year of Maine's tricentennial, and members of the public are invited to suggest items to be included.
