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Alumnus Gives ‘Voice’ To Gorillas, Game Day, Creates ‘Dream’ Career
Oct. 17, 2014
SHSU Media Contact: Amy Barnett
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| THE VIEW FROM BRADY'S "OFFICES" is one many may covet. As the chief marketing officer for the Houston Zoo, David Brady tells the "stories" of its inhabitants (including the above elephant), while his "part-time" job offers a view of NRG Stadium, where he serves as the voice of the Houston Texans as the home-game announcer. —Photos by Brian Blalock |
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting David Brady, you know from just one conversation that he is a dedicated family man who has magically found a way to balance his roles as a husband and father with his dream career.
For those who have never met him, let’s start from the beginning.
Brady grew up in Channelview and lived at the same home site where his father had grown up and still lives today. His father, a former professional rodeo cowboy and someone Brady calls “one of the greatest stories tellers he’s ever known,” instilled a love for being around animals—especially horseback riding—in Brady, as well as a desire to hear and tell great stories.
Both passions would lead Brady on the career path he has today, although he had no idea that would be the case when he graduated from high school and decided to attend Sam Houston State University.
Straight from the "horse's" mouth |
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Although accepted to several universities, Brady’s decision to attend SHSU was an easy one, especially after visiting a friend who was already enrolled and living in Kirkley Hall.
“There was an immediate comfort level at Sam Houston, and it was mostly because of the student body; like me, a whole lot of students there had parents who didn’t go to college, and like me, they had to work while they were going to school. It really made me feel like I was among my peers,” Brady said. “Frankly, I don’t think I would have thrived or have had the same type of success anywhere else.”
Brady “accidently” got an early taste of success at SHSU when a friend asked him for a favor.
“Mark Bergeron lived on the second floor of Kirkley Hall and he was the sports director of KSHU radio station on campus,” Brady said. “The guy who was supposed to do the sports update one morning called Mark and told him he couldn’t do it, so he asked me to do it. He said I had a good voice, so I did it and was hooked.”
Brady immediately changed his major to radio, television and film, and soon after, started working for KKNX radio station in Huntsville while continuing to do various sports broadcasts at SHSU.
After earning a degree in 1989, Brady took a job with the Houston Rockets in group and season ticket sales and worked in the team’s public relations office part-time. He also found part-time job opportunities at Houston radio stations.
While he enjoyed his position with the Rockets, Brady always had more of a passion for being around baseball.
“I had gotten to know people with the Astros and they offered me a chance to work more hours for less money, and of course, I jumped at the opportunity,” Brady laughed. “It really was a great opportunity because it allowed me to do an internship at KTRH Radio and work every single game and post-game show at the station.
“So, I was selling tickets during the day and working on the broadcast in the evening and that’s when I knew I really wanted to continue working in broadcasting,” he said.
Over the next decade, Brady would continue on this career path, finding a way to mix sports marketing and broadcasting to create ideal job scenarios.
Next, he worked for a Single-A baseball team in Stockton, California, where he was the director of marketing and sales and also did the play-by-play broadcasting. Ten days before the season started, the ticket manager quit, so Brady took on those responsibilities as well because he was “the only person with significant computer experience.”
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| David Brady got his start talking about sports over the airwaves at SHSU, as a fill-in on KSHU radio. After getting a "taste" of early success there, he switched his major to radio, television and film and has never looked back, spending a good portion of his career as the "voice" of various sports teams. |
His next job was with a Double-A team in New Haven, Connecticut. While there he also became the “Voice of Yale University” before making the move to Tucson, Arizona, where he worked for the Tucson Toros, the Triple-A team for the Astros.
Brady met his wife, Annie, in Tucson, which was her hometown. After the two married, Brady decided to put more focus on the business side of sports and took a consulting role with the U.S. 2000 Olympic baseball team. After the Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, Brady landed the opportunity to run the sales, marketing and public relations side of a new expansion baseball team in Camden, New Jersey.
“It was a great opportunity for me to be at the ground floor and be able to help create the brand and the entire strategy behind the team and be a part of building a new ballpark in a community that desperately needed positive things to happen,” Brady said.
In 2004, he and his wife talked about moving closer to one of their families and starting a family of their own.
Brady learned of a position with a company owned by the Houston Texans and he got the job, becoming director of Lone Star Sports and Entertainment.
In his new position, Brady brought “non-Texans” events to Reliant Stadium (now NRG Stadium), including numerous soccer matches, concerts by George Strait and Kenny Chesney, and many college football events.
While Brady thought his career couldn’t get any better, it did.
“In 2006, I was sitting at my desk and I got a call to go to the press box. I didn’t know why,” Brady said. “When I got there, the vice president of marketing told me they had decided to make a change in the public address announcer for the Texans and they weren’t happy with the people who they tried out for the job.
“She told me someone threw my name out and so I literally went from my desk to the press box, read, watched some video and did some descriptive announcing; did some sponsor reads; and then went back to my desk,” he said. “Two hours later, the team president came into my office and asked if I wanted the job.”
He said ‘yes’, becoming the home stadium voice of the Texans, announcing at all of the games in what is now NRG Stadium.
Six years later, Brady continues his broadcasting duties with the Texans, but no longer works for Lone Star Sports and Entertainment.
While Brady wouldn’t trade the experience he had working for the Texans full-time, he said there came a point in which the time it required did not allow him to have the time he wanted to put into his family.
“I loved working on the business side for the Texans, and I would still do anything for the McNairs. They are an amazing family and still treat me as well as anyone I’ve ever worked with,” he said. “It was just the time in my life where I needed a transition, something with less travel and not as many hours, in order to be the best father and husband I could be.”
Brady’s love for animals and conservation would lead him to the next step in his career.
“I’ve always been passionate about zoos and wildlife conservation,” he said. “I grew up going to the Houston Zoo; it was place we would meet up with our cousins and have picnic. My grandmother brought me, my parents brought me; I’ve always had an amazing, emotional tie there.”
It’s no surprise Brady would want to share the same memories with his children.
It's a zoo out there... |
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...And it's all a part of the job! |
“In 2008, I was going to take my 3-year-old son to the zoo, and when I was looking at the website to show him what we were going to do and see, I was a little disappointed,” Brady said. “So I spent two hours looking at the website and thinking about what I would do to make it better. When I got to the job postings page, I saw a position for vice president of marketing, so I sent my resume.”
The next day, what started out as a father-son outing to the zoo, turned into a casual interview and then a new career, one that allows Brady to spend more time with his children, Peter, now 9 years old, and twins, Maggie and Jack, 7.
Brady oversees seven departments at the zoo, including development, membership, marketing, public relations, special events, graphic design, and interactive marketing.
“In the last 10 years, since the zoo became a private non-profit (it was formerly owned by the City of Houston), we’ve put in more than $100 million in improvements,” he said. “The zoo that I grew up with was not a great zoo, some would say it wasn’t a good zoo, and now we are considered one of the ‘Top 10 Zoos’ in the country.”
The Houston Zoo continues to improve, planning major expansions in the future. In May 2015, it will debut a $29 million gorilla habitat, which will not only be returning gorillas to the Houston Zoo but “will likely be the best gorilla habitat in the country,” according to Brady.
“The habitat will mimic their life in the wild but the guest view will be unique and nearly unobstructed, allowing guests to feel like they are there with them,” he said. “They will even be able to walk through the night house and see the gorillas in their bedrooms.”
Once the gorilla project is completed, Brady will begin overseeing the zoo’s largest fundraising campaign to redo its front entrance, as well as other areas, in time for its centennial in 2022.
Brady’s main objective as chief marketing officer of the Houston Zoo is to change the perception of zoos and aquariums as a whole, making sure people understand they are conservation organizations.
“We want people to know the zoo is not just a great place to visit, but by coming to the zoo they are helping save animals in the wild,” he said.
In 2013, the zoo rehabilitated 24 sea turtles and put up 100 new sea turtle awareness signs on Galveston beaches—designed by the zoo’s graphics team. The Houston Zoo also assisted in two Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle beach releases, among other conservation projects.
Brady commits time to several boards and committees promoting wildlife conservation, including 96 Elephants, which creates awareness that there are 96 elephants that die every day for their tusks; he was also invited by Humane Society International to speak in China in order to help Chinese zoos understand the need to recreate habitats for animals that are as close to their natural habitats as possible.
While Brady spends his days at the Houston Zoo, he continues as the public address announcer at the Texans home games.
His position with the Texans is something he refers to as “the greatest part-time job in the world.”
Even when the team isn’t having success on the field, you would never know it when you hear Brady’s voice over the loud speakers.
“I love the team and I’m enthusiastic even when they are down late in the game,” he said. “To help motivate the crowd is my role.”
But his most important roles are that of husband and father.
“We try not to spoil the kids, but when your dad works for the zoo and the Texans, it’s difficult,” laughed Brady. “But Annie is such an amazing wife and mother; she keeps them grounded.”
Looking back on a 25 year career that is still going strong, Brady admits that he might not be here today had he not made the decision to attend Sam Houston State University.
“The opportunities I had at Sam Houston—being able to broadcast softball games, baseball games and football—is something I wouldn’t have been able to do at other schools,” he said. "Sam Houston gave me so much more experience; it was a perfect mix of the type of education I needed to help me get where I am today.”
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