Kling holds a BA in Economics from Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota and an MS from the Graduate School of Communications at Boston University. In 1964, Kling was asked by Saint John's University (where he had just earned his baccalaureate in economics) to attend graduate school in mass communications at Boston University and return to build a radio station. That station became the first in a series of 44 public radio stations ranging from Minnesota to Los Angeles and Miami.\n", "Kling is the recipient of honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from Saint John's University (2011) and The College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, Minnesota (2013). In 2014 he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.\n", '

The first station, KSJR FM, went on the air in January, 1967, and was later spun off into a separate nonprofit community corporation (MPR), of which Kling was the founding president. Over the years, he helped lead the station to grow into a statewide network in Minnesota while building similar networks in California and Florida. He was a founding director of NPR and in 1983 he created a nationwide public radio distribution arm (American Public Media (APM)).\n', '

Kling served as President and CEO of American Public Media Group (APMG) until June 2011. APMG is the nonprofit parent support organization of Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), Southern California Public Radio (SCPR), Classical South Florida (CSF) and American Public Media (APM) and is the sole shareholder of the for-profit Greenspring Company. Kling also served as CEO of MPR|APM and of Greenspring Company and Vice Chair of SCPR and CSF.\n', '

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