About Tony
Biography
Anthony “Tony” Renda was born and raised in Indiana, a student at St. Bernard Catholic School, a graduate of Indiana High School and, along with his brothers, a worker at his parents’ mom-and-pop grocery store in town.
He served in the Marine Corps, enrolled at Indiana State Teachers College then studied broadcasting at the Syracuse University School of Dramatic Arts.
Renda’s first taste of broadcasting came as a part-time announcer at his hometown station WDAD while he was still in school, and he dreamed early of becoming a broadcast owner, but his career in the radio and TV business began in Pittsburgh as an advertising account rep at Channel 11, WIIC-TV. Just out of Syracuse, he worked as a sales trainee, then rose through the ranks, served as the general sales manager, and in the 1960s achieved his dream of station ownership.
Renda first bought radio station WIXZ in McKeesport, and took over others in Punxsutawney and Brookville. Later he purchased “Wish-FM” in Pittsburgh, a handful of stations in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and more outlets in Jacksonville, Fort Myers and Naples, Florida.
Eventually, Renda Broadcasting took in the radio stations in Greensburg, Homer City, Blairsville and Indiana.
His company sold the Oklahoma stations in 2012, and today he owns 18 radio stations and has 125 employees in Pennsylvania and Florida.
Tony has won the Western Pennsylvania Business of the Year Award, the Western Pennsylvania entrepreneur Award, and a Jimmy Stewart award among others, and has been named to the Syracuse University wall of fame.
Today Tony and his wife, Cathy, live in Sewickley, as do their daughter Natalie, son-in-law Bill and three grand kids, Jack, Alex and Catherine. And they have two sons: John, a Pittsburgh attorney, and Anthony, “T.R.,” the general manager of the four Renda Broadcasting stations in Naples.