Idaho Public Television’s newest member of the Development team is donor database analyst David Belvin. He makes sure our database of donations runs smoothly. “We have a lot of transactions that come in from donors, and they need to get sorted into their accounts so we can track them. I do some reporting for the station to figure out which of our efforts are working the way they need to, in terms of reaching out to donors. If they’re not working out as expected, we can change our strategy to try to reach more people, to make sure the station does as well financially as it needs to, because most of our funding comes from donors,” David says.
The son of two U.S. Air Force veterans, David moved around a lot as a child, but he spent most of his childhood in San Marcos, Texas. “It is about as ‘in the middle’ between Austin and San Antonio as you can get,” he says. “My dad was actually stationed in San Antonio at Randolph Air Force Base, but my parents didn’t want to live in San Antonio; because it’s the ‘big city.’ They wanted to live in a smaller city, but not necessarily a suburb. But, San Marcos is that to a lot of people who work in Austin or San Antonio. They’ll commute instead of living in one of the bigger cities.” Fun fact: San Marcos is pronounced San Marcus by the locals.
Following in his parents’ footsteps, David is an Air Force veteran himself. “I graduated high school, and I realized, ‘I don’t know what I want to do next; I know I don’t want to go to school immediately.’” His stepfather encouraged him to pick a path, and he chose the Air Force. In the Air Force, he was a Distinguished Graduate of their tech school, and he thought he would get a chance to go on an “Incentive Flight” in an F-16 fighter jet, but it never happened and maybe that was a good thing. “I don’t super enjoy flying,” he laughs, “oddly enough for someone in the Air Force.” David was in the military for three years, then he transitioned out and went to college at Texas State University in San Marcos.
David has lived in the Gem State for seven years now. “My wife is from Idaho: all seven kids (her siblings), the two parents, and now significant others and children. So that family has expanded,” David says. “My wife had moved to Texas kind of on a lark…she had some friends in Texas and (she) just picked up and moved.” They met at work, became friends, and their romance developed from there.
In the short time he’s worked here, David has helped during DecemberFest and he’s been helping to us get ready for IdahoPTV’s Festival (March 1-9). In his previous job, David felt that he wasn’t making the world better in the way that he wanted to. He decided to join Idaho Public Television to make a difference in Idahoans’ lives “…granted, in a small way; but it’s a team effort.”
David’s big hobby is video gaming, “…which is kind of surprising for someone my age, but maybe not.” He helps to run an online Star Wars gaming community, which takes up a lot of his free time “…much to my wife’s chagrin,” he adds. And he admits to a weakness for the candy in the dish on his desk and for Dr. Pepper soda. David loves to drive into Boise so he can see the beautiful Boise Foothills. He has fond memories of PBS Kids programs from when he grew up. “There are a couple of shows that stand out from my memory: Reading Rainbow is one; the other is Square One TV. They had a parody of the TV show Dragnet called Mathnet. They had a couple of characters use math to solve crimes.”