Work

Since 2003, B. R. Forbes has been with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) within the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington, DC. He was first brought on board as a Program Officer for the Technology Opportunities Program (TOP) grant program. When that program was de-funded by Congress in 2005, he was re-assigned as a Telecommunications Policy Analyst and Web Master. In the fall of 2007, he has hired as Public Affairs Specialist in the Office of Public Affairs for the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information. In 2009, he served as the acting Director of Communications for NTIA and chief spokesman for Commerce's TV Converter Box Coupon Program. In October of 2009, he was detailed as a Program Officer for the new $4.7 billion Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP.)

A graduate of Colgate University, B. R. Forbes began his professional fundraising career at public TV and radio station WGBH-TV/FM in Boston, worked for WMFE-TV/FM in Orlando and then WAMU-FM in Washington DC. He served as a fundraising and management consultant for over 150 public radio stations at the nonprofit organization The Development Exchange. For eight years, Forbes was a Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE), as recognized by the National Society of Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE.)

For the Pacifica Radio network, he was General Manager of the Houston radio station KPFT-FM, and director of the Pacifica Interconnection Project, which developed Pacifica's Ku-band satellite system. In July 1994, he became the Executive Director of the Alliance for Community Media, a national association for public, educational, and governmental (PEG) accesss cable television organizations and individuals. In 1998, B. R. Forbes founded Access Enterprises which provides organizing, strategic planning, communication, public policy research and analysis, fundraising, and website management services. Clients have included Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Fairfax Public Access, Center for Media Education, The Group of Thirty, and the Civil Rights Forum on Communications Policy, associated with the Tides Center.

As Community Programs Director for the Civil Rights Forum, he developed the Forum's website and and managed the Forum's Managing Information with Rural America (MIRA) project to involve rural communities with communication public policy. The Forum partnered with national Community Technology Centers' Network (CTCNet) and received funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. His particular areas of expertise included rural deployment of broadband, universal service fund issues, LifeLine and LinkUp telephone subsidies, microradio, and local cable television franchise agreements.

Forbes has been active on the boards of local chapters of the National Society of Fund Raising Executives (NSFRE); was elected to the Board of Directors of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB); has reviewed grants for the Station Development Fund of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for three years; served as a judge for the 1995 National Information Infrastructure awards; and in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2002 reviewed grants for the Technology Opportunities Program (originally the Telecommunications Information Infrastructure Assistance Program) of the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). For two years, Forbes was also one of a handful of public interest representatives on the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee.

Forbes has a varied professional background outside the arena of media and telecommunications that includes working four years in food service management during college, serving as a real estate property manager (with a real estate agent licenses in both Washington DC and Virginia), working in a computer data lab, and serving as business manager and assistant Tae Kwon Do instructor for an after-school program at his martial arts academy.