Maestas to be KOB news director
Former KOB-TV reporter, anchor back in ABQ after stint in Memphis
A familiar face on New Mexico television news will be the next news director at KOB-TV, station officials announced Tuesday.
Tim Maestas, who has worked as a reporter and anchor for more than 10 years in the Albuquerque market, will join the NBC affiliate in mid-May. Maestas is wrapping up law school in Memphis, Tenn., where he has also worked as a producer at station WREG.
“I am so happy to be moving back to the state I am proud to call home,” Maestas said in a prepared statement. “It is my goal to build on the station’s history of providing viewers with the best local news in New Mexico.”
Michelle Donaldson, the vice president general manager at KOB, said she conducted a national search for news director after she was named to her current position from news director late last year.
Maestas started working at CBS Southwest, which is now KRQE, in 1999 and briefly left to work at station at KOIN in Portland, Ore. He then returned to Albuquerque, where he worked until 2014, according to a news release from KOB.
He left New Mexico in 2014 for Memphis, so his wife, Dr. Jessica Valdez, could continue her education as a pediatric oncologist. She has accepted a job at University of New Mexico Hospital, according to KOB.
“My wife and I knew we’d return to the state we both love,” Maestas said. “My family has been in New Mexico for literally hundreds of years.”
Donaldson said Maestas will be in charge of making editorial decisions for the station and planning news coverage.
“The stories we cover are very legally complicated and sensitive,” Donaldson said. “Having someone who is both a journalist and a lawyer is a great combination.”