Jack Craciun III

Jack Craciun, a Cleveland, Ohio businessman attended Ohio’s University of Toledo, where he majored in Business Administration. He began an entertainment industry career in the sixties as a featured dancer for the Jeff Kutash Review and Kutash’s locally broadcast Upbeat television show. In 1967 he began his career in marketing as Regional Promotions Director for Liberty-Blue Note Records in New York. In six months on the job, his marketing and sales team broke “Up, Up, and Away,” by The Fifth Dimension, and Vicky Carr’s “It Must Be Him,” promoting sales in excess of 2 million records. Record promoters such as Craciun were introducing rock acts to the nation via a distinctly "Cleveland" fervor.

The Beginnings of FM Radio

After attending The University of Toledo in 1970 Craciun became an account executive with Spiezel Advertising. There he contributed to the production and marketing of successful fundraising programs for clients such as the Cleveland Orchestra and The Cleveland Browns. The Speizel agency won numerous advertising and public relations awards. Craciun was promoted to a position in which he was to use client radio budgets to fund the early stage development of a new concept FM radio station, the first commercial Progressive rock radio station in the United States, WNCR-FM, also first artistically and financially successful progressive rock station in the United States, becoming the number one per capita FM radio station in the USA. WNCR-FM not only developed quadrophonic broadcasting but, along with another pioneering Cleveland radio station, WMMS, made the moniker Craciun coined for Cleveland as the "Rock and Roll Capital of the World" come to fruition.

Craciun began consulting the ABC FM Progressive Radio Network in Chicago, the first commercially successful FM radio network in the USA. The new thirty-seven station network targeted their stations directly to the 18-24 year-old demographic, then the most aware, affluent segment of American society, the Baby Boomers.

The Network produced the first national weekly radio-television simulcast in history, “In Concert.” Bathed in the rarified air of the Cleveland rock scene, WNCR FM helped establish the technologies and market foundations that gave birth to Music Television, and which consequently led to the satellite broadcast developments of MTV.

The Groundwork for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Cleveland had been rapidly becoming a center for rock music and Craciun was deeply involved in its promotion. [Jane Scott: Exit Magazine, D.U. 1973] Centered around the activities of the Agora Theatre and Ballroom, the first rock music 'ballroom' owned by Hank LoConti whom Craciun had befriended and promoted, the Cleveland music community spurred by The Agora helped break bands both from Cleveland and abroad. Many bands such as Grand Funk Railroad, ZZ Top, Glass Harp, and The Raspberries achieved much early exposure playing the Agora Ballroom in the Cleveland area.

Cleveland’s music pioneers had unknowingly begun tallying chits for competition in a bid to create the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, just as Craciun’s uncle had for the Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Craciun's cornerstone accomplishments, along with the impetus of Hank LoConti, Norman Knight and the late Ahmet Ertegun ultimately led to the erection of the $120 million Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland.

Music You're My Mother

In 1974, Craciun formed his own production company to promote Cleveland and its music nationwide. He designed a television series to be taped at The Agora's Columbus Ballroom which eventually premiered on Channel 3 WKYC, Cleveland in July of 1974. Hosted by Martin Mull starring Ralph, a ten-piece rock orchestra from Scranton, Pennsylvania Craciun was managing, and whose theme song, "Music You’re My Mother" became the title for the new series, along with drummer Joe Vitali--the show went on. [Scott, Jane: "Cleveland Plain Dealer." D.U. 1974]

After MYMM'S successful Cleveland premier Craciun sought and received approval from the United States Army to create and produce the second in the Music You’re My Mother series. It would be the first televised rock concert on a military base in U.S. military history. The special was taped at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky the home of America’s 101st Airborne Division outside Nashville, Tennessee and was produced with his friend, radio personality George Jay Wienbarg.

Craciun's father, John Joseph Craciun Jr. had served as a medic in the infantry during World War II, and Jack himself had been enlisted in the military for a brief time during the Viet Nam era. Because of this and the tone and tenor of American anti-war politics the son formulated a deep attachment to the military and this production would be a fitting tribute, flying in the face of anti Vietnam rhetoric emanating from the world of Rock & Roll.

After several months of negotiations with the Army's Central Intelligence Division at the Pentagon, and a series of top-secret, "back channel" messages Craciun's television production was approved. Set for Ft. Campbell, Kentucky--the Home of The Army's famous 101st Airborne Division (United States) Screamin' Eagles.

Titled "Music You're My Mother: U.S. Army," it was designed to be shown during the celebration of America's 200th Birthday the next year. [Loggins, Kirk: "Rolling Stone.", page 14. July 3, 1975] ["Soldiers" Volume 30, No. 10. October 1975,] [CBS Evening News,] [Associated Press ] "Associate Press" The Army's Rock Concert was produced on May 22, 1975] fell in the same week Americans evacuated their Embassy in Saigon signaling the end of Viet Nam War. The historic event starred Joe Cocker, Barbi Benton, Chaka Kahn, Pure Prairie League, and the Earl Scruggs Review. Produced and hosted by Jack Craciun and George Jay Wienbarg, executive produced by Hank LoConti, Jules Belkin and Carl Lombardo all of Cleveland it allowed the world see Jack Craciun's focus go from that of national record promoter to international television producer and cultural emissary. That same summer the wife of the king of Jordan, King Hussein of Jordan, Queen Alia Al-Hussain would invite the him to produce a concert in Amman, Jordon. It was that summer his friend Queen Alia would be fatally injured in a helicopter accident.

CIII Productions

CIII Productions, Inc., was founded with George Wienbarg as Executive Vice President, to produce and market not only the MYMM series but a variety of projects in the broadcast and entertainment industries. As a record, video, and film producer, Craciun collaborated with the Viacom Cable TV Network and his friend Jeff Kutash on a successful Broadway show, 42nd Street and coproduced a motion picture that won a music award at the Cannes Film Festival. His rock concert at Ft. Campell was used to kick off the US bicentennial celebration, and helped produce in excess of one billion consumer impressions for the slogan “New Army,” worldwide.

Jaycees

It was in 1978 that Craciun would undertake a nationwide leadership role in the United States Junior Chamber,or Jaycees to bring attention to the youth crime problem through rock music. Continuing what would become his life-long love for young people, and for whom he would eventually develop other rock music venues in Cleveland, Craciun again working with Wienbarg used extensively researched work on youth crime designed to create a nationwide awareness for the need to reduce recidivism among youth offenders. This they did through creation of Craciun's brainchild, The Robert F. Kennedy Scholarship Fund for Youthful Offenders.

Patterned after the strides made by The Robert F. Kennedy Center, an innovative Federal “prison without walls” for young offenders in Morgantown, West Virginia, CIII used their model to assist in raising national awareness for the center’s youth development programs. An innovative Federal “prison without walls” for young offenders the center maintained the lowest recidivism statistics of any penal institution in the USA. Thus inspired, Craciun founded the Robert F. Kennedy Scholarship Fund, Inc, which established the first deferred sentencing programs for non-violent, first-time offenders, and with the Jaycees created the nation’s first Youth Crime Task Force. It was to this end CIII Productions produced its “Double Fantasy” the first radiotelethon in US broadcasting history.

In 1982, the International Jaycees presented Jack its most prestigious award: Senator and Lifetime Member.

Manager for Don Costa

Don Costa had established himself as “The Man for All Seasons of the American Music” and CIII Productions was invited consult Costa's Beverly Hills-based DC Productions. Costa had produced such notable artists as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Paul Anka and soundtracks for such memorable films as [Zorba the Greek and The Misfits. Craciun was also chosen to consult the management of the legendary producer's publishing and royalty portfolio.

International Techno Marketing--ITM

At the request of his father in 1985 Craciun formed ITM and requested leaders of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) to consider redefining the relationship between government, industry, and education. The Twelve Shanghai Dao Ling Factories, number one suppliers of radio and home appliances in the world, with 80,000 employees, were chosen as the test market. ITM completed its first PRC agreement which allowed for CAD/CAM equipment and software to be provided, at no charge, for university programs. Engineers from the Twelve Factories were required to learn computer design techniques side-by-side with the students, their soon-to-be successors. By agreement, The Factories then purchased the equipment and software to create state-of-the-art product engineering design facilities exclusively from ITM.

ITM began earnestly marketing American education, advertising, public relations, broadcasting, consumer product manufacturing and related financial engineering concepts to nations throughout the Pacific Rim. The success of these endeavors provided Hong Kong tycoons and PRC leaders to join forces with US companies setting events in motion that culminated in 1987 with the launch of the Chinese Long March Rocket. This satellite delivery system culminated in the broadcast MTV to a footprint that encompassed an area from Japan to far beyond the western boarders of Turkey.

A Family Affair

While Jack was directed to focus on human rights activities in the United States and Asia, he consulted his younger brother, Jim Craciun, ITM Ltd. (US), President, and ITM Group, COO (Europe), who had been directed to focus on Eastern Europe, regarding international human rights activities and economic development in Third World countries, maintaining the integrity of the international human rights initiatives nurtured by their Grandfather, John J. Craciun, a co-founder of the first Romanian Orthodox Church, St. Mary’s, and the first Romanian American Bank in the USA, Pioneer Savings and Loan.

In April 1977, Jim Craciun attended the International Human Rights Conference at the Royal Holloway College, where he helped draft and signed a memorandum condemning the Helsinki Accord, which was presented at the 1977 Belgrade Conference on Helsinki in Yugoslavia. The memorandum condemning the Helsinki Accord was signed by the presidents of free nations from around the world. Jim was a founder, in 1980, of the Ohio Solidarity Committee against Soviet Oppression in Eastern Europe; and, 1984, of the World Union of Free Romanians (WUFR), of which he was subsequently a two-term US President.

Forty-five years of dedication by the Craciun Family to promote the defeat of communism in the streets and halls of government in the US, Romania, and Eastern Europe were completely fulfilled on the Holy Day of Christmas, 1989, with the execution of Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife by the People’s Tribunal of Romania. (“Craciun,” in Romanian, means “Christmas...”)

Craciun has eight children and lives in Cleveland.

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