BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – We at KGET bid a fond farewell to a longtime employee on Wednesday — a behind-the-scenes guy without whom our influence in the community over the past four decades would have surely been significantly less impactful.

You may not know him, but you know his work.

From public service announcements to spacecraft launches to the Bakersfield Christmas parade, his video handiwork — filming, directing, creating — has been beaming into Kern County living rooms since December 1984. 

Now Jim Tripeny, head of our Eye Street Productions, is calling it a career.

His family — blood kin and office kin, past and present — came out to celebrate his professional transition, which becomes official June 1.

“Trip,” as he is known, came aboard when Michael Jackson and Van Halen were topping the charts. Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones were in theaters. Ronald Regan was president and gas was a dollar a gallon. Channel 17 had just changed its call letters from KPWR to KGET.

“I’ve handed out three 40-year pins in my time,” KGET General Manager Derek Jeffrey announced before 80 pizza-eating employees and guests. “It’s an absolute honor to have Trip be one of them.”

Trip, whose work has appeared on KGET, Telemundo, the CW and KGET+, was — in addition to his technical and creative skills — an office fashion trendsetter. He owns five plaid button-down short sleeve shirts, one for each day of the week.

“Yeah, that’s my trademark now,” Tripeny said. “(However) if you look at some of the pictures with all the hair…”

But even more than his impeccable fashion sense, coworkers will miss his consistently creative approach to his work. Colleague Jonathan Redman said Tripeny has been a key player.

“He has been the backbone of all of these stations,” Redman said. “He is the unsung hero of KGET and all of our stations.”

Tripeny says he has enjoyed KGET.

“I’m looking forward to retirement but I am going to miss the people,” he said. “This beats having to work for a living. That’s what I always say.”

Congratulations, Jim. What a long, strong Trip it’s been.

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