Kurlander Joins AARP Programming Dept.

Dick Kurlander, former vice president of programming for Petry Television, has returned to the business after a three-year hiatus.

He left Petry’s New York office in 2000 for Charlotte, N.C., where he has been teaching and doing consulting work. Now he has joined AARP, the Washington-based lobbying group for the 50-and-over crowd, as head of its programming department. His goal is to ramp up the AARP’s TV-programming presence. The group has produced vignettes, inserts and some shows for PBS.

Kurlander, who will telecommute from Charlotte to Washington, will try to broaden the client base and will be talking to a number of cable networks, station groups and syndicators in the coming months about baby-boomer-targeted program ideas. For those who want to catch up in person, he’ll be at the NATPE show in Las Vegas.