Weather Anchor Roberta Gonzales To Leave KPIX 5 After 21 Years
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) --- Longtime KPIX 5 Weather Anchor Roberta Gonzales announced Thursday she was stepping down to begin her own production company and follow her dream of creating a syndicated travel show.
Gonzales, who has been at KPIX 5 for 21 years, has been a familiar face in Bay Area living rooms, helping viewers begin their day informed about how the daily forecast would turn out.
She said her decision to leave was a difficult one to make.
"I sincerely and wholeheartedly want to thank CBS for the privilege working over two decades at KPIX!" she wrote in a letter to the staff. "It has been an honor I have never taken lightly."
Gonzales also was a regular contributor on KCBS All News 106.9 fm and 740 am.
"I want to thank KPIX 5 News Director Dan Rosenheim for his unwavering solid support during our years working together," she said in her letter. "Many thanks to Interim News Director Jennifer Seelig and the entire staff at KCBS Radio."
She wanted to assure the charities that she has worked with over the years that her community involvement was not coming to an end.
"While I will not be a daily fixture on television, I will be working daily with the charities I have grown to love, and I embrace the opportunity to work with new organizations," she wrote. "It is the Community who has made my career so fulfilling and it is the community I will continue to serve."
She said Roberta Gonzales Productions would be located in the East Bay with an aim at distributing her travel show by January 2018.
When asked about her best memories in her 21 years at KPIX 5, Gonzales listed six:
- Reporting on El Niño (1997-1998)
- Selected to carry the Winter Olympics Torch (2002)
- Reporting from Australia for Eye On The Bay ("which gave me my Travel Show idea!")
- (2008) "Where's Roberta?" ("Every segment!")
- (2014-2015) Riding in the Goodyear Blimp
- (2016) Reporting on epic winter rains
She also shared her darkest day in broadcasting -- the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 and the attack on the Twin Towers in New York City.
Gonzales said her final broadcast would be Friday, September 29th.
"I am thrilled to begin my "second chapter in life" with a different voice, force and form!" she said.