Fritz Pengel
Fritz Pengel is the founder and former director of the national television channel of Suriname, STVS, where he was director from its establishment in 1964 until his retirement in 1994.
He was President of the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) from 1976 to 1980 and again from 1984 to 1987.
Pengel worked at the Dutch TV broadcaster Vara in the 1950s. He returned to Suriname at the end of 1959, together with Eugene Waaldijk and Rudy Bedacht. The trio launched the weekly newspaper De Vrije Stem on April 2, 1960 which was later transformed, under a new owner into a daily newspaper.
In 1961 Pengel submitted his plan for a national television station. But the plan was shelved for two years, until in 1963, at the invitation of the Prime Minister Pengel undertook an orientation trip to Trinidad and Curac;:ao, where television was in its infancy, and an additional report was issued.
Finally, in February 1964, the Surinamese Television Foundation (STVS) was established. The studio opened on October 1, 1965, and regular broadcasts began on October 20, 1965. Pengel would remain director of STVS until 1994.
At the time Fritz first took over as President of the CBU, in 1976 when he was elected at the Annual General Assembly in Curacao, among his achievements during his tenure was establishing the communication infrastructure for the CBU.
With the engineering team from STVS he inaugurated the first satellite uplink downlink facility for broadcast services in the Caribbean. It was commissioned in 1979 in Suriname.
In 2021 he was recognized by the Afro-Surinamese organization NAKS as a Sranan Icon for his contribution to the development of the country.