It’s pretty lucky when you get to live a childhood dream every day. Ian Crawford says he is lucky.

He started his professional radio career early in high school, doing everything from news and sports reporting and anchoring sports play-by-play to hosting music programming and production — all before he was old enough to drive.

Since getting his driver’s license, he has worked in Oregon and in Texas, where his reporting work covering police, criminal trials, education, and county government was recognized by the Texas Associated Press Broadcasters, before arriving in the Washington, D.C. area.

He is a proud graduate of the University of Oregon, with degrees in philosophy and political science and master’s work in middle-secondary education. Ian served a year as an AmeriCorps volunteer with a veterans’ service non-profit organization before arriving at WTOP. Since joining the WTOP staff, he has been a news anchor, traffic reporter, business reporter, and a producer.

He went into radio as a way to help his neighbors to know and understand what was going on around them. To do that at a station like WTOP in a city like Washington, D.C., is a childhood dream come true.