Club has National Geographic producer Cromley's lucky number

Not many National Press Club members think about their badge numbers. But when Kathleen Cromley joined in November, she made sure her card had five special digits.

Raised in Washington, Cromley visited the Club in her youth with her father Allan Cromley, who was president of the Club during the tumultuous news year of 1968. After her father passed away last August, she persuaded the Club membership staff to let her keep her father’s badge number when she joined the Club in November.

“He loved the Club and the people he met there. I used to drink Shirley Temples at the Press Club bar,” Cromley said. “I guess having spent so many years going up to the Club with him, that number had some meaning. Technically the way the computer system works it was sort of difficult to make it happen. But I’m really glad they did.”

Being a witness to history at the Club inspired her to get into documentary filmmaking, working her way up to her current post as producer at National Geographic, where she coordinates shows such as “Doomsday Preppers.” Her other production work includes “Egypt Unwrapped,” “Giuliani’s 9-11,” and “America Before Columbus.”

“Factors such as the economy and natural events around the world have gotten seemingly a lot more people interested in planning for end of the world as we know it,” Cromley said of “Doomsday Preppers.”

Shortly after college, she signed up to take a course and do production assistance with a documentary company in Washington. During the next step of her career, she became a producing fellow with other aspiring filmmakers at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, which led her to the Travel Channel, and now to the National Geographic Channel.

“Los Angeles is about the business of entertainment. In D.C., it’s the business of politics,” Cromley said. “They are both industry towns.”

Now that she is a Club member, she would like to get involved with committees and get more friends from cable and broadcast involved to complement the Club’s majority of print journalist members.

“I think what a lot of us [broadcasters] do is related to news. We’re making programs that are newsworthy, even if it’s not a classical news format,” Cromley said. “We’re making documentaries. We’re producers and writers and editors and photographers.”

When asked whether she aspired to the Club president post her father held, Cromley said she loves the Club but recognized it’s a big time commitment.

“I’ve loved every minute I’ve spent in this business,” Cromley said. “[The Club] can be and very often is a wonderful meeting ground for reporters and newsmakers. The luncheons by themselves have given the Club an incredible history.”