COD graduate wins Chicago Emmys

In the last few years, College of DuPage graduate Alex Lechuga has made a name for himself in the Chicago television market, working as a producer for WSNS and winning four Chicago Emmy Awards.

Most recently, Lechuga earned 2011 Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Crafts Achievement Off-Air: Editor-Program and Outstanding Achievement for Arts/Entertainment Programming – Program/Special/Series/Feature/ Segment categories.

The 2011 College of DuPage graduate initially attended Olivet Nazarene, but transferred to COD to cut his expenses. COD offered a high-quality, affordable education and Lechuga said he was immediately impressed.

“As it turns out, it was a great decision. I feel I received the best education available with the professors at COD,” the 23-year-old Roselle resident said. “My teachers had a huge impact on me. They were a tremendous help and I still go back to talk with them and touch base.”

After initially dabbling in television production in high school, Lechuga began studying television production at COD. In 2008, a family friend contacted him about an internship at WSNS in Chicago, where he worked on various segments, including Emmy Award-winning coverage of that year's Chicago Auto Show.

Now working as a part-time producer at WSNS, Lechuga produces and edits segments for Acceso Total, a weekly news show airing at 5 and 10:30 p.m. Sundays. The work is challenging – the program must be exactly 21 minutes and 50 seconds in length – but rewarding.

“Luckily, we've gotten used to the schedule so meeting that time constraint is now second nature,” he said. “We've had a variety of stories. The weirdest was an animal hoarder in Berwyn and last week I was in Springfield for a story on tourism.”

This spring, Lechuga plans to study film at DePaul University while continuing his work with WSNS. He also has his own production company, ADL Films.

“One of the things I always say is to dream big. Don't limit yourself, thinking you're too young to achieve,” he said. “The encouragement I received from all my instructors at COD was a huge help and, even now, I love coming back here.”

For more information on College of DuPage's Motion Picture/Television program, visit: http://home.cod.edu/mptv.