By Deanna Shilkus
Executive In-Depth Editor
Bob Callahan, junior Sam Callahan’s dad, for the past 29 years has worked in the sales and music recording business industry. He once had a job working in a warehouse boxing and shipping records, and then he moved on to selling 45’ albums (singles) for a company.
He also managed a record store in 1980, but has spent the last 18 years managing the Sales and Marketing Midwest Warner Music Group that distributes music CD’s to eight states in the Midwest area, including Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Michigan.
This company also deals with talking to radio stations and making sure that the artist’s that they deal with have the right advertising for their songs played on the radio.
Bob’s office is in his basement at home, and from there he also sells advertisements, records and labels to stores around the country. But the biggest part of his job is meeting and greeting famous artists like Fall Out Boy, Rob Thomas, Robert Plant, Avril Lavigne and My Chemical Romance.

With these artists, he can have dinner with them and just spend some time getting to know them so that he can work with department and music stores to schedule performances and autograph signings for their fans, as well as promoting their new albums when they come out.
But according to Bob, the best part about his job is being able to bring along his kids to meet these famous artists.
“I’ve met a lot of famous people,” he said. “Bringing my kids is a big thrill for me. It’s one of the big perks of this job.”
Some of the artists that Sam has met through her dad are Fall Out Boy, Cobra Starship, The Academy Is…., Chicago, Panic at the Disco and Asher Roth.
For Sam, when she gets to meet the artists, sometimes it’s a quick meeting where she can only get the artist’s autograph, but other times, she actually gets to sit down and talk with them.
Through people that her dad knows, like the tour manager of Cobra Starship, she gets to go to the artist’s concert and then head backstage after to meet the band members and hang out with them.
“In general, I don’t get starstruck [when I meet them],” she said. “Some of them aren’t very nice and some of them are nice. [To me] they are just people and I talk to them like I talk to any new person I meet.”
Because of this, when Sam sees and learns about what her dad does for a career, she becomes inspired and hopes to follow in her dad’s footsteps someday and study the music business.
“Everything I know I learned from him.”