Our Founders
Don Schechter
Founder and CEO, Part-time Professor of the Practice, Tufts University
Don Schechter is the Founder and CEO of Charles River Media. He has worked as a producer and director for television, film, and corporate productions. Don has also directed several TEDxCambridge events, filmed at the Boston Opera House and in studio, utilizing a XR LED virtual production stage. He has been a part-time Professor and Lecturer at Tufts University for over 17 years. Classes include “Fundamentals of Film and Media Production,” "From Script to Screen” and "The Art and Business of Crafting Compelling Media Campaigns." He is one of the Producers of The Arborist, the creator of The Ascendants, and has given a TEDx talk titled "Storytellers, Sci-Fi, & Unreliable Mirrors."
Rachel Schechter
Founder, LXD Research, a division of Charles River Media, Inc.
Rachel founded LXD Research, and her team has published over a dozen reports of research studies with over 10,000 students. Since 2007, Rachel has led product research development teams, most recently as the Vice President of Learning Sciences at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Prior to that, Rachel expanded Lexia Learning’s vision of academic research to a portfolio that resulted in 13 publications in peer-reviewed journal articles, one book chapter, and 35 conference presentations (2011-2019). Rachel holds a doctorate from Tufts University and a Masters of Arts in Education from Harvard University.
The History of Charles River Media Group
In the beginning…
Charles River Media, Inc was originally founded in 2004 as Charles River Media Group (CRMG).
CRMG’s first multi-year endeavor was the creation of hundreds of short informational videos for About.com on topics ranging from computer software to cooking. These videos garnered millions of worldwide views and took place during the infancy of digital video on the web. It was this early contract that allowed Charles River Media Group to quickly grow. CRMG’s offices were first located in Revere, MA and later Brookline, MA. A studio was built in place of an old boxing gym in Newton Center where CRMG maintained an office, editor and colorist workstations, along with a black-box production studio. Quality of production significantly improved when the Red family of cameras was adopted by the organization.
Over time, CRMG’s staff and network matured to include a wide variety of producers, directors of photography, editors, colorists, gaffers, grips, audio engineers, makeup artists, animators, photographers, and voice artists. Charles River Media Group worked in all aspects of production, post-production, and distribution. Clients ranged from large corporate entities such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Adobe, New Balance, and Pearson to small businesses who require the production and nationwide distribution of television commercials or company profiles.
In 2019, CRMG moved to 73 TV Place in Needham Heights, MA, right off of I-95 and next to WCVB. The new facility boasts a larger studio with lighting grid, offices, edit suites, and tons of free parking.
In 2020, we finished our acquisition of Fein Productions and Founder Ian Fein joined CRMG as partner and the new Director of Production.
In 2021, we acquired Sonic Pixel Media, one of our long term partners in live streaming, and Founder Jon Shedler joined as a partner and Director of Engineering.
In 2022, LXD Research became one of our fastest growing divisions.
In 2023, Charles River Media Group, LLC (CRMG) changed entity types and is now Charles River Media, Inc.
