Herb Luft

Profile: CTV Montreal Reporter, Retired June 2010

Birthplace: Kitchener, Ontario

Education: University of Western Ontario

Free time: Loves kayaking; skiing; hiking; Sudoku puzzles; piano; home and cottage renovations, and walking his dog, Ocean.

Little known fact: As a teenager, worked two summers on coastal boats in Newfoundland. In 1987, was elected to a three-year term as a commissioner for the Lakeshore School Board

Herb got his start in journalism reporting his high school's news for the Toronto Telegram. At university, he wrote for the University of Western Ontario newspaper and yearbook, and worked for a London, Ontario radio station reporting university sports and later doing full shifts as a newscaster while completing his BA.

In 1969, Herb was hired by now-defunct Montreal radio station CFOX as a newscaster and reporter covering such major events as police and firefighter strikes, the 1970 provincial election (where he rode the campaign bus with then-Parti Quebecois leader, René Lévesque), and the FLQ crisis.

Herb moved to CFCF radio in 1971 as a newscaster and later street reporter, where he started doing reports and anchoring occasionally for television. In 1977, he moved full time to TV where he became an award-winning journalist, an anchor and, for a time, Pulse News director. Herb anchored the 6 a.m. newscast since its creation in March, 2000, until its finale in March, 2009. During his time as anchor he contributed daily as a reporter for CTV News at Noon.