William H. Kling is an United States businessman best known for launching Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), an organization he continues to lead. Kling s business savvy has allowed MPR to become one of the most powerful public broadcasting organizations in the United States, earning him admirers—and enemies—in the process. He has been equated to Darth Vader more than once, and Minnesota Public Radio and its related companies are sometimes labeled as the Klingon Empire by detractors. Kling is a millionaire, partly due to being the sole stockholder of the Greenspring Company, an MPR-affiliated for-profit corporation. As of 2005, he also acts as a director at both St. Paul Travelers and Irwin Financial Corporation.
Kling was selected in 1967 to take over the reins at KSJR, a radio station that College of Saint Benedict/Saint John s University in Collegeville, Minnesota had decided to spin off. Over the years, he helped lead the network to grow to a statewide entity that now features a nationwide distribution arm and has another associated radio station in Pasadena, California.