I hope someday Kristin Brey writes a memoir, because she's not even 40 and her life is already one of adventure, determination, reinvention, accomplishment and love.

Whatever Brey (rhymes with "try") sets her sights on happens. She wanted to be an actor. She found herself on a sitcom with David Spade. She decided to try the tech field, she accepted jobs in San Francisco and New York City. She envisioned a career that combines her talents and passions – acting, content writing, politics and humor – and created the popular 620 WTMJ radio show and podcast, "As Goes Wisconsin."

Brey also co-hosts "Point Taken" alongside Steve Scafiddi and is the weekly "My Take" columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

She is also a wife, mother to a toddler, caregiver of a chihuahua, homeowner and gardener. Brey is endlessly curious, smart, warm and imaginative. She also has really great hair, but I digress.

We are truly lucky to have Kristin Brey in Milwaukee media, and it was a joy to have this conversation with her.

So you were born and raised in Madison. What were you like as a kid? 

Like this (motions to self). There was an Instagram photo challenge that said “post a picture of childhood that perfectly represents your vibe and energy today.” The picture I posted is from when I was just a little bit younger than my toddler is now, and I’m wearing a diaper and some kind of mumu-type thing. My shoulder strap has fallen off, I’m holding balloons and I am full of energy – yelling, screaming, laughing. And I was like, that still feels on brand. 

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As a kid, I loved being onstage. I loved performing. It wasn’t that I needed to be the center of attention. I think I was fairly fearless and ready to say “yes” to everything.

Do you see these qualities in your daughter? 

Yes, truly. We belong to a pool that has a slide. And it’s a pretty big slide. Well, she’s not even two yet, and she will run up to the slide – with her floaties on –  go down the slide by herself and then the current from the slide pushes her to the stairs so she can get out on her own and do it again and again and again. She has no problem asserting herself on the playground around much older kids. She wants what she wants. And I’m so hoping she has the same kind of DNA that makes her say, “Yes, I can do this!”

I should have asked this sooner, but are you cool talking about your daughter and family? 

Yeah, of course! My daughter’s name is Frances Louise Samson; we call her Frankie or Frankie Lou. My husband, Michael Sampson, is the owner of Swarmm Events – they do Oktoberfest, 12 Bars of Christmas, The Shamrock Shuffle. But he also works in sales. When we got pregnant, he said, “I guess I should make more money.” (Sampson also ran for Mayor of Milwaukee in 2022.) 

Our third anniversary is coming up later this month. We actually met online in September of 2020, when I was still living with my parents in Wisconsin Rapids. At first, because my profile said I lived in Milwaukee, he thought I was catfishing him.

We also have a chihuahua named Cliff. We rescued him from Texas when he was about 10, so now he’s about 15. We're pretty sure he’s deaf now, but he is the best, easiest dog – and he tolerates Frankie.

Where were you living before you moved back here? 

I moved to L.A. when I was 16 to be an actress. My parents came with me, which was awesome. Eventually, they moved back to Wisconsin Rapids, which is where they're from, but I stayed. When I was around 20, I thought, “I should probably go to college.” I was booking (acting) jobs and I had an agent, but the idea of creating your own destiny through social media was just emerging. It wasn’t really happening yet. So I realized that there were so many people who would have to say yes to me in order for me to be a successful actor. Too much of it was outside of my control and it became less interesting to me. 

So then I started community college, transferred to (University of California at) Berkeley, graduated, and ended up working randomly in tech. My degree was in International Women's Health, but when I graduated – it was 2011 in the Bay Area – and all the jobs were tech jobs. So I did that. And then I moved to New York, but I knew I didn’t want to sell software for the rest of my life. So that was when I kind of made a leap and figured it out. I wanted to mix my performing background with politics and make short videos that communicate and educate people in an entertaining way. In 2017, I started teaching myself how to do that. 

By early 2020, I was living in L.A., but my plan was to come back to Wisconsin for a while to make a documentary about Wisconsin during the 2020 election. I got to my parents' house on March 15th of 2020 and well, we know what happened two days later. But it felt like the right place to be. A better place than L.A. to weather the storm. And then things just kind of took off and I was like, “I guess I’m moving back to Wisconsin.”

Before we delve into your triumphant return to Wisconsin, I gotta ask you about something I read that happened during your time in Hollywood. Did you choke David Spade?

Yes! It’s my fun fact, whenever I need to come up with one of those. So I was on an episode of “Eight Simple Rules” – it was a couple seasons in, after John Ritter died – and David Spade joined the cast. I’m playing the part of a really intimidating volleyball player, which was hilarious to me. The episode took place after the 2004 NBA game when Ron Artest (now Metta World Peace) of the Indiana Pacers got in a brawl after a fan threw a soda at him. And so the episode was kind of poking fun at that. So during the show, I get hit in the face with a hot dog while I’m on the court, and when I look to the stands, the first person I see is David Spade's character and assume he's the one who threw the hot dog at me. So then my character went into the audience and choked him out. And he's a little guy. 

Wow, that's a story! I love it. But switching gears, were you always a political person or did you just take more of an interest as you got older? 

I think to a certain extent, yes. I went to Madison West High School, which is down the street from Camp Randall and politics is in its DNA, and it set the stage for me. Some of it came from being a sophomore when 9/11 happened. That happening at that age, and then the Iraq War happened, really affected me.

But the turning point for me was when I was working in tech in San Francisco. It was kind of a bubble. Obama was president, and everyone I knew in San Francisco shared my politics and so I wasn't thinking about it. And then the shift happened, when Donald Trump became president, and it was a wake-up call. A lot of people had just assumed someone else was taking care of politics and everything was fine. And then it was like, oh, no, this is all pretty fragile, if you don't pay attention and take care of it. So for me, that was kind of the turning point to really double-down and make news more digestible and wanting to do that for people who are busy and aren't always staying up to date.

What is the origin story behind "As Goes Wisconsin?"

"As Goes Wisconsin" was the name of the documentary I thought I was making when I first got back to Wisconsin in 2020. Granted, I did not know HOW to make a documentary. I just knew there was a story there. When everything shut down for COVID, I decided to pivot and abandon the documentary idea and instead do what I had been doing, making political social media content, but focus it on Wisconsin news and politics. COVID was a good time to be focused on social media because people were consuming a lot of it. And the content I was making for "As Goes Wisconsin" was getting a stronger response than anything I had been making prior to that. So, I just kept making it. I was lucky enough to receive a grant that election cycle that helped pay for some expenses of making Get Out The Vote type content ahead of the election. And then once the election was over and I had moved to Milwaukee, there wasn’t really a strategic plan. I just decided to make a video every day and see where it took me. And by the end of 2021, it took me to a part-time job at Journal Sentinel and WTMJ, and then by June of 2022 it took me to getting to create “As Goes Wisconsin” the radio show on the Civic Media network. 

I still believe in the brand of As Goes Wisconsin, a social media account that uses humor to focus specifically on Wisconsin news and politics. It’s become harder to grow that brand while simultaneously doing my show, podcast and column and being a mom. So, maybe one day I’ll be able to put myself back into it but for now it’s a little dormant. Though I still get recognized in person as “Hey! As Goes Wisconsin, right?!” 

What about “Point Taken” works so well for you?

I love doing this show with Steve Scaffidi. I think what we're doing is very special and very different than all the other talk radio that's happening in Wisconsin right now, because of the dialogue we get to have together, because of our differences we have while still being really good friends. We also do a podcast together, "You Need To Listen," that comes out every two weeks, which is similar, but more personal because it's a podcast. And then I’m a columnist for the Journal. So that's once a week where I do a video and a column for them. 

Why radio over TV? You certainly don't have a radio face. 

Oh, thank you. Radio – and column writing – found me. And I’m good with that. I feel incredibly fortunate to have the work I have. I think there's a looseness on radio that doesn't always come with local television. I hope I'm not offending anyone if I say that. And I'm open to television, it just hasn’t been a part of my path yet.

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I read that you want your work to be defined in three pursuits: Getting people to laugh, making super complicated, super not, and motivating people to give a damn. Let's talk about the humor part. Is it difficult to incorporate humor into the serious political issues you often explore?

Trying to find the joke in all these current, serious political issues is really hard. The perfect example of this is for the RNC last year. I got a media credential because of WTMJ and we were broadcasting live every day from the RNC. And prior to that, my piece for Journal Sentinel that was going to be released on the Monday of the RNC and it was about the Polymarket. That's this platform where you can bet on pretty much anything, including who's going to win the election. And so it was supposed to be a funny, joking piece about things that were going to happen during the RNC and then that weekend the attempted assassination of Donald Trump happened. And suddenly, there was no room for funny. And so we didn’t publish the video after such a serious thing. And so you really have to strike a balance between humor and politics so it doesn't come off in bad taste or is it just tone deaf.  

I understand that. Yet you bring a lightheartedness to all of your work, even though you are an extremely intelligent and serious woman. You bring fun to the conversation. 

I try. It's exhausting to watch people who are angry all the time. Right? 

I agree. Do you consider yourself progressive for AM radio?

I think there are a lot of people who think I'm very progressive for AM radio. I hear that. I see the Facebook comments. And I think when they first announced that I was coming to WTMJ, which I think historically has not had many women, let alone, many left-leaning women, there was a fair amount of people who were not thrilled? But I think what's great about it goes back to the looseness of radio, and especially now getting to do the show with Steve. People listen to Steve because they love Steve. And I think that has opened me up to an audience who might not agree with me, but they like me. Steve brings out the best in me. The opportunity to have actual conversations that aren't just preaching one point of view, but also giving more texture and nuance to a topic. 

Do you think you’ve changed anyone's minds on anything? Is that even possible in our polarizing world?

I don't know if I've ever changed anyone's mind. At best, I hope people can listen and say, "All right, I haven't thought about it like that.” 

Would you ever go into politics? 

Someone just asked me that on air the other day. I'm not saying no. It doesn't seem that much fun. Like, compared to what I get to do, it really does not seem like that much fun. My honest answer is that, yes, I’ve thought about it. Yeah. But it's not a long-term plan.

You're clearly a person who has done so much with their life and is going to do so much more in the future, but you don't have a strict five- or 10-year plan. Am I correct? 

There is no 5-year plan. If I were ever do a TED Talk, which I have not done, it would be around the idea of putting one foot in front of the other and getting as much from every experience you encounter in your life. My first job out of school was cold calling. I hated it. But the ability to learn how to try to find people on the internet and get their contact information is a skill set I still use today. Using everything I learned as a performer helps me immensely today, even though I'm not acting anymore. As I approach 40 and look back at all the things that I've done, nothing was a hard right turn. Everything was more like an upward spiral. I only got to do this because I already knew how to do that. 

Are you interested in moving on to a larger market?

I have no interest in like a bigger media market. I've lived in all these big cities and I’m very, very happy in Milwaukee. 

Personally, what do you like about Milwaukee? 

Oh, wow. There's so much. I don't think I would appreciate Milwaukee had I not known what it was like in L.A. or San Francisco or New York. Milwaukee is a city that has all the things that you can do in a large city: great restaurants, sports, an art scene – there's so much happening. It's just easier to navigate that at this level. And people are nice here. No one takes themselves so seriously. I feel like I'm still a Wisconsin girl that's going to do a cream puff eating contest. I think I hit my stride here.