PORTLAND – Mike McCardell, whose conservative-minded phone calls to a popular radio talk show prompted management to recruit him as a broadcaster, died while visiting family in Pennsylvania.

McCardell, co-host of the “WGAN Morning News with Mike and Ken,” died Friday evening of an apparent heart attack, Cary Pahigian, president and general manager of Portland Radio Group, owner of WGAN and six other radio stations, said Saturday.

A resident of Dayton, McCardell was 52 and had been co-host of the popular morning program for the past four years.

McCardell, who had a degree in theater from the University of Maine, was a salesman who had never before worked in radio when he made his career switch at age 48. But he called the show on occasion.

One of those calls came in June 2000, around the time co-host Willy Ritch announced he was leaving the station. McCardell had telephoned to make a point about gun control.

“This guy Mike calls in,” Pahigian recalled. “He’s really smart and really good, so we got the number off caller ID, we called him back and said, ‘Mike, it’s the radio station.”‘

Pahigian asked McCardell if he would consider a career change. One meeting later, he was a broadcaster.

“We met him, we loved him, we hired him,” Pahigian said. “It was like he was born for the job.”

McCardell said at the time that he was surprised by the out-of-the-blue call.

“I was pretty skeptical, I’d been in sales all my adult life,” he said. “But it was just a time in my life for a change.”

His first co-host was Jim Crocker. More recently, he worked with Ken Altschuler.

Pahigian said McCardell, whose show began at 5:30 a.m., used to arrive at the station no later than 4 a.m. – usually earlier. “His work ethic was admired by everyone,” he said.

“Even though on the air he took a conservative viewpoint and on the talk shows that was his point of view, he never was boorish about it, there was never an ego, never condescending. He was an easygoing, gentle man,” Pahigian added.

McCardell leaves his wife and two daughters. Funeral arrangements were incomplete.