A message from our President:

Pay it Forward
Paul Schlatter, 2019 NWA President 

Happy New Year National Weather Association! I am excited to be your president in 2019, and look forward to working for you to make 2019 another good year for the NWA. In my first installment of the President’s Message, I want to highlight the theme for the NWA in 2019, which will carry us through the year and be reflected at the 2019 Annual Meeting in Huntsville, Alabama, September 7-12. But first, I want to recognize our outgoing president, Alan Sealls. He’ll be the first to admit that accomplishments in 2018 were the result of a team effort. Nevertheless, Alan did a fantastic job leading the way on several important initiatives. The NWA has a new set of by-laws in place, which are a benefit to all of us because they help the NWA reduce risk, maximize resources, and operate much more effectively like a business. His theme from last year, “Diversity in People, Models, and Methods,” resulted in fantastic sessions and networking opportunities at the annual meeting in St. Louis. Alan, on behalf of the entire NWA, thank you! I have huge shoes to fill, but I am eager to get started! 

It’s been a year since I was elected, so hopefully you don’t mind a brief summary of who I am, especially since it directly ties in to how I chose the 2019 theme. Like many of you, I wanted to be a meteorologist since I was about 8 years old. My father is a retired Ph.D. meteorologist who worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and then NOAA in Boulder, Colorado, where I grew up. I was one lucky kid. My Dad has always been as much of a weather geek as I am, and we shared that passion throughout my school years. After graduating from the University of Oklahoma with a master's degree, I worked at the National Weather Service (NWS) Warning Decision Training Branch (WDTB, now Warning Decision Training Division, WDTD) in Norman, Oklahoma, starting in 2003. I specialized in dual-polarization radar and was the project manager and subject matter expert for the operations course in 2011-12.

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