To vote online, click here. Paper ballots will be mailed to members upon request. To receive a paper ballot, take this form by 11:59 p.m. CT, October 21, 2019.
Election of NWA President-Elect
- The following people are candidates for the position of 2020 President-Elect.
- After serving a year as president-elect, they will serve as NWA President in 2021.
- The person receiving the most votes will be elected and will hold a 3-year Director position on the NWA Board of Directors.
Susan Jasko
Susan A. Jasko, Ph. D., came into the weather enterprise through a side door. That door was a slot on the AMS 2011 program and it lead her to and through a series of additional doors including serving on two NWS service assessment teams, as an AMS councilor and then a member of the AMS executive committee, an advisory board member for the AGU’s Thriving Earth Exchange, membership in the Pittsburgh Integrated Warning Team, co-planner on various conference sessions, work as a Center for Advanced Public Safety Research Fellow (University of Alabama), guest appearance on WeatherBrains and WeatherGeeks, and a facilitator of IWT launches. The net result was transformational – she emerged deeply embedded in the weather enterprise as she developed means and opportunities to employ her training and expertise in human communication in the service of improving communication within and beyond the weather enterprise.
And all of it also led to the privilege of serving on the NWA council during a time of transition. With a long history of working with and in professional associations in her home discipline (communication), serving in this capacity in meteorological organizations is a natural and enjoyable form of service for Dr. Jasko. She believes that NWA, like so many other professional associations, is facing the 21st century and asking about how the association can adapt to a digital, changing, and challenging time in ways that best serve its current and future membership and ensure its own well-being and continuation.
Dr. Jasko is keenly interested in several aspects of the larger weather enterprise, including the communication dimensions of weather warnings and other forecast messages, the organizational and enterprise-wide coordination challenges, and in the communication of weather and scientific information within the larger social/political sphere. These interests have led to a developing focus on the communication of science, especially in the context of developing information strategies enhancing the capacity of non-scientists to understand science and scientific research and findings in applied contexts (such as policy decision making, addressing local, community-based problems, raising public scientific literacy, and encouraging curiosity).
Dr. Jasko currently works as a senior research scientist at the Center for Advanced Public Safety at the University of Alabama, where she is happily engaged working on challenges faced by the weather enterprise from improving atmospheric modeling by serving as a co-lead of the Communication and Outreach Working Group of the Unified Forecast System NOAA effort.
Contact: susan.jasko@nwas.org
Nate Johnson
Nate Johnson is Director of Weather Operations for NBCUniversal’s Owned TV Stations Group. In this role, he works across the group’s 42 stations, both English and Spanish-language, to ensure their weather teams have the tools, techniques, and training to serve their communities with the best weather forecasts possible. He also works with the group’s technology, operations, and digital teams as a weather subject matter expert on app development and other key projects.
Previously, Johnson worked at WRAL-TV in Raleigh NC for a decade as a meteorologist and executive producer. His primary responsibility was collaborating with the meteorologists and other newsroom staff to make sure that the station presented weather information in a way that was interesting, informative, and understandable on TV, on the web, in apps, and on social media.
This built upon work Johnson did at Baron Services in Huntsville, AL which was centered around developing products designed to enable people to quickly assess the weather and make informed decisions without needing to be a meteorologist themselves. He also conducted research, provided technical support, and trained clients on Baron products, including dual-polarization radar.
Johnson began his career as a meteorologist (and eventually, chief meteorologist) at KTXS-TV in Abilene TX. Over six years, he covered countless severe storms, floods, winter weather, and even the occasional hurricane or tropical storm.
He holds bachelor’s degrees in Meteorology and Computer Science and a master’s degree in Communication, all from NC State University in Raleigh, where he also teaches a broadcast meteorology course and provides on-site weather support for home football games and other events.
Johnson has been an NWA member for twenty years. “My first professional conference was an NWA meeting in Ft. Worth,” he says. “The Association has played a pivotal role both in my professional development and in fostering many personal friendships. It was an honor to be asked to serve, and if elected, I will work to keep the NWA on its recent trajectory of increasing responsibility and visibility as the pre-eminent organization for operational meteorologists.”
Contact: nate.johnson@nwas.org
This year members will select one individual from both the private and government sectors and two individuals from the broadcast sector to serve as Directors on the Board. Their term will be 2020-2022.
The Directors are being elected by sector to make representation on the Board better match the make-up of the NWA membership.
Board Director - Private Sector
Matt Alto
Matthew Alto is AccuWeather’s Manager, Global Data Partnerships. In this key role, Matt leads and manages AccuWeather’s collaborations with the world’s leading government meteorological and hydrological services as well as other key weather, environmental, and technology providers to acquire top-tier weather information and content to be integrated into AccuWeather’s suite of products and services. Matt is passionate about assisting AccuWeather’s government meteorological and hydrometeorological service partners with disseminating their critical weather alerts quickly and accurately to reach their citizens and a larger global audience in new and unique ways. It is important to Matt that people from around the world can prepare and remain safe from hazardous and impactful weather by receiving lifesaving weather information from their official government source.
Matt joined AccuWeather as a forecasting intern in 2010. In 2011, he joined AccuWeather fulltime after graduating from the Pennsylvania State University with a Bachelor of Science in Meteorology with an emphasis in forecasting and communications. In his early career at AccuWeather, he served as a member of the Forecasting Department where he routinely wrote weather news stories focusing on imminent and impactful weather for AccuWeather.com and broadcast weather forecasts on hundreds of radio stations in markets throughout the United States. Matt was occasionally tasked with providing specialized and customized weather forecast for a variety of AccuWeather clients throughout the world.
Careers in meteorology run in Matt’s family. His grandfather, Bob Alto, was a meteorologist in the National Weather Service (NWS) for over 35 years. Matt’s grandfather also served a brief stint as a TV meteorologist in the Cleveland, Akron/Canton, OH markets after his retirement from the NWS.
Matt is an active member of the National Weather Association (NWA) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS). He currently serves as the Chair of the NWA Membership & Marketing Committee and the Co-Chair of the NWA Annual Meeting Steering Committee. Matt also sits on the AMS Board on Global Strategies.
Contact: matthew.alto@nwas.org
Bryan Wood
Bryan Wood has worked for Assurant as a Meteorologist and Catastrophe Analyst since 2008. His meteorologist duties include forecasting high impact weather that may damage homes of homeowners of Assurant and its clients, post-storm analysis as well as Business Continuity Planning forecasting for the company’s many offices around the globe. Beyond forecasting the weather, Bryan develops claim prediction models based on historical disasters, collaborates with researchers in the Economics and Engineering fields, works on process innovation to speed up the process to get homeowners back in their homes, makes media appearances and developed an Empathy program to help Call Center employees understand how disasters impact the people who call them - after his experience in Henryville, Indiana after watching an EF-4 tornado hit the town.
Bryan also co-coordinates Assurant’s Loss Drafts on-site catastrophe response for homeowners, has earned a Six Sigma/Lean Black Belt for process improvement and contributes to Assurant’s MarCom-winning Catastrophe Outlooks. Bryan won two Stevie Awards in 2017 – for Back Office Customer Service Professional of the Year and Award for Innovation in Customer Service for his tornado claim prediction model. After visiting many disaster sites and talking with homeowners, Bryan’s passion has turned towards enhancing building resiliency awareness in order to reduce costly home loss, injuries and deaths from all types of disasters.
He also serves as the chairperson for the Student and Early Career Professional Conference for the National Weather Association’s Annual Meeting and serves on their Publication Committee. Bryan graduated from Mississippi State University with a Bachelor’s of Science in Applied Meteorology. He lives in the Dayton, Ohio area with his wife and two children. He is excited and humbled to be nominated to serve the membership of the National Weather Association and continue its growth.
Contact: bryan.wood@nwas.org
Board Director - Government Sector
Christina Crowe
Christina Crowe currently serves as a Master Instructor at the NWS Leadership Academy, helping develop leaders at all levels of the agency via courses like NWS New Hires and programs like the NWS-wide Mentoring Program.
Christina was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and got her start in meteorology at the University of Missouri–Columbia, where she researched convective snow storms. She then went on to the University of Alabama in Huntsville to research dual-pol signatures in landfalling hurricanes’ tornado outbreaks for her Masters. She has worked at NWS offices in Missouri (St. Louis and Springfield) and at WFO Huntsville, AL. Breaking out of the MO/AL trend for a time, she traveled to the DC area where she learned the ropes of NWS and NOAA Headquarters and even spent some time at NOAA-NESDIS managing congressional affairs.
Christina has been a proud and active member of the NWA since her undergrad years at Mizzou, serving two terms as a member of the NWA Weather Analysis & Forecasting Committee before taking on duties of WAF Chair. She organized the first NWA Women’s Networking Lunch (now Supporting Women in Meteorology lunch) and is proud to see that team’s efforts lead to the establishment of the NWA Diversity Committee. During her last three years on the NWA Council / Board she was actively involved in the by-laws rewrite and rollout and is serving as the inaugural Governance Committee Chair. She has loved bringing her passion for organization to this committee and has enjoyed developing the new policies and procedures required by the new by-laws.
What makes Christina want to run for another term on the NWA Board? She loves the collaboration opportunities the experience brings, finding ways to connect across all sectors in the field and guide NWA activities to support all. She is also excited to continue to the work she’s started on the Governance Committee, using her aptitude for big picture thinking and her passion for organization and process to help NWA succeed as an ever growing & developing association.
Contact: christina.crowe@nwas.org
Gina Eosco
Dr. Gina Eosco is the Social Science and FACETs (Forecasting A Continuum of Environmental Threats) Program Manager for NOAA's Office of Weather and Air Quality. As a social scientist, she focuses on the human dimensions of weather science, forecasts, and services ensuring that people, including forecasters, partners, and publics, are part of the research and application process. Of importance to her is enhancing our understanding of the forecaster operational decision environments to optimize usability of new modeling tools and software technologies; increasing our understanding of how partners and publics process weather risk information and its associated uncertainty to empower their respective decision environments; and lastly, facilitating the application of the FACETs framework combining the use of probabilistic hazard information with decision contexts to create meaningful information to enhance our service to the public.
Prior to joining NOAA, Dr. Gina Eosco worked as a social scientist and risk communication expert for 2 years with Cherokee Nation Strategic Programs (CNSP) supporting NOAA's Office of Weather and Air Quality. Before CNSP, she worked for Eastern Research Group conducting stakeholder engagement activities, employing social science research, as well as translating science into policy documents. At ERG, she worked with scientific agencies such as the National Hurricane Center and National Weather Service on evaluating visual designs, new warnings, and most notably, the hazard simplification project, an evaluation of the NWS watch, warning, and advisory program. She has extensive facilitation experience conducting over 60 focus groups and workshops over the last 5 years with emergency managers, broadcast meteorologists, NWS forecasters, and the public.
She is an active member of both the National Weather Association, currently serving on their Board of Directors, as well as the American Meteorological Society, their 2019 recipient of the AMS Award for Early Career Professional Achievement. Dr. Eosco earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in weather risk communication from Cornell University, and a B.S. in Environmental Science and Policy from the University of Maryland. When she’s not working, she loves exploring nature with her fiancé, Jimmy, and of course, fueling her 4 year old nephew’s love of meteorology.
Contact: gina.eosco@nwas.org
Board Director - Broadcast Sector
Alex Garcia
Alex Garcia is the Chief Meteorologist and Weather Team Leader for KABB/WOAI in San Antonio, Texas. He is a multi-disciplined individual with professional experience as an educator, broadcast meteorologist and entrepreneur. He holds several degrees and certifications, including a Broadcast Meteorology Certification from Mississippi State University.
Alex serves on the AMS Board of Broadcast Meteorology Standing Panel. He also serves as Chair of the AMS Board on Continuing Professional Development.
Alex is an eight time Texas Associated Press winner for Best Weathercast. He also is the recipient of the National Weatherperson of the Year award from the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes, the AMS award for Broadcast Meteorology and the AMS Award for Science Reporting. He is a former public-school educator and Adjunct Professor. He taught and mentored many meteorology students who are now working for the National Weather Service and broadcast stations.
He is also the founder, President and CEO of the Storm Science Network Inc, a nonprofit corporation that produces two professional conferences, the National Tropical Weather Conference, StormCenter LIVE, and several science programs for children.
Additionally, he is the Principal owner and Executive Producer for upLIVE media productions, producing several mini-documentaries on climate change, severe weather, astronomy and social media programs for businesses.
Contact: alex.garcia@nwas.org
Hannah Strong
Hannah Strong is a meteorologist at WDRB-TV in Louisville, KY. She joined the weather team at WDRB after spending nearly three years at WANE-TV in Fort Wayne, IN. Hannah has been a National Weather Association member since her time as a student at Mississippi State University and has served on the NWA Social Media Committee for close to three years.
As an NWA committee member, Hannah contributed to and helped organize the #SafePlaceSelfie campaign for which the National Weather Association was recognized as the 2019 Weather Ready National Ambassador of Excellence. Hannah also launched the “Day in the Life” campaign bringing exposure to the many different professions related to weather within the NWA and, most recently, the #MyNWASeal campaign sharing the value of earning and having the NWA Seal of Approval for digital and broadcast meteorologists.
Hannah is a mentor for meteorology students as they work to bridge the gap between the classroom and the beginning of their professional career. In pursuit of a position on the Council, Hannah hopes to encourage more young meteorologists to get involved on NWA committees and ensure NWA supports more experienced members.
Contact: hannah.strong@nwas.org
Bryan Karrick
Bryan Karrick is the Chief Meteorologist for Spectrum News 13 in Orlando, FL. Previous to his move to Florida, he was a key player in the launch of WeatherNation TV and spent 12 years at KCCI as the morning meteorologist in Des Moines, IA. Bryan has been an active member of the National Weather Association since 1997, and NWA seal holder since 1999. Bryan chaired the Central Iowa NWA Chapter’s Severe Storms Conference from 2000-2003 and was President of the chapter from 2001-2003. His involvement in the NWA includes Broadcast Program Chair for 6 years, Broadcast Seal of Approval Recertification Chair, Council Member, and serving on the Marketing Committee, Strategic Planning Committee, and the Local Program Planning Committee. In 2009, Karrick was named NWA Broadcaster of the Year. Recently, he joined Keith Stellman as Co-Chair for the NWA Annual Meeting in 2018. Besides his work on TV, he is certified to teach courses in Tornado Awareness, Hurricane Awareness, and Flooding Hazards through the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center.
The National Weather Association is sustaining growth and evolving as an organization, with a diverse membership of meteorologists and weather enthusiasts who not only share their love of weather, but ideas to improve forecasting methods and technology. Current and past NWA leadership has shaped an organization that embraces these ideas, and it shows in our annual meetings. The recent gathering in Huntsville was a great example of the issues facing the weather and forecasting industry and how we as a group handle these hot button issues. As a long-standing and active member of the Association, Bryan wants to continue solidifying us as a voice for the weather community and our members, and pay it forward to future members of the NWA.
Contact: bryan.karrick@nwas.org