Road to Kansas City
Center employees describe their route to Kansas City. Early interests, schooling, military service, prior jobs and what led to arrival in Kansas City.
Road to KC - Dick Williams
I was a Student Trainee at WBAS St. Joe in the summers of 1963 and 1964 working with MIC Allen Stedry, Wilubr Wray and Sarah McReynolds, "Mrs. Mac" as she was known. The St. Joe WBAS closed in early 1965 and my third and last summer as a trainee was in Kansas City during the transition summer when Don House left and Allen Pearson arrived. I was there for Emery Henderson's farewell ditty to Don House with the famous "MIC DMO H-O-U-S-E" line done in Mickey Mouse club fashion.
In that 1965 Kansas City summer at 911 Walnut I spent several weeks in the Public Service unit - Wilbur had moved to Kansas City and it was good to have a familiar face nearby. The boss was John Davies. A couple of the guys I connected best with were Bernie Oelke in Radar and Paul Bredeman in PSU.
Part of the routine for student trainees was the grand tour - a week in every section: Radar, FAWS, SELS, the computer room and back to PSU. I got a small taste of the entire office and it was a good intro to a large office that I'd return to about five years later. Another part of the routine was production of a sort of mini research paper. I did one taken from climate data - a climatology of Kansas City thunderstorms using WBAN obs. My finding: double max - earlly evening and early morning. Wow!
I joined the USAF in early 1966 while still at the U of U. The local draft board back in Buchanan County knew exactly when I would graduate and they had big plans for me. That would be the US Army. So the USAF seemed a better alternative. My OTS date was in September 1966 and as a graduated met out of the Student Trainee program the Weather Bureau was obligated to give me a job between June 66 and Sep 66 - thus was sent to the Chicago Forecast Office on the Univ of Chicago campus and worked for about 10 weeks in the summer of '66 as a radar operator on the WSR-57. That was no favor to the Chicgo office as it was known I'd be leaving soon and my real-world experience on network radar was nil.
I remember receiving the APT satellite pictures, finding the right grid, taping the small fax paper image to the wall, projecting the grid onto the paper with a slide projector and aligning it via Lake Michigan then using grease pencil to draw the states on the map - when done I'd present the mapped image it to the Big Boys downstairs in the Forecast room. Gene Harris was about the only met who took time to know or befriend me somewhat in my brief stay, Frankly a very hot, lonely summer. The same summer Richard Speck made headlines in Chicago not far from where I lived and worked.
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Site R was the "underground Pentagon" - one of the main relocation sites in case DC became too hot for human occupation. I walked one-half mile into Raven Rock mountain then through double blast doors to go to work every day. A real cold war vestige but still in full use in 1970. It's role has been downgraded but it was used just afer 9/11 as Dick Cheney's "undisclosed secret location". Cool tour but I was glad when it ended.
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I did get to see Richard Nixon land at Camp David once. That was another of our jobs, forecasting for the Presidental helicopter flights to and from Camp David which was nearby. Unfortunately we did it from deep underground, often with no surface obs nearby. The workaround was calling our wives topside and asking them what the weather was doing. The Detachment wives all got tongue-in-cheek certificates for taking obs. God save the King.
After talk of assignment to Concordia or I think Dubuqe the word came that I'd be sent to Kansas City. Their pick, not mine. I landed in the combined Public Service/Radar unit under Joe Audsley and later Guy Gray. Great group of mostly ex-miiltary met techs for co-workers: Bill Henry, Jim Henley, Ben Brown, and many more. A large office such as NSSFC provides a career ladder right within the office and so it went: PSU to SELS assistant to Convective Sigmet and then NAWAU/AWC. Retired 12-31-99 exactly seven years ago as I write this 12-31-06.
Dick Williams
Road to KC - Allen Pearson
If anyone had told me in early 1964 that in 16 months I would be in charge of SELS I would have said they were out of their cotton picking mind. I was the unofficial PA at WBAS Honolulu, with a horrible boss who was at least 15 years from retirement. The number two is always caught between the boss and the troops, so in those days there wasn't anything to do but leave.
I was part of what I dubbed "The Pineapple Mafia", young meteorologists who had worked for Bob Simpson and were chosen by him for key jobs on the mainland. I was lucky to get the job of Chief of the Emergency Warnings Branch at WB headquarters and had the hurricane, severe storms and winter storms staff responsibilities.
We arrived in August 1964. This position gave me good visibility as I briefed the Chief on whatever was going on. The hurricane season was active with four smaller hurricanes hitting the east coast and the famous Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1965. I was on the survey team that assembled in Kansas City and then flew on to Indiana to view the destruction in an attempt to fathom why so many people died with what had been excellent forecasts by SELS. I was the principal author of the later report.
But at home my wife was very unhappy and urged me to take any transfer I could. Don House had accepted a position in ESSA headquarters, but the applicants for his slot in Kansas City did not please the committee and Simpson asked me if I would accept the position. That is the way they did things in those days.
I had several weeks of TDY in SELS and got to watch Don's way of management. His military background made him caustic and dictatorial and he often rode roughshod over his forecasters, Leon Schirn in particular. WBO Kansas City (which included SELS) was the largest forecast office in the country and was co-located with the Air Force counterpart to SELS, with famed Colonel Bob Miller as chief forecaster, but not as Detachment Commander. There were close to 200 personnel in all. SELS and the Air Force unit were highly competitive and while they worked from the same maps made no effort to coordinate forecasts.
Bob Miller could no longer pass the Air Force physicals and made a deal with someone in the WB so that he could retire in 1965 and then work in SELS for six months, at which time he could be hired back in his former position as a civilian. All well and good, but neither House or Simpson told me about it.
In any event, my first weeks on the job were traumatic and the old-timers were openly skeptical of this 39 year old "kid" from headquarters. Then Bob came aboard and Clarence David shifted to FAWS for six months. Bob Miller was put into regular shift rotation and Don Foster, the unofficial computer programmer (but a SELS lead), had to fill in. His wife Gretchen came in to see me and asked me why I was trying to kill her husband? House knew that Foster had cancer but hadn't told me.
We moved to the New Federal building at the end of 1965. Sometime in 1966 I suggested that the office be renamed and they came up with The National Severe Storms Forecast Center. The district, public service and aviation forecasters never cared much for the name, but it was good from a PR standpoint.
Allen Pearson
Jan 1, 2007