about our members1 Abram B. Bernstein has joined the faculty of the Department ing and editing the Region's technical attachments and mem- of Technology and Society at the State University of New oranda. York at Stony Brook. He will teach courses on sociotechnol- ogical problems and relevant methods of analysis and decision Tom Potter has been appointed as di- making, and will conduct research on societal and instrumen- rector of the World Weather Watch tal aspects of environmental disasters. Department in the World Meteorolog- Since 1978, Bernstein was a senior program officer at the ical Organization (WMO) in Geneva, National Academy of Sciences, where he managed studies of Switzerland as of 15 September 1987. natural and technological hazards and of the application of Since March 1982 Potter has been the new technology to buildings and to urban infrastructure director of the World Climate Pro- systems. His major projects dealt with chlorofluorocarbons gramme Department of the WMO. He and stratospheric ozone; coastal flooding from hurricanes, served in the US Air Force from 1951 landslides, and other ground failure hazards; hazard mitigation to 1974, retiring voluntarily as vice in communities prone to multiple natural hazards; and un- commander of the Air Weather Service. derground mine disasters. Before coming to the academy, he From 1974 to 1982 he served in various management positions spent 15 years as a research meteorologist with the National at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and 5 years as a including that of director of the Environmental Data and staff scientist with the National Advisory Committee on Information Service. Potter received the Ph.D. from Pennsyl- Oceans and Atmosphere. He received his B.S. from the City vania State University and the B.S. and M.S. from the Uni- College of New York, his M.S. in meteorology from the versity of Washington in Seattle. He is a fellow of the AMS Pennsylvania State University, and his Ph.D. in atmospheric and a member of Sigma Xi. sciences from the University of Washington. retirement Qualimetrics, Inc., based in Sacramento, California, an- nounced that David I. Katz has recently joined the firm's Henry W. (Wally) Kinnan, a pioneer in subsidiary, Science Associates, as its sales manager. As sales the field of broadcast meteorology, re- manager Katz will be responsible, throughout the eastern tired in May after 36 years as a TV/ United States, for the sale of the complete Qualimetrics radio weathercaster in several major- equipment line. market areas, the latest of which was the Tampa Bay area, where he had been Joseph Laznow has joined the New Jersey Department of affiliated with WTSP-TV for the past Environmental Protection as chief of the Bureau of Quality nine years. Planning and Evaluation. Laznow will direct the bureau's Prior to coming to Tampa Bay in activities that are associated with evaluation of air-permit 1978, Kinnan was employed as a weath- applications, SIP development, emissions inventory, devel- ercaster for more than 20 years at opment of regulatory strategies, atmospheric-science studies, NBC's owned-and-operated stations in Philadelphia and and planning. Laznow has a B.S. (1968) from City College of Cleveland. He entered the broadcast field in Oklahoma City New York and an M.S. (1971) from New York University, in 1950, while still an active-duty weather officer with the both in meteorology. He has been a member of the AMS since United States Air Force. 1967 and a Certified Consulting Meteorologist since 1977. His weathercasting career underwent a brief interruption from late 1951 to 1953, when his Air Force duties took him Richard Livingston is the new techniques improvement me- to an overseas assignment as a forecaster with Air Weather teorologist for the Scientific Services Division (SSD) of the Service (AWS) units in MATS Pacific Division during the National Weather Service Central Region Headquarters. He Korean War. replaced Wayne Songster, who retired in July. Livingston He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technol- entered the National Weather Service through the meteoro- ogy with the Weather Officer Class of 1948 and later completed logical intern program at the Weather Service Forecast Office the Tropical Meteorology and Advanced Forecast Techniques in Omaha. He also served with the Central Region Advanced Course under Horace Byers, at the University of Chicago. He Field Operating System Task Team and most recently served also completed the Air Force's High Altitude Forecast Course as a techniques development meteorologist at the National at Chanute Air Force Base, Illinois, during the active-duty Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City, Missouri. portion of his AWS career. During his tour of duty with SSD, he will be expected to It was while serving with the AWS Severe Storms and recommend and develop new forecast and analysis techniques Tornado project at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City that will assist Central Region field offices in the issuance of that Kinnan became acquainted with some of the broadcasters forecasts and warnings. He will also be responsible for re vie w- in the area and had the television opportunity opened up to him. He returned to employment with the station (WKY-TV) that had enticed him into weathercasting earlier, after resign- 1 Members are encouraged to submit news items about ing his commission at the conclusion of the Korean War. themselves or colleagues that will be of interest to fellow During his TV/radio weathercasting years, he seldom re- members. Copy should be typed double-spaced; photos accom- stricted himself to merely on-air work. During the eight-year panying news items should be black and white.—News Ed. period from 1959 to 1967, he was an active member of the Bulletin American Meteorological Society 1453 Unauthenticated | Downloaded 09/30/21 12:15 PM UTC 1454 Vol. 68, No. 11, November 1987 original AMS Board for TV/Radio Weathercasting, which set institute. Completed in just a few months, the Weather Center up the criteria for the AMS Seal of Approval and was himself doubled as a live meteorological demonstration area for mu- the recipient of AMS Televison and Radio Seals #3, one of seum visitors and a self-supporting consulting forecast office five awarded by the Council of the AMS when the program for Delaware Valley industrial firms, employing six full-time was inaugurated in January 1960. He subsequently served a meteorologists at the peak of its operations in the 1960s. four-year term as a member of the AMS Board for Industrial Kinnan served several terms as vice-president and president Meteorology. of the Cleveland Chapter of the AMS (now inactive) and In addition to his formal role with the AMS, he contributed represented the AMS as a judge at the National Science Fair several papers to national meetings of the Society on the held in Cleveland in 1977. More recently he had the oppor- importance of communication skills in meteorology and the tunity to act as co-host for the AMS National Meeting held responsibility the professional weathercaster has to his audi- in Clearwater, Florida in 1984, representing the Tampa Bay ence. Kinnan wrote a number of articles for the media in- AMS Chapter. cluding "Be Your Own Weather Prophet," which appeared in the June 1967 issue of Reader's Digest, and prepared and about our corporation members presented innumerable lectures and speeches on meteoro- logical subjects to widely diverse audiences. ERT, Inc., an environmental consulting and engineering firm, While in Oklahoma, he was active as a guest lecturer at has been conducting a $13.5 million contract by the Electric both Oklahoma University and Oklahoma State University. Power Research Institute, Inc., of Palo Alto, California. This In Philadelphia he conducted a course in introductory mete- five-year acid-deposition measurement program contract will orology for senior science majors at Temple University, and provide high-quality meteorological, aerometric, and precipi- in Cleveland he was called upon as a guest lecturer at Kent tation measurements at up to 40 locations nationwide. State University and Ashland College as well, and as a This program, known as the Operational Evaluation Net- consultant on aviation weather for the Federal Aviation work (OEN), is being coordinated with networks operated by Administration Flight Service Center at Oberlin, Ohio. Also the United States Environmental Protection Agency and Ca- in Cleveland, he helped design and direct the meteorology nadian federal and provincial agencies that are designed to exhibit for the Board of Education's Supplementary Education determine the total deposition over the eastern portion of Center. North America. Work on OEN began in July 1986 and is In Philadelphia Kinnan accepted an invitation by the direc- expected to be completed by 1990. The operational phase of tors of the Franklin Institute to join their staff for the purpose the program will be managed through ERT's regional field of planning, staffing, and directing an operational weather offices in Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Houston, center to function as a meteorological showplace for the Texas; and Fort Collins, Colorado. • 50 years ago... Will the Weather Become Unimportant?* Indifference to varying extremes of weather may eventually become something more substantial than a state of mind. Indeed, the late C. F. Talman, a meteorologist who contributed to the federal study on "Tech- nological Trends," was inclined to believe that weather forecasting will become increasingly unimportant in the future. Of course a lot of people will still like to know whether to take an umbrella and rubbers when leaving the house in the morning, but, more and more, it won't make much difference if they take or forget them.