Overall, I had a great career in research and operational severe-storm and tropical meteorology at NSSL (part time), NHC (full time) then SPC (full time). The great moments far outweigh the bad. I wouldn’t take anything back and have nothing for which to apologize…even my own self-inflicted wounds (lessons learned). Retirement is good.

Yet if I overlook the adverse experiences, and paint it all with beautiful pastels and floral colors as if government meteorology were an ethereal dreamworld, that would be dishonest. If I complain too much, act cynical, and make it look like it was a drag, so would that. Instead, being an old street kid from the big city, I simply keep it real.

In this entry, I offer a story that acts as a lesson more than a lament. In fact, that is the reason that, despite the tone of what follows, I don’t regret it. It is a lesson in knowing when to realize you’re being taken advantage of, and exit stage left with no more wasted time.

INVOLVEMENT: 2011 NWS/SKYWARN SPOTTER’s GUIDE REVISION PROJECT

In the 2010-2011 time frame, the MIC of a small Great Plains WFO, whom I knew for several years via e-mail and product coordination, e-mailed me asking me to be part of an NWS effort to revitalize and update the SKYWARN Spotter’s Guide for storm-spotter training. It already was very late in the recruitment process, and the rest of the group was basically set. Given my extensive and very well-known (within NWS) background in the subject matter, I was a little surprised not to have heard of this effort sooner, and it appeared that I was one of the last (instead of earliest) asked to help, as if an afterthought.

I don’t expect special treatment because of my name, or any of that elitist, “Do you not know who I am?” bullshit artifice that kids of politicians pull to avoid arrest. Nonetheless, I did think that my work to that point as a longtime storm chaser, storm-spotting training participant, damage surveyor, storm photographer, and SPC severe-storms forecaster, had earned more than “afterthought” status. I almost declined, suspecting by the timing that I was a symbolic or “prestigious name” more than truly valued in this.

But I cared and understood too much about the subject matter, with a strong passion for it. That was and probably remains my hook, my vulnerability when asked, the one thing that can make me the easy mark, the one way to get me to say “yes” to something my street sense tells me, “Don’t bother.” That, plus I figured, maybe I’m wrong…despite this group’s being already complete but for my slot, maybe the people involved simply forgot to ask. I guess I’d rather be overlooked or forgotten than an afterthought, but neither is ideal. Though the committee did have a few quaified people, based on credentials, experience and knowledge, it became obvious soon that I was the most-expert expert of that group (nobody better suited was involved, such as either Chuck or Al, nor any of the other handful of highly respected, nationally recognized severe-storm people I knew).

ALARM BELLS IGNORED

When I asked why Chuck wasn’t involved directly, nor solicited, it was because he had a reputation of being “difficult.” [So did Al, but by then he was early in an unwinnable bout with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease that had just accelerated his retirement.] That should have been red flag number two for me, and probably a self-disqualifier. It’s no secret that I won’t tolerate passive-aggressive behavior and stroking of egos for politics’ sake, and I suspect now that it was the reason I wasn’t asked early, but instead late. They wanted “team players” — prevailing business-book parlance for sycophantic yes-men or “go along to get along” types. That innately excludes idealists, or the brutally honest, or people who will challenge a “good enough for government work” mentality, or outside-box innovators. Clearly an SPC involvement was desired by somebody; however, I suppose the few others as qualified at the time (like Rich Thompson) weren’t available or were perceived as equally hard to deal with. So I was asked aboard.

So despite the alarm bells ringing, I cared too much to let this be a crap product. What to do? I skeptically agreed to join in, because I immediately had a lot of ideas about how to do this right, in a modernized way. As it turns out, I overly credited the listening skills of the “servant leader” types on the committee.

My skepticism became justified. The group was weirdly large — over 10 people — at least half of whom I never even heard of, despite being deeply involved in severe-storm science since the mid 1980s. Most of the same half of the members hardly participated — namely the youngest ones and those who ended up as managers but weren’t then — as if they were token names padding their resumes. While the rest of us did good things, it was too many cooks in the stew, and too much involvement by non-severe-storm people — non-experts. I was determined not to be a token name, and to work my fair share and then some.

Still, it simply didn’t take such a big “team” to put out a new Spotters Guide and some internal training material. The one in the mid ‘80s was done by two guys with access to a GSA credit card and a Fort Worth print shop: Chuck Doswell and Al Moller. Al was no less than the father of storm-spotter training. Chuck was a world-renowned severe-storms research expert. As a student, I helped them with selecting slides for training materials. Both became friends, great mentors, massive influences, and scientific colleagues of mine, and that was no secret in our field either. Theirs was a solid, well-written and comprehensive effort for that era (late ’80s into early ’90s), but needed updating after two decades.

Given that the team leader (nice person I won’t name since still a friend, but decidedly not a respected expert in severe-storm science) was a full-on champion of the overextended and often overbearing “servant leadership” craze that took over NWS training in the 2000s, I could tell that the sheer size of this new “team” meant that the most expert voices (mine and one or two others) would be diluted to serve non-experts’ supposed need to be “heard.” More does not mean better! Inclusivity does not guarantee quality, and in fact can detract from it! In a case like this, it means a minority of the committee does most of the work, the rest skate by with only occasional comment, and expertise still gets diluted in the wash. Still I didn’t back out; my dad taught me, “Boy, you have to have honor, and finish what you start.”

DILUTION by INCLUSION: THE SPC “COLLABORATION” EXAMPLE

I already had seen this sort of dilution-by-inclusion game played, in the growing managerial thrust to involve less-expert local WFO forecasters more and more in the SPC outlook process through “collaboration.” To me, other input is fine, as long as it is truly expert in nature. By that, I mean peer-to-peer scientists with comparable specialized experience and earned records of accomplishment. By the very nature of WFO forecast roles (jack of all trades, or general practitioner as a medical analog), such severe-storms specialists are quite uncommon at the WFOs. This is not an insult, but the simple truth. Yet there were some, perhaps a dozen nationwide at most, with whom I could truly converse as a respected peer in this scientific speciality.

Anonymous “collaboration” through chat cannot guarantee that’s who would be on the other end. Odds were, I was dealing instead with a random general-purpose forecaster on the same shift, and sometimes even a raw GS-7 with almost no experience, whose diploma barely had finished drying. We at SPC were hardcore, passionate, deeply experienced, and intensively trained severe-weather specialists: the neurosurgeons of meteorology. I have no problem with general practitioners; they’re needed and extremely valuable, but should not have nearly equal say in the brain operation as the neurosurgeon. That was, however, how “collaboration” was being set up, and how it was expected to go. Its nominal “51% say” did not respect the typically vast chasm in expertise. Yielding to the so-called “local expertise” resulted in far fewer improvements than degradations to the forecast, in my experience, and to their credit at least, sometimes earned “sorry about thats” from the field.

SHIT, MEET FAN

This spotter’s guide project needed professional-quality graphics design. I closely knew someone eager, and if anything, overqualified to contribute. The person nominally charged with design wasn’t going to deliver more than a rather formulaic “good enough.” I could tell. I checked his background in this, and it was, to put it delicately, woefully underwhelming. While the end result stylistically wasn’t bad, thanks to a lot of proofing and revision by others, it could have been far better, at no extra cost and in less time.

Right away, I offered the free and willing services of my wife Elke, herself a storm chaser, photographer, and professional graphics designer, with a then decade-plus portfolio of scientific graphics work in meteorology and engineering, including prior full-time work for Jacobs Engineering in Colorado, figures for peer-reviewed manuscripts in engineering and meteorology, and full websites of renowned atmospheric scientists like Les Lemon, Chuck, Erik Rasmussen, and David Schultz, and moreover, then-new Electronic Journal of Severe Storms Meteorology, with which Chuck, Dave, Erik, Al, Bob Maddox, Jim Johnson, and John Monteverdi were involved in at least early stages. [Erik and Al soon stepped aside for other projects, but supported EJSSM strongly in word and deed.] Those guys were, to use a baseball term, heavy hitters in our science, with demanding standards! They unanimously supported Elke as “the one” to use for scientific graphic arts in their realms. That negates any of my marriage bias.

At the time, nobody in the world, other than Joan O’Bannon of NSSL (who had just retired) had done more professional graphics design for severe-storms science than Elke. My offer of her vastly superior expertise to what was already onboard (ironically also including years-before volunteer artwork for NCAR) was turned down to appease the ego of somebody in NCAR who wanted to mess with that aspect instead. Why would that be? After some remarkably contentious back-and-forth over when seemed to be a highly irrational denial, the project leader admitted not wanting to upset that NCAR person by asking him to forego his role. It was about stupid ego-politics of (and I quote verbatim here) “keeping NCAR on our side,” instead of actual excellence in results. Ridiculous!

RESULT and LESSON

That set the tone for the rest of the project experience. Most of the ideas I offered were, if acknowledged at all, thanked and not used. Passive-aggressively quiet or low-key denials, without reasons, are not the epitome of “servant leadership.” That even included several graphics ideas Elke gave me to pass on to them, regardless. That she had the grace to offer a little of such, despite being rejected early, was revealing in a good way about her grace and benevolence. In fairness, a few of my suggestions in other areas were included (aside from photos), mainly on the writing and proofreading stages, and the product turned out passably. I volunteered commercially valuable photography (some of which I had licensed for paid nonexclusive rights elsewhere) for this, at no cost. [My photography always has been and still remains available to NWS spotter training efforts at no cost other than the effort of letting me know.] It was not an A+ gradeworthy guide like I wanted and this deserved, but the end product was “good enough”. It could have been outstanding, dazzling, sharp, truly professionally designed and organized, and deservedly award-winning.

I didn’t expect to dictate or dominate the project, by any means. Neither did I anticipate having many useful ideas ignored just to let “everyone have a say.” I didn’t foresee at all that world-class expertise in subject-matter graphics would be flatly denied just to appease somebody’s ego.

Other than the photos, I still don’t know why I was on that committee, except maybe to ease access to my and Chuck’s chase imagery, and of course, that someone on high could check an SPC participation box. In the end, the bottom line is that I was the token SPCer. The leader obviously needed to, “Get somebody from SPC on this so it looks more credible,” according to what another participant later told me (who also is a friend today whom I won’t implicate). But it is not how such things should work. Though not for lack of trying, I simply didn’t “Earn my damn keep!” (also as my dad would put it).

Take heed: be willing to say no if your participation appears to be for the sake of marking off someone else’s check box, instead of as a “team” member truly valued and asked to be involved in proportion to your track record and abilities.

* On behalf of the group, I asked several chasers I knew to contribute photos, and despite his own reservations, Chuck came through with several. All are credited.