Former meteorology student Bill Read ’71 was recently named director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Tropical Prediction Center in Miami, which includes the National Hurricane Center and two other divisions. Read served as the center’s acting deputy director beginning August 2007.

Tropical storms and hurricanes have frequently played a major role in Read’s professional life. Read and his team were at the forefront in July 2003 as Hurricane Claudette made landfall on the Texas coast. He also was part of the Hurricane Liaison Team at the National Hurricane Center in Miami during Hurricane Isabel in September 2003.

Prior to joining NOAA’s National Weather Service, Read earned his BS and MS in Meteorology at Texas A&M and served in the U.S. Navy where his duties included an assignment as an on-board meteorologist with the Hurricane Hunters. He began his career in 1977 with the National Weather Service test and evaluation division in Sterling, Va., developed his forecasting skills in Fort Worth and San Antonio, Texas, and served as severe thunderstorm and flash flood program leader at the National Weather Service headquarters in Silver Spring, Md.

For more information go to http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080125_read.html.