Scott Rochette's Remarks on Jim Moore at the 2007 DeSouza Award Presentation

It is indeed a great honor to be standing here before you today, but one that I wish I didn’t have to do.  Pure and simple: to know Jim was to like him.  I had the singular privilege of working under him and with him for the past 15 years, as he served as advisor for both my master’s and doctoral degrees.

Working with Jim was an unparalleled experience, and one that I would do all over again if I had the opportunity.  He was a popular advisor, as you might imagine.  Our meetings were always filled with laughter, as we would feed off of each other.  On occasion we did manage to get actual work done.  One of the things that I miss most is the phone ringing in my office, and it’s him on the other end—we’d spend five minutes discussing the reason for the call, and another half-hour joking around.

He used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I’d say, "I wanna be just like you, Dad."  He’d laugh and say "nice," but I was absolutely serious.  I could not have asked for a better professional role model.  Jim devoted his professional life to making weather forecasting easier, and it paid off handsomely.  He showed me that a professor can be fruitful by carefully choosing research avenues that interest him, because that’s the true key to success: do what you love, and everything else will follow.  I still follow that philosophy, and I teach it to my students.  In this way I like to think that Jim is still with us.

He always used to say that he wasn’t grown up enough to be a father.  He was wrong: he took his students under his wing and treated us as his own.  He nurtured us until we were ready to fly.  Of course, some of us had to take more time studying for the flying exam than others...  When I called Pat Market with the sad news, I’d told him that we’d lost our academic dad.

We’re all quite aware of Jim’s unique sense of humor, which, contrary to popular belief, was not limited to puns.  As you followed him back to his office, he’d often say "Walk this way," and start lurching down the hallway like Quasimodo.  For such a high-powered scientist, he had a silly streak a mile wide, which made us all feel at ease.  Only after being away for some time did I realize that there was a deeper meaning to that phrase, one that he was probably unaware: he wasn’t just teaching his students the facts and figures of meteorology (which he did exceptionally well), he was showing us how to be better meteorologists, better educators, and, most of all, better people.

In short, Jim Moore was a giant (pun intended), and I got to stand on his shoulders. He was nothing short of a brilliant teacher and scientist, and he chose to share his amazing gifts with others. About the only area where he fell short was self-promotion.  It was hard to deny the fact that you were in the presence of greatness, except for the fact that he never let you know it. 

Jim was taken from us much too quickly, but I take comfort in the fact that he’s up there somewhere, watching the weather from the production side.  On behalf of Kathy and his family, his friends, and his former colleagues and students, it is with gratitude that I accept this award for my former advisor, mentor, collaborator, coauthor, and friend.  Thank you very much.