The Unidata Program Center wishes a fond farewell to Robb Kambic, who is forsaking the snow and Chinook winds of Colorado's front range for the mosquitos and hurricane force winds of central Florida.
Robb's tenure as a Unidata software developer began in August of 1993. In the intervening years, he has contributed to a wide variety of Unidata projects, ranging from the Local Data Manager (LDM), data decoders, and the THREDDS Data Server.
Lansing Madry joined the Unidata Program Center software development staff on April 23rd, 2012. Oddly enough, his previous office was across the street from Unidata's current quarters in the Anthes building of UCAR's Foothills Lab. There, Lansing consumed Unidata products while working for Precision Wind, a company that provides precise, high quality wind forecasts to wind farms.
Jack Swope joined the Unidata Program Center's Information Technology staff on April 30th, 2012. Jack comes to Unidata from Vmware Inc., were he worked as Systems Administrator for the Engineering group. He holds a bachelor's degree in Agricultural Education from Colorado State University, and a master's degree in Computer Information Systems from Regis University.
Ward Fisher joined the Unidata Program Center software development staff on March 12th, 2012. Ward brings a wide variety of research and software development experience to the team, having designed systems for facial recognition, image processing, and data compression. He received bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science form Colorado State University, and also has a background in mathematics and statistics.
Marcos Hermida joined the Unidata Program Center software development staff on January 30th, 2012. Marcos comes to Unidata from MeteoGalicia, the regional meteorology agency for Galicia, Spain.
Unidata's Jeff Weber is comfortable making scientific ideas easy for nonscientists to understand — he's one of the NCAR Science Wizards who make learning about the world fun for kids (and adults) during NCAR's annual Super Science Saturday events in Boulder, Colorado. Weber got another chance to explain an interesting phenomenon — the almost-daily lightning displays Coloradans have been seeing this July — to an even bigger audience when a local television meteorologist came to chat.
Sean Arms joined the Unidata Program Center software development staff on May 23rd, 2011. Sean comes to Unidata from the University of Oklahoma, where he completed his Bachelor's, Master's, and most recently Doctoral degrees in Meteorology.
Sean is a familiar face to the rest of the Program Center staff; in addition to attending numerous Unidata workshops over the years, he served as the first student representative to the Unidata Users committee. "I got involved after Unidata's 2006 Triennial workshop," Sean says. "I was so impressed when I learned that the National Science Foundation was funding this community-driven, service oriented organization; I wanted to get involved however I could." Sean talked with members of the Users committee at that meeting, pointing out that many students were using Unidata software and data streams and asking why there was no student representation on the committee. "That's when I learned that suggesting can be the same as volunteering," he says.
