The Lyndon State Chapter of the AMS & NWA is pleased to announce the keynote speakers for the 42nd Northeastern Storm Conference!
Friday Night Ice-Breaker: Eric Fisher, Chief Meteorologist at WBZ-TV and former Weather Channel on-air meteorologist
A supporter of science and learning, Eric is a member of both the Mount Washington Observatory and the Blue Hill Observatory here in New England. Eric is a graduate of the State University of New York at Albany (SUNY) with a B.S. degree in Atmospheric Science and a minor in Mathematics. Born and raised in New England, Eric says there are few places on earth that produce weather like this little corner of the U.S. It offers the challenges of blockbuster snowstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, heat waves, frigid cold snaps and dramatic seasonal shifts. Eric vividly remembers Memorial Day of 1995 as a day that helped solidify his path as a meteorologist, when an infamous tornado ripped through Great Barrington in the Berkshires. Glued to the red warnings crawling across the screen and watching the radar, his career in weather was born.
Fisher joined WBZ-TV News from The Weather Channel in Atlanta where he spent three years as a Meteorologist. He produced and delivered national forecasts and contributed to numerous live reports on extreme weather for The Weather Channel, NBC Nightly News, TODAY and MSNBC. Some of the most notable events Fisher reported from include the Moore, Oklahoma tornado in 2013; the 2011 tornado Super Outbreak; Hurricanes Sandy, Irene, and Isaac; and the massive blizzards that essentially shut down New York City in December of 2010 and Boston in February of 2013. Recent times have unfortunately provided no shortage of natural disasters. Previously Fisher worked as the morning meteorologist at WGGB-TV in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Saturday Banquet Dinner: Tom Bedard, Graduate Solutions Analyst at Risk Management Solutions (RMS) and FEMA Training Instructor
Tom Bedard is a Graduate Solutions Analyst at Risk Management Solutions (RMS), an active EMT-Basic, FEMA training instructor, and a subject-matter expert for the University of Hawaii’s FEMA-sponsored National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC).
Tom’s interests lie in the intersection of weather and emergency management, which began when he started working as an EMT for Penn State’s University Ambulance Service in 2011. He graduated from Penn State in 2014 with a B.S. degree in meteorology after completing internships with the State College National Weather Service Office, Penn State Office of Emergency Management, and WTAJ news station. After graduation, Tom worked with Accuweather Enterprise Solutions’ sales team before moving to Honolulu, HI to research first responder training courses with NDPTC. During his two years in Honolulu, Tom worked with NDPTC’s Weather and Climate Program to create FEMA’s first nationally-standardized weather training courses for public safety personnel. After two years with NDPTC, he became interested in financial recovery following disasters and subsequently transitioned to his current position at RMS where he now works with catastrophe modeling for insurance, reinsurance, and financial agencies across the world.
Sunday Morning: Mike Wolfinbarger, VP for Mobile Development at Weather Decision Technologies and Lead RadarScope Developer
Mike Wolfinbarger is VP for Mobile Development at Weather Decision Technologies. He leads the team that develops the award-winning RadarScope and Weather Radio apps and other mobile products. Prior to WDT, Mike served as Director of Technology for the Oklahoma Climatological Survey. He led the team that created the software infrastructure for the Oklahoma Mesonet and the award-winning OK-FIRST program. He oversaw technology transfer efforts which led to the use of OCS software by WDT, Mesonet Québec, NOAA, USDOT, and the New York State Mesonet. In 2008, Mike co-founded Base Velocity to develop and commercialize RadarScope, the first mobile app to display native radar data. Base Velocity was acquired by WDT in 2012. At WDT, Mike and his team continue to focus on creating innovative tools for visualizing and interacting with weather data.
We are excited to host such a diverse set of keynotes for this upcoming conference, and we hope to see you there. Information regarding abstract submission and registration is coming soon!