Those in attendance: Marie Colton, Ralph Ferraro, Chris Velden, John Zapotocny, Gary Jedlovec, Yale Schiffman, Brad Colman.
The committee is going through a transition phase, with 6 of the 12 members terms expiring in January 2002. Several candidates previously identified at the last meeting (October 2001, Madison) were approached and were interested. A list of additional candidates was compiled, and these will be asked to join and serve a 3-year term from January 2002 ? January 2005. The AMS Exec Council must make final approval. The committee wants to retain the proper balance of government (NOAA, NASA, DOD), academia, and private sector membership. It was suggested that a ?short list? of future candidates be maintained for later replacements.
Ralph Ferraro will serve an interim 1-year term as committee chair, replacing Marie Colton. This will retain continuity, especial
Most STAC committees have 12 members. We may want to expand the committee to a larger number, given a possible international conference (see below) and future short courses. Discussion was held on possibly adding a student member.
Jeff Hawkins is the chair for the 2003 conference that will be held as part of the 2003 Annual Meeting (Long Beach, February 2003). We will follow the same format as our previous two conferences, namely, the all poster format, with invited speakers/plenary sessions each day. In addition, Ralph Ferraro and Marie Colton will be attending a meeting later in the week regarding the Annual Meeting (chaired by Phil Arkin) and seek opportunities for joint sessions.
We discussed when and where to have a 2004 meeting. Another international venue was considered, as we had a successful meeting, cosponsored by EUMETSAT, in May of 1998 in Paris. Yale Schiffman mentioned that the Broadcasters group were seriously considering a meeting in Geneva in mid-2004 and most of the logistical details have been worked out with WMO. It was thought that a joint meeting with that group would offer wonderful opportunities to both committees, plus a nice opportunity to offer 1 or 2 short courses/workshops on new satellite products, etc. The point of contact is Ray Ban at The Weather Channel, and he will be contacted to see if they are interested. As an aside, I later learned from Rick Rosen that the Geneva venue was not quite as certain since the broadcasters were not convinced that their station managers would be willing to send them overseas in a weak economy that diminishes advertising revenue, etc. Chris Velden also suggested that we contact EUMETSAT to see what their future meeting schedule is for their annual User's Conference (e.g., another opportunity to meet overseas).