Oregon Utah Washington Marc Tolson, a computer specialist and lead database administrator in the management office of NOAA's Office of Finance and Administration, is NOAA's newest Employee of the Month . When a series of staffing losses coupled with hiring restrictions left NOAA's Information Technology Center precariously short-handed two years ago, Marc quickly stepped up to the plate, ensuring that the critical linkage of financial management and accounting services was not impaired. That was over two years ago. Dwight C. Lee, a NOAA contractor and field engineer, is September s Team Member of the Month . Over the past several years, Dwight s consistently excellent support for the National Weather Service s Radar Operations Center in Norman, Oklahoma has made the difference in promptly resolving a number of especially difficult radar outages.
Radar serves as a forecaster s eyes.
As the cornerstone of the National Weather Service s warning process, radar enables a forecaster to see into a storm and detect and track severe weather. Working with NOAA staff and other contractors, Dwight s expert field engineering services recently restored two WSR-88D weather radars to full operation after catastrophic failures. These failures were the first of their type in more than a decade of operations. By working 12-15 hours daily, for nine days straight, Dwight restored the radar to effective operation and completed the job in Little Rock, Arkansas three days ahead of schedule. Harrison Ford thanks NOAA meteorologist Dave Lipson for his efforts to save homes during last month s fierce wildfires near Jackson, Wyoming.