On May 19, 2020, Molly Graham interviewed Albert “Benjie” Spencer as part of the NOAA Heritage Oral History Project. Spencer retired in 2024 as the Chief Engineer and Director of Engineering Standards Division for the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) in the Office of Planning and Programming for Service Delivery. His responsibilities included implementing policy, providing end-to-end system engineering oversight, assessing risks, and ensuring consistent engineering processes and standards throughout the organization. Over the years, he accrued more than forty years of civil service with NOAA. The first session recorded with Spencer covers his family genealogy, his experience growing up in Virginia during the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s, his early interest in engineering and music, and the start of his professional career working for NOAA. Born in Washington D.C., Spencer moved with his family to Portsmouth, VA where he was accepted into the Norfolk Naval Shipyard Pre-Apprentice Electronics Program during his high school years. Spencer discusses his time spent at Howard University, where he graduated with his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. He also recounts the summer he traveled to the Swan Islands as a student to work for the National Weather Service’s Overseas Operations Division. After graduating college, he eventually transferred to the Engineering Division of the NWS, which began his full-time career with NOAA. Spencer discusses his work with NOAA acquisitions, Next-Generation Radar (NEXRAD), and the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS). He also provides insight into some of the institutional and organizational changes within NOAA during the 1980s.

Molly Graham recorded a second session with Albert Spencer on June 2, 2020. This session picks up with Spencer’s experience providing consultation and engineering support for the U.S. Census Data Capture Office in 2000. The following year, he headed the test program for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). He moved up the ranks to become the Deputy Chief and then Chief of Engineering. When this program was shut down in 2010, Spencer became a Senior Executive for the National Weather Service, which underwent reorganization in 2015. Spencer explains that he has tried to emphasize the importance of engineering as institutional shifts increasingly have favored information technology perspectives. Affiliated with the African American Federal Executive Association, he also speaks to the value he finds in mentorship and his goal of encouraging more people of color to become senior executives. Finally, the interview closes with Spencer’s reflections on the future of NOAA and his family and personal life outside of his work.