Oral history interview with Judy Green, 2015. Interviewed by Kathleen Legg. Forms part of the UCAR/NCAR Oral History Collection. Judy Green, long time telecommunications assistant at NCAR, shares her unique perspective of NCAR, its people and culture. Green discusses her early career as a telephone operator at Mountain Bell in Cheyenne, Wyoming and how her and her family came to NCAR. Green talks about her experience with the various telephone systems at NCAR over the years, including the old “cord board”, the short lived Harris system, the Rolm system and Voice Over IP (VoIP).

Topics include: Mesa Lab site; time on Boulder City Council; time in Climax; Boulder's open space policy; Walter Orr Roberts; Mesa Lab construction; I.M. Pei; fund raising; HAO; Mesa Lab design; computers; roof leaks; Aspen Institute; music; the humanities and science.

Copyright Information: Copyright University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Discussion with Mary Haley, David (Dave) Brown, and Dennis Shea about the development and use of NCAR Command Language (NCL). NCL, produced by the Computational and Information Systems Laboratory (CISL) and is a free interpreted language designed specifically for scientific data processing and visualization. Topics included in this discussion also include: NCAR Graphics, netCDF, GRIB, Fortran, C, Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, Community Climate Model, NCL workshops, PyNIO, PyNGL, MATLAB, NumPy, xarray, R, and Python.

In this interview Walter Orr Roberts discusses the war time (World War II) and working in isolation at the observatory in the mining community of Climax, Colorado. He talks about observing the Sun’s corona, using the chronograph and doing special cosmic ray work with gold. The observatory was eventually incorporated jointly with the University of Colorado. Roberts wanted to get the Climax Company’s permission to name the observatory the Climax Solar Observatory, but timing was not on his side. Jack Evans and Roberts decided on a different name, the High Altitude Observatory (HAO).

Dr. Roy Jenne provides an overview of his career at NCAR in the computing division. Jenne discusses the Mesa Laboratory and its facilities; his recollections of the various computing systems at NCAR, starting with a Control Data 3600; the significant work NCAR did and continues to do with weather forecasting and observational data; and how creating easily accessible datasets was an important goal and achievement of his unit.

In this interview Walter Orr Roberts discusses the Mesa Laboratory and surrounding site, including the Fleischmann Building, and its architect, I.M. Pei. Roberts speaks briefly about his experience designing the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) and how that informed planning of the Mesa Laboratory. Roberts goes into detail discussing the structural and aesthetic design of the Mesa Laboratory and surrounding site; the relationship with the architectural team; Pei’s architectural influences; and how the rooms and spaces have been utilized throughout the years.

Dr. Akira Kasahara is a renowned climate modeler who has made significant contributions to the field of atmospheric science. He has been associated with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) for a considerable period, where he has been instrumental in developing and improving climate models. Dr. Kasahara's research experience spans over a decade, during which he has led and mentored several young scientists, including Warren Washington, a fresh Ph.D. graduate from Penn State.

Walter Orr Roberts discusses how he came to be NCAR's first director, the purpose for creating a national center, the process for identifying NCAR's initial priorities, the issue of competition between NCAR and university programs, the debate regarding NCAR's focus on research with practical applications, and NCAR's early facilities. Roberts reflects on characteristics of a successful research center, his ideas about administration, and the importance of interdisciplinary research and international cooperation among the scientific community.

William Kellogg begins by describing his first acquaintance with the NCAR concept, and his belief in the benefits of team research or big science. He notes the first retreat meeting at Keystone and offers examples of problems that required an interdisciplinary approach. He mentions chairing a group for a larger study called the "Study of Critical Environmental Problems" ("SCEP" study for short), which wrote on human influences on climate, and discusses the challenges of getting scientists to work together, relating an anecdote about having to fire a dynamic meteorologist.

Oral history interview with Karyn Sawyer, 2015. Interviewed by Richard Anthes. Forms part of the UCAR/NCAR Oral History Collection. Long-time UCAR/NCAR staff member Karyn Sawyer reflects on her decades-long career at the organization, including how she came to work for NCAR, field projects, international scientific cooperation, UCAR/NCAR administration, and her management style.