Unidata 25th Anniversary Event

Share Your Comments About Unidata

Thank you to those who celebrated Unidata's 25th Anniversary event! Below are comments from people in the Unidata Community who shared their thoughts, memories, or comments about Unidata.

Posted comments
For me, one of the most important keys to Unidata's successful turnaround in the crucial formative years was the pivotal, behind-the-scenes role played by Bill Curtis. Bill provided much needed structure, discipline and mentoring for the neophyte Unidata management structure in the early, dark days -- a time when the program was much more akin to a sinking ship being rapidly abandoned than the roaring juggernaut highlighted at the 25th Anniversary festivities. Thanks, Bill.
Ben Domenico, Unidata Program Center
Oct 16, 2009
 
Congratulations to Unidata for your dedicated service!! You are the reason why a new assistant professor, the sole meteorology professor in my university, could establish a new meteorology laboratory with very little funds and jump start meteorology courses in a geography department. The Unidata equipment grants provided the computer equipment; the friendly and patient UPC staff provided the technical support; the training and users workshops provided the valuable interactions with other users. It was my pleasure to give back a little bit to Unidata by serving on the Users Committee and the Policy committee. I wish you continued success in your endeavor as you lead and serve a growing community of users.
Arlene Laing, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Oct 16, 2009
 
Twenty five years of Unidata. What a great milestone for this project! Just shows what the right people, with the right ideas and with the right financial backing, can do the bring big changes to university academics and research. Congratulations to the Unidata staff for a job well done and best wishes for the future. My best regards to all of the guests attending the event. I wish I could be there to visit with everyone.
Bob Green , Unidata Staff, March 1987 to November 1991
Oct 15, 2009
 
I first learn about UNIDATA 10 years ago at an AGU Hydrology Session. UNIDATA has proven to be essential in data management, encoding and visualization. UNIDATA not only has made a profound effect on the Earth Science Community, but there is also hint that something inexplicable caused Saturn's rings to be perturbed 25 years ago. Perhaps it was UNIDATA appearing in our world.
Luis Bermudez, Southeastern Universities Research Association
Oct 15, 2009
 
I've found my discussions with the Unidata folks to be highly stimulating and very enjoyable. Your willing and helpful input has greatly influenced my thinking on many aspects of data management and particularly web services. Congratulations on the first 25 years - may you have many more!
Bruce Wright, Met Office
Oct 15, 2009
 
Happy Birthday Unidata! Your proactive furtherance of data management and display tools as well as your very close intercation with the users is outstanding. I personally have benefitted very much from the closely knitted development network you are offering.
HansPeter Roesli, EUMETSAT
Oct 14, 2009
 
Over the past 15 years, here at MIT I have been using real-time meteorological data from Unidata in all my teaching, both at graduate and undergraduate level. The students love the exposure to real world examples and my classes have become more alive and fun because of Unidata. I want to take this opportunity to thank all the staff for their creation and support of very reliable ingestion and plotting software. Congratulation on your 25th Anniversary!
Lodovica Illari, Senior Lecturer in Synoptic Meteorology, MIT
Oct 14, 2009
 
I always enjoyed being associated with Unidata and all of the people at Unidata. My first involvement was not long after Unidata was formed and continued for many years. I like to think that Zephyr Weather Information Service played a role in the success of Unidata. I know that Unidata played a very important role in the success of Zephyr. Please pass along my congratulations to the staff of Unidata and all of the former Unidata folks. Everyone has done great work over the past 25 years, and I am sure that Unidata will continue to do the same in the future. Enjoy the festivities!!!
Jimmie Smith, MeteoQuest, Inc
Oct 12, 2009
 
In 1988 I had just received both my PhD from Oregon State and an offer to become a faculty member in synoptic meteorology at FSU in Tallahassee. My MS was in Atmospheric Dynamics and my PhD work was related to the atmospheric boundary layer. Although I've been a weather weenie all my life, I faced this decision with a fair amount of trepidation. Unidata (and COMET) helped me to overcome my initial doubts and fears with their workshop for synoptic meteorology instructors in summer 1988. So we moved from Oregon to Florida in June 1988, and immediately after unloading, I left for Boulder for about four weeks! My wife has never forgotten that summer! (We are still married after 34 years...). But it totally transformed my thinking about what I *wanted* to teach and how I wanted to teach synoptic meteorology and introduced me to a new community that reached across the entire US. It helped our department at FSU develop an early computer lab implementing Unidata technologies (data streams, hardware, software, networking), and a more modern approach that transformed our curriculum. We've embraced the Unidata packages and philosophies, and I have tried to give back through my participation in workshops, User's Committee and the Policy Committee. Although I can't make the meetings and celebrations this week, I want to add my testimonial to the notion that Unidata has had a truly transformational impact on me and my institution, much to (I believe) the benefit of our students here at FSU. Unidata is often invisible to them...but not to me!
Paul Ruscher, Florida State University, Department of Meteorology
Oct 12, 2009
 
Congratulation!! I have been working with Unidata to facilitate making the Earth science data there accessible and usable in educational contexts. The commitment of Unidata to assuring that this effort succeeds has been essential and very much appreciated. Thanks and Happy Birthday!!
Tamara Shapiro Ledley, TERC
Oct 11, 2009
 
UNIDATA ROCKS! Happy Birthday! I love your products and the spirit with which they are written: open source, open community, and open minded. I am constantly wowed by the ease of use and the interoperability with other data formats.
Barron Henderson, U.S. EPA/University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Oct 11, 2009
 
Working with Unidata has proven to be one of the most positive experiences I can recall in my years of data processing (yeah, I'm that old) and information technology. The breadth of knowledge, and the culture of helpfulness I've found have made working with this group a great experience. The range of tools, efforts and ideas is second to none. I also appreciate their willingness to support non-traditional data sinks, including the SkyWarn community, with their tools.
Gerry Creager, Texas A&M University
Oct 9, 2009
 
Congratulations and Happy Birthday! Unidata is nearly unique and has had incalculable influence on data management and information systems. Looking forward to working with you more in future.
Jon Blower, University of Reading
Oct 9, 2009
 
Thank you UNIDATA! For the community, the wonderful support, the strongly needed data and visualization software, the vision. It helped us to get more students into atmospheric sciences, to make them curious about science!
Christian Pagé, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Oct 7, 2009
 
For Research Organizations and Meteorological Communities, Unidata has been playing a fantastic role. Such freely available invaluable data are serving the human kind over the Globe. Congratulation on the 25th Anniversary.
Sujit Kumar Debsarma, SAARC Meteorological Research Centre (SMRC)
Oct 4, 2009
 
I very much appreciate the services provided by Unidata to support university research and education. I attended several of the training workshops this summer. I was impressed by the professionalism of your knowledgeable staff and learned a great deal. Unidata should be proud of its contribution to all of us.
Norman Guinasso, Texas A&M University
Oct 2, 2009
 
My experience with UNIDATA was great! I found UNIDATA a stimulating and open environment where innovative ideas may become reality by leveraging Information Technologies. Congratulations for the Anniversary.
Stefano Nativi, University of Florence
Oct 2, 2009
 
It has been an educational and rewarding experience. My learning curve with the organization always becomes exponential when working with these colleagues. I always feel somewhat inadequate. :)
Steve M. Carlson, CREST Educational Services
Oct 2, 2009
 
Working with the Unidata community, including collaborators and governance members, has been a fulfilling experience for me. It is the "community driven" spirit that is contagious and invigorating. Unidata's success and growth can be attributed to the camaraderie, energy, and expertise shared by the diverse community and staff. It's no wonder that today, Unidata is serving hundreds of people in their research and education endeavors. Hat's off to the entire Unidata community! Happy 25th! Linda Miller, Unidata
Linda Miller, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Oct 1, 2009
 

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