Greetings everyone,
I am happy to announce that the NSF Unidata Program Center has had our
five-year proposal approved! This award from NSF will help ensure that the
UPC can continue to provide data, tools and services to our users and other
members of our community. This is undoubtedly good news of course; we are
delighted that NSF continues to believe in and support the Unidata
mission. More information on this funding approval can be found here:
https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/blogs/news/entry/nsf-unidata-funding-proposal-approved
While this new award is roughly a 5% increase over our previous award five
years ago, as mentioned in that above post it was somewhat less than we
requested in our proposal. As a result of this unfortunate situation, the
Data Engineer position is one of three that is to be eliminated and I will
no longer serve here at Unidata after this Friday (7/19/2024).
I joined the Unidata team as our Data Engineer nearly two years ago, the
first time this position existed in our organization. In that time, I have
been proud to serve alongside the rest of our staff to help support you,
our users. Much of this role was designed to be a liaison between UPC
staff & leadership, data providers, our governing committees and everyone
else in our community, and I am privileged to have gotten to know so many
amazing people. I can safely say that it’s the people, especially our
users, that drive all of us here at the UPC to do what we do. It has been
an honor.
Many of you already knew me as a community contributor from before I came
to Unidata. The way I look at it, and as we used to say back in my retail
days, I’m being promoted back to user/customer. I love being at this
intersection of meteorology & computer science and this community has
become my home. You will continue to see my name around these lists and
other places, and I look forward to our future discussions &
collaborations. I may not know what the next leg of my journey looks like
quite yet, but I am excited for it.
Unidata will continue to function as it has, and will continue to offer the
same level of support we have always been known for. If you ever have any
questions, comments or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out! A
list of our support inboxes can be found here:
https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/support/#request Or you can use our Support
Request Form here: https://www.unidata.ucar.edu/support/requestSupport.jsp
And support@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx is always open too. As noted in the Funding
Approval post I linked at the top, how the Unidata Program Center evolves
from here is still unknown, but I remain hopeful that the long-term
forecast for our little organization will include plenty of clear skies and
calm waters.
"There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good
weather." John Ruskin
Best!
-Mike
*Mike Zuranski*
Data Engineer II
NSF Unidata Program Center
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
