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| Randy Peppler |
Associate Director
Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS)
The University of Oklahoma
Randy Peppler earned his B.S. in Atmospheric Science
in 1980 and his M.S. in Atmospheric Science in 1982, both from Purdue University.
He received a second M.S., this time in Industrial Engineering in 1991, from
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
From 1982 to 1990, Peppler served
as a Research Scientist at the Illinois State Water Survey. There he conducted
climate research on North American growing season rainfall, Atlantic sea surface
temperatures, Moroccan rainfall, and Sahel drought. In 1990, he also became the
Director of the Water and Atmospheric Resources Monitoring Network (which included
the Illinois Climate Network), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Cook Co., IL)
Raingage Network, and the Imperial Valley Water Authority (Mason and Tazewell
Co., IL) Raingage Network.
One of his professional highlights was attending an
international drought conference in 1990 in the African country of Niger. Peppler
spent 10 days in Niger, seeing cars going down the same streets that camels and
goats were being herded. He says, "The people there were very friendly,
but very poor. That trip made me appreciate what I have even more. That same
year I was able to attend a severe storms conference in the Canadian Rockies,
which may be the most beautiful place I've ever been to. I drove to two lakes
that have emerald green water. I would like to go back there sometime."
In
1995, Randy Peppler joined the University of Oklahoma as the Associate Director
of CIMMS. Peppler's current duties revolve around (1) the scientific oversight
of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program's Southern Great Plains
(SGP) site, and (2) administrative tasks related to his position as Associate
Director of CIMMS. Although he doesn't get to do much research right now, he
has been interested and involved in such things as growing season rainfall, African
drought, and the measurement of various atmospheric quantities such as rainfall
and solar radiation. In July 2000, Randy assumed duties as ARM Program Data Quality
Manager. A Data Quality Office has been established at OU to oversee the quality
of data from ARM's sites in the Southern Great Plains, Tropical Pacific, and
North Slope of Alaska.
"A typical day would have me in front of my computer,
performing the above duties. Much of it is related to ARM Program interactions
via the World Wide Web and e-mail, and the writing of documents for both ARM
and CIMMS. The ARM Program is distributed across the U.S. in the Department of
Energy national laboratories and in various universities. I get to interact with
leading scientists dealing with water vapor, longwave and shortwave radiation,
surface energy fluxes, clouds, atmospheric aerosols, climate modeling with computers,
and weather/climate instrumentation. My last 3 years have been very fulfilling.
I also regularly visit the ARM central facility site between Lamont and Billings,
OK to interact with the people who run the SGP site on a daily basis, making
sure they do it with the scientific intentions of the ARM Program in mind."
"At
CIMMS, I get to interact with world-famous scientists who study severe weather
at the National Severe Storms Laboratory, the Storm Prediction Center, and
WSR-88D Operational Support Facility. CIMMS links the University of Oklahoma
with these groups to make sure that Norman, OK, is the premier place in the
world to study severe weather. Finally, I get to interact with scientists at
the Oklahoma Climatological Survey to help bring science to the schools of
Oklahoma and Kansas. I find that is one of the most fulfilling parts of my
job."
Most of Randy's hobbies now revolve around his four boys. He likes
to coach baseball, and is involved in scouting from Tiger Cubs to Boy Scouts.
He is a big fan of the Purdue Boilermakers, Chicago White Sox, Oakland Raiders,
and the Indiana Pacers. Because he is originally from Indiana, he always has
liked the Indianapolis 500, going to about 20 races. Randy misses Comiskey
Park, home of the White Sox. When he was a lot younger, he got to meet Harry
Caray and got his autograph. (Caray wrote "Holy Cow" next to his
name.) Peppler is now a fan of Sooner sports. He used to play recreational
softball and golfed occasionally. |
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