Friday, Elbert Walter, 1939-
Oral history interview with Elbert W. "Joe" Friday, Jr., 25 July 2003.
Harper begins by asking about Fridays early life. Friday talks about his parents, his fathers military service and his childhood moving around the country. Friday comments on his influences, church life, and interest in math and science. From there they move on to his military career and Friday talks about how he joined the military and studied weather at the University of Oklahoma. Friday outlines specific courses he took and then describes his experience in the Air Force as a staff weather officer. Friday discusses computer modeling, forecasting technology and aircrafts. Harper then questions more about Fridays education and Friday talks about graduate school and the destruction of his first dissertation. Friday also comments on his advisers, his dissertation topic, and other Air Force officers with him in the program. Friday then moves on to his Air Force career after graduation and his assignment to the Compatriot project in Vietnam. He goes into detail on the failure of the project, his clean-up, the cease-fire in Vietnam and his time at Nakhon Phanom Air Base. Friday dictates how he was almost fired and then talks about his year at the Air War College, his promotions to Colonel and his job as the military assistant for environmental research with the Department of Defense (DOD) and ultimately the director. He talks about how he questioned the military weather systems and how his inquiries led to major improvements in the systems. Friday then moves on to talk about his retirement from the Air Force and subsequent directorship of the National Weather Service.
Meteorologist.
Friday, Elbert Walter, 1939-
United States. Air Force
United States. Department of Defense
United States. National Weather Service
University of Oklahoma
Computer simulation
Environment -- Research.
Forecasting.
Meteorology
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Interviews. aat
Oral histories. aat
Meteorologists -- Interviews. lcsh
Harper, Kristine. interviewer
American Meteorological Society
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
AIP-ICOS
National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. Archives. PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-3000, USA