George Cressman describes his youthful interest in weather and discusses his undergraduate education at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) and training at New York University (NYU) as an aviation cadet in meteorology during World War II. He discusses postwar research in Puerto Rico and at the University of Chicago under Carl-Gustaf Rossby and Erik Palmen. He comments on the attempt to apply barotropic ideas for forecasting long wave motion. He describes his consultant duties for the United States Air Force (USAF) Air Weather Service under Sverre Petterssen, including forecasting for atomic bomb tests at the Nevada Proving Grounds. He details his role in the nascent Joint Numercal Weather Prediction Unit (JNWPU) and the unit's eventual evolution into the National Meteorological Center (NMC). He talks about NMC activities during his tenure as director. He highlights his attempts through the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to standardize codes for worldwide data exchange. He describes the first hurricane model and development of the Cressman analysis system. He comments on the breakup of the Weather Bureau and formation of the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Environmental Research Laboratory (ERL). Finally, he describes his challenges as director of the Weather Bureau/National Weather Service, comments on the impact of meteorological satellites on forecasting and discusses the development of the limited-area fine-mesh model. He concludes by discussing his meteorological consulting activities in various countries.