Robert Tibi has over 39 years of experience in the fields of meteorology, hydrology, and related physical sciences with the last seventeen years in senior management and leadership positions at Western Region Headquarters.
Mr. Tibi's operational experience began with the United States Air Force in 1968 where he served on active duty until 1975 in various weather observer and forecaster positions. After leaving active military service, Bob spent seven years as an air pollution meteorologist and the Deputy Meteorologist-in-Charge of a forecast center for the Tennessee Valley Authority.
In 1982, Mr. Tibi began his NWS career as the Meteorologist-in-Charge of the Weather Service Office (WSO) in Parkersburg, West Virginia. From there he moved to the Weather Service Forecast Office (WSFO) in Charleston, West Virginia and then on to the NOAA Global Systems Division (GSD) of the Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado (then known as NOAA's ERL/FSL/PROFS). From 1988 to 1990 he was the program manager for the development of the hydrological portion of the AWIPs prototype. In the fall of 1990, Bob joined the Western Region Headquarters team as the Chief of the Hydrological Services Division, now the Hydrology and Climate Services Division. In September 2005, he was named Deputy Director of NWS Western Region, became Acting Director in July 2007, and was named Director in June 2008.
Mr. Tibi's education includes undergraduate degrees in meteorology and physics, graduate work in hydrology and meteorology, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA). In addition, he has completed the Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government's Program on Leadership for Senior Executives, the Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation (PON), and earned an Executive Certificate in Leadership and Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Sloan School of Management.
In addition to his long and rewarding civilian career, Mr. Tibi retired from the Air Force Reserve in 1998 with 30 years of military service in the Air Weather Service (AWS) and Air Weather Agency (AWA) in various weather forecast assignments with the Tennessee Air National Guard, Kentucky Air National Guard, and as an Individual Mobilization Augmentee with the Air Force Reserve.