Laura K. Furgione became the Director of NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) Alaska Region in Anchorage, Alaska, October 2004. She oversees twenty facilities including three Weather Forecast Offices (WFO), twelve Weather Service Offices (WSO), the Alaska-Pacific River Forecast Center, the Alaska Aviation Weather Unit (AAWU) and Volcanic Ash Advisory Center, the Anchorage Center Weather Service Unit, and the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer. Alaska is the largest state in the country and one-fifth the size of the combined Lower 48 states. The land mass is 570,374 square miles, or about 365 million acres. Alaska's nearly 47,000 miles of coastline is about two-thirds of the total U.S. coastline. Ms. Furgione is responsible for all operational and scientific climatological, meteorological, hydrological, volcanic ash and tsunami warning programs for the state of Alaska and its surrounding waters. She is also the team lead for NOAA's Alaska Region Collaboration Team.
Laura began her career in Honolulu, Hawaii, as a summer hire at WFO Honolulu. She worked her way up from meteorological intern at WSO Kodiak to her current position as Regional Director. Other positions within the NWS include Meteorological Intern at WFO Fairbanks, Aviation Meteorologist at the AAWU, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at WFO Newport/Morehead City, Meteorologist-in-Charge of WFO Juneau, and Deputy Regional Director.
Ms. Furgione holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Atmospheric Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from the University of Alaska-Southeast. She is a member of the American Meteorological Society, the American Society for Public Administrators, the Senior Executives Association, and the Anchorage International Rotary Club. Her husband, Tim, and she became the proud parents of twins in October, 2004.