GPSMet Team Receives Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award for 2006
Global Systems Division joins OAR Assistant Administrator Richard Spinrad in congratulating the following recipients of a 2006 Gold Medal Award:
Seth I. Gutman, Physical Scientist
Kirk L. Holub, Physical Scientist
Stanley G. Benjamin, Supervisory Meteorologist
Susan R. Sahm, Information Technology Specialist
The Gold Medal is the highest honorary award granted by the Secretary of Commerce. It is awarded for distinguished performance characterized by extraordinary, notable, or prestigious contributions that address the mission of the Department and/or one of the operating units and that reflect favorably on the Department. To warrant a Gold Medal, a contribution must focus on qualitative and quantitative performance measures reflected in the Department's Strategic Plan and be identified in one of the following areas: leadership, personal and professional excellence, scientific/engineering achievement, organizational development, customer service, administrative/technical support, or heroism.
The team is honored for its development of Global Positioning System (GPS) meteorology, a new low cost upper-air observing system that uses GPS to continuously measure the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. The team successfully demonstrated new applications for GPS meteorology that are essential to NOAA's Integrated Earth Observing System/Global Earth Observing System of Systems. Their efforts have advanced weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and atmospheric research by providing a new way to monitor atmospheric water vapor.