Biography

Pat Welsh graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy in June, 1969 with dual majors in Oceanography and Engineering. His first tour was aboard the guided missile destroyer, U. S. S. Decatur (DDG-31). The ship was equipped with surface to air missiles and a sophisticated frequency scanning Doppler radar. Pat was the radar and intelligence division officer, and served as a combat aircraft intercept controller controlling fighter aircraft. During this tour off Vietnam and Cambodia, he was spot promoted to Lieutenant, and was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal.

He next attended the U. S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and graduated with a Masters of Science degree in Meteorology. His thesis work was part of the first shipboard attempt to measure high speed atmospheric turbulence from a moving ship platform, part of a larger laser propagation study to define the limits of laser pointing accuracy. Following graduation, Pat joined the Staff of Commander Cruiser Destroyer Group Twelve, including a six month deployment to the Mediterranean as Navigator, Scheduler and Combat Systems Officer for an Aircraft Carrier Battle Group. For this tour of duty, he was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal. Serving as an instructor in the Oceanography Department of the U. S. Naval Academy, he concurrently assumed duty as the Laboratory and Technician Manager in addition to his normal teaching duties. He taught oceanography, meteorology and geology courses, and received a letter of commendation from the Academic Dean.

Pat led the team that developed a new capstone course for the curriculum, integrating the research and applied aspects of Oceanography. As an outgrowth of his duties as laboratory manager, he developed a long range capital improvement program which the department adopted. Pat was responsible for the construction liaison for the new Hendrix Oceanography Laboratory, a 3500 square foot facility on the Severn River, and for the new research vessel's scientific suite. He was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal for his work at the Naval Academy.

Pat served as the Officer in Charge of the Naval Oceanography Command Detachment at Mayport, Florida, where he was awarded his third Navy Achievement Medal for his management improvements and innovative fleet training programs in weather readiness, antisubmarine warfare, and sensor utilization. The latter included tactical exploitation of anomalous radar and sonar propagation.

In 1993, Pat completed his dissertation at Florida State University, as a NASA-Florida Space Grant Consortium Fellow. He developed a new method to analyze turbulent convective boundary layers and their fluxes. Pat has a broad range of scientific interests including turbulent flows, nonlinear acoustics, remote sensing of the earth's atmosphere and oceans by acoustic, laser, radar and satellite sensors.

Currently, as Science and Operations Officer for the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Jacksonville, he has been involved in the training, administration and outfitting the computer and network systems of the new Weather Forecast Office (WFO) and its Doppler radar facility. He has received Regional awards for his technical training of the forecast staff, and the integration of the complex computer networks in the facility.

He has been recognized for his operational leadership and the technology transfer of current research into operational forecasting. In addition to his long-standing interests in boundary layers and remote sensing of the atmosphere and oceans, his recent research emphasis is on tornadic storms, use of the Doppler radar in mesoscale meteorology, severe weather, and high resolution numerical modeling of sea breezes and severe weather events.

Pat and his wife of thirty-four years, the former Susan Elizabeth Day of Lake Mary, have four adult children. Three of their children are married, while the youngest is a chemistry student at the University of North Florida. Pat enjoys fishing and gardening particularly raising fruit trees, orchids and other tropical plants.