Forum Summary

The 2002 Members Meeting Forum focused on the challenges and opportunites for Private, Public, Academic Partnerships for weather and climate research and services.

John Lumsden, Director of the Meteorological Service of New Zealand, gave the opening talk that outlined his experience in privitizing the weather service of that country.

A panel of speakers from each of these sectors spoke to the Members of their experience with these partnerships; an open forum followed with discussion among the panelists, invited guests from the private sector, and the Members representatives.

Next steps:

User workshop in Feb. at AMS (already planned)
Look for "best practices" and recommendations in related reports (e.g., Council of Government Relations and pending NRC Armstrong report).
Propose a UCAR/AMS workshop to continue the momentum - maybe include universities in Spring 2003 AMS Corporate Forum.
Identify a champion in each sector--someone to push the agenda forward

The power point summary of the Forum can be found here.