with

Joseph Kunches
Chief, Forecast and Analysis Branch
Space Environment Center
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

July 26, 2006

WILLIAM MURTAGH

Bill Murtagh is a Space Weather Forecaster at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration Space Environment Center in Boulder Colorado. Bill also serves as the SEC Customer Focus Representative, and is chief of the SEC forecaster training program. Bill is a 23-year veteran of the USAF. He qualified as a meteorologist in 1983, and spent tours of duty in New York, South Carolina, Alaska, and Virginia. After qualifying as a solar analyst in 1991, Bill was selected as the instructor for the Air Force's solar radio astronomy course at the Palehua Solar Observatory in Hawaii. He transferred to the Space Environment Center in 1997 as a space weather forecaster and liaison between NOAA/SEC and the DoD. Bill joined SEC in 2003. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union, and the American Meteorological Society.

Joe and Bill are regular guest speakers at universities, government organizations, and national and international conferences. Both recently spoke on space weather issues at the House of Representatives in Washington D.C. They have provided numerous interviews to major media outlets in the U.S. and around the world. Joe and Bill work closely with private industry, national and international agencies, emergency managers, and government officials, so that property damage and operational impacts of space weather are minimized through appropriate response and adequate preparedness plans.

JOSEPH KUNCHES

Joseph Kunches is the Chief of the Forecast and Analysis Branch at the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado, a national and international center for space weather services. He also serves as the Secretary of the International Space Environment Service (ISES), a consortium of eleven nations plus the European Space Agency, chartered to share data and products worldwide among the member nations and organizations. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of the quarterly journal GPS Solutions. He is also a member of the American Geophysical Union, the Institute of Navigation, and the International Loran Association. Academic work includes a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Notre Dame (1970) and a Masters of Basic Science from the University of Colorado, Boulder (1985).