In recognition of their nearly 70 years of combined service to the Pacific Northwest Ski Areas Association, Garth Ferber, Kenny Kramer, and Mark Moore are sharing the group’s 2012 Partner of the Year awards.
The three are meteorologists employed by the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center– a unit of the U.S. Forest Service located in National Weather Service Forecast Office in Seattle, Wash.
The Partner honor is reserved for a Forest Service employee who significantly and decisively helps to improve the quality and safety of Pacific Northwest winter sports facilities. This year the Association broke with tradition and presented three awards.
“The Pacific Northwest Ski Areas Association is pleased to be in a position to honor the current Center staff,” noted Scott Kaden, Association President. “Since its inception, the Center has served the public well by effectively reducing the impacts associated with adverse mountain weather and hazardous snow packs. The Association salutes the Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center for the important work it does each and every winter – the mountain weather data collection, weather and avalanche forecasting, and public safety-related outreach work with different user groups,” added Kaden.
“The Center is one of the largest public safety programs the Forest Service has in the Pacific Northwest Region,” noted Sean Wetterberg, Winter Sports and Special Uses Program Manager on the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. “The dedicated Center staff works tirelessly to deliver the weather and avalanche forecasts that undoubtedly save lives and are relied upon by state and federal agencies, as well as a broad array of private industry partners,” he said.
“By providing ski area operators solid and reliable forecasts of mountain weather and potential avalanche danger, the Center’s staff helps take some complexity out of day-to-day ski area operations,” observed Duncan Howat, general manager at northwest Washington’s Mt. Baker Ski Area. “I have thoroughly enjoyed 36 years of near daily interaction with this Forest Service unit, which is comprised of dedicated professions,” he added.