In June 2023, Ken Graham celebrated his first anniversary as director of the National Weather Service. His path to the corner office is unique among all directors in the agency’s 153-year history, starting as a meteorological intern right out of college. To better understand how Ken’s career shaped his thinking and approaches to leadership, the NWS Heritage Program conducted a series of oral history interviews with him over the last year. The stories shared during these provide fascinating insights into the events that helped mold his views and laser focus meeting the needs of NWS people, improving NWS infrastructure and transforming our agency to meet the current and future needs of society.

Here are some excerpts from these interviews conducted between September 2022 and February 2023:

On how far we’ve come:
“You go back to the '90s, the internet was brand new. The first time I ever saw the internet in my life was at a Weather Service office. The first time I ever saw an e-mail in my life was at a Weather Service office, and only management was allowed to have e-mail at the time. It was brand new. I was like, I want that.” 

On the important of training IDSS while MIC in Slidell, LA:

“[We] put people where they're most comfortable and where they do the best job, because here's the reality ... You got to be trained and really be comfortable if you want to deploy to brief the governor or brief the mayor in New Orleans. You've got to be comfortable in these roles because what you say impacts evacuations, impacts resources, impacts a huge amount of things.” 

On the importance of reflection:

“Looking back in time, every single one of these big events changes you on the other side ... Go back and look at those big events in your life, and go figure out how that changed you on the other side, because I can tell you every one of these big events, whether it's Deepwater Horizon, tornadoes ... everything shaped who I am today, and it drives the passion.”

Listen to the full series of interviews on the NOAA Voices website.