20 Years Ago…A Great Adventure Took Place 2…08/09/2014

United_States_Antarctic_Program_logoOkay, so I said that it would be about two weeks before my next post. However, as I thought about it, I think the response came a lot sooner (Also, for some reason I was telling the story in the third person, I’ll tell it from my perspective 20 years later).

I think it was about a week to 10 days later, that I got a call while I was at work. The person was Kathie Sharp, who was to be the Senior Meteorologist at the South Pole. Luckily, I got one hour breaks for lunch, because the interview was about 20 minutes. I got another call after work (the company, Antarctic Support Associates was based in Denver, CO). Thank goodness for that. The 2 hour time difference helped in the communications. The second call was John Gress, who was the science technical support manager and oversaw the Met dept, at the south pole, as well as other science support position at the South Pole, McMurdo, and Palmer stations. We talked about another 45 minutes. At the end of the conversation, he wanted me to fly out to Denver to interview for the position. It seems the other meteorologist that had been hired to winter over(i.e. spend the year) decided earlier in the week, to take another job, about the same time my resume reached the office.

It would be about a week before I could get there. However, in the week to come, I decided that a step of faith was needed. It takes 6 weeks for a passport, and I would need one en route to the South Pole, because we fly through New Zealand. So I did just that, cautiously optimistic that I would be hired for a met position at the South Pole. The only thing that I was apprehensive about was that it was for a meteorological technician, and I had no experience in the equipment end. However, since the senior met (Kathie) was, they told me that it wouldn’t be a problem.

In about a week, another post! The interview…