Years ago, a terrified young boy would call the National Weather Service's office in North Little Rock whenever dangerous weather approached.
Meteorologist-in-charge Renee Fair advised her staff to take the calls and attempt to soothe the youngster, but his fears continued. Finally, Fair said, she invited the boy to the station to watch meteorologists track the storms.
"He saw real people working, and it helped cure his fears," Fair said.
Fair, who is retiring Jan. 2 after 40 years with the Weather Service, said one of her main goals as the North Little Rock station's leader was to make her forecasters more available to the public. She opened a public phone line and urged people to call it whenever they had inquiries about the weather.
At times, the calls were frivolous. Meteorologists would answer questions from people who were arguing or betting on the years of certain weather events. Others asked questions or sought forecasts for specific areas.
"Some didn't like it," she said of her staff. "But customer service is what it's all about."
It's paid off well, she said. Now, people share photographs on the Weather Service's social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, giving forecasters immediate information about the storms they are tracking.
"Every bit of data counts," she said. "We wanted the public to buy into the Weather Service."
Fair helped establish weather spotter classes across the state to train people to recognize signs of inclement weather so they could warn others quicker.
Fair, like warning coordinator John Robinson of North Little Rock, began her weather career in 1974. She earned a degree in math and physics from Talladega College in Talladega, Ala., in 1974 and a year later did graduate studies in meteorology at Penn State University.
She worked as a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's headquarters in Rockville, Md., and as a forecaster in Weather Service stations in Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; and Boston before being named the interim meteorologist-in-charge in North Little Rock in 1990.
Three years later, she became the warning coordinator, and in 1998, she took over as the meteorologist-in-charge. She promoted Robinson then to fill the warning coordinator position.
"I will definitely miss this," she said of her work with the Weather Service. "I will not miss driving down the Maryland [Avenue] roller coaster road to the office when it's icy. But I will miss working with everyone."
Fair said she plans to take about three months to "downsize, donate and discard" things from her home before eventually moving back to her hometown of Columbia, S.C.
State Desk on 12/26/2014