Ken Scheeringa

I made a career choice in meteorology as a freshman in Illiana Christian High School , while studying weather in science class. My father later built a home weather station in our backyard and for a time I reported my observations to Harry Volkmann and Roger Triemstra, weathercasters at WGN-TV Chicago.

In preparation for my career, I attended Purdue University where I graduated as a major in Atmospheric Sciences. During this time I also discovered my interest

in computers. I learned computer programming, a valuable skill which has served me well through the years. In recent years I have completed other college computer courses to update these skills, especially in the area of web development.

The first three years of my career I was a Research Agronomist in the Agronomy Department at Purdue, working on an NSF sponsored weather and corn yield project. In 1977 I became a Meteorology Assistant, in part assisting the National Weather Service's Midwest Agricultural Weather Service Center as their minicomputer systems manager and programmer. I also assisted the Indiana State Climatologist and the agricultural climatologist on staff at that time.

From 1988 to 2004 I served as the acting Indiana State Climatologist, responding to client requests for climate data, documentation, and general advice on application of climate data to solve unique climate related problems from a vast arrary of client groups. I also assisted an Agronomy Department professor during this time with his sponsored research in UVB radiation and atmospheric deposition.

In 2005 I have assumed the role of Associate State Climatologist for Indiana as Dr. Dev Niyogi has been appointed the new Indiana State Climatologist.