Where were you 10 years ago today? Unfortunately, for some, it was their last. March 2, 2012 was the single deadliest severe weather day in the Tri-State since official records began in 1950. There were 10 tornadoes in the Tri-State that day, and 11 people died in northern Kentucky, southeastern Indiana, and southwestern Ohio as a result of the tornadoes that day.

This day was also the biggest day of my weather career. This event was not a surprise; I was on television Monday morning talking about this severe weather outbreak that would occur on a Friday. By Tuesday, I was concerned that there would be severe weather to the west of the Tri-State. By Wednesday and Thursday, guidance was shifting and expanding that threat east into southern Indiana, and central Kentucky. By late Friday morning, it was very apparent that morning thunderstorms were going to move north and the warm front was going to be able to spread into northern Kentucky and areas along and south of US-50 in Ohio and Indiana. Here’s the evolution of the severe weather threat from the Storm Prediction Center in the days leading up to the March 2, 2012 tornado outbreak:

Tim Hedrick and I chatted throughout the week about the event, but I remember the conversation we had on the evening of March 1, 2012 well. That night, he asked me what I thought. I said that the severe weather threat was concerning, especially to the west of us…but I was concerned about what the leftovers would look like if thunderstorms in the morning could get out by the afternoon. By 10am Friday morning, he called and asked me to come in. By noon, I was in the chair looking at data. By 2pm, we were watching explosive thunderstorm development in Illinois and Indiana on radar; cells went from non-existent to tornadic. This outbreak’s first signal of extreme severity happened at 3:14pm ET; at this time, Henryville, Indiana is struck by an EF-4 tornado. This tornado was on the ground for 49 continuous miles and killed 11 people. The thunderstorm that produced this tornado would produce additional tornado damage in northern Kentucky and southwestern Ohio later that afternoon.

At 3:22pm, the National Weather Service in Wilmington issued their first Tornado Warning of the day for Carrollton, Kentucky and surrounding areas. At 3:44pm, that warning became the first ever Tornado Emergency issued the NWS Wilmington forecast office.

Meanwhile, a supercell in Jennings County, Indiana was rapidly rotating as it entered Ripley County. At 3:51pm, a developing EF-3 tornado took aim on Holton, Indiana. Tri-State residents Ron Pickett, Armando Hernandez, and Ted Tolbert were killed by this tornado.

Back in northern Kentucky around the same time (3:50pm), a second Tornado Emergency is issued for areas near the I-71/75 split. I remember announcing on television that rotation in the supercell was increasing and preparing to cross I-75. A tornado was forming and moving east at roughly 50mph. At 4:27pm, debris from the EF-4 Piner/Crittenden tornado is detected by the FAA Doppler radar in south-central Kenton County. This tornado was the first tornado to be considered a violent tornado since the Blue Ash/Montgomery/Symmes Township tornado on April 9, 1999. Tri-State residents Don Beemon, Linda Beemon, James Brooks, and Courtney Stephenson were killed by this tornado.

This supercell is not done. Radar showed tornado debris in southern Campbell County. This EF-3 tornado that formed in southern Campbell County would be on the ground for 23 miles into Clermont and Brown County, causing extensive damage in Moscow and Hamersville. Tri-State residents Carol Forste, James Prater, and Bill Adkins were killed by this tornado. The National Weather Service storm survey of this area also revealed a large area of 100+ mph straight-line winds near Peach Grove.

The death that I remember the most from that day was Bessie Baldwin’s. She was in her mobile home in Adams County. She was 99-years old. Had she not been in the path of that tornado or evacuated that day, she might have lived to 100-years old.

I hope you take a moment to think of the people we lost because of that day 10 years ago. Even though I have left broadcast meteorology, I still think of that day often. May it never happen again.

When I left broadcast meteorology on the last day of November in 2017, I was more than ready to go. I had been passed up for three promotions, yet I had the qualifications for all of them. I had an MBA secretly in my back pocket, and I took at job in the business world a few days after presenting a weather forecast in front of a chromakey.

Today, I leave that job.

When I joined, my focus was business intelligence – or a fancy way of saying “making business dashboards.” Over time, my position leaned into the decision scientist, data liaison, quality assurance, testing, database design, ETL, and algorithm development space as new data sources were created throughout the organization. I created a significant amount of value, and for only the second time in the last 1.5 years, I went into the office today. Since the pandemic began, this was my office 99.5% of the time:

After Christmas, I’ll start a new job. I’ll be going downtown often. I’ll be paying for parking. I’ll be in a room with people. I won’t be a SME for a while. It will be different, but here’s why I’m ready for it and how I know it was time and is time for a change:

1. Give yourself three strikes. There will be days of success, and there will be days with failures. When I started my job, I had a great boss, and we were aligned. But it was a matter of time before that boss was pushed out, the new one was looking to make a mark, and the personal and political attacks came. Strike one. I was fortunate to move to a new team that worked with my existing one. I got to do more of the things I was good at, but a personal passion of mine was to work in sustainability. For years, I talked to those in the organization about recycling, reducing overhead, and other environmental sustainability efforts; I won an award within the company for pitching some of these ideas. Finally, my company developed a sustainability arm, there was an environmental sustainability leader opening, and I applied. I interviewed as the only internal candidate, and I pitched my highly profitable ideas. Despite this, I didn’t get the job. I was very qualified, but no offer came. Strike two. A few months ago, I got assigned to 100% hands-on-keyboard development work. I get that the work needed to be done, and I saw – at a high-level – the importance of the project. But I’m not a developer; I’m a business guy who knows some things about data. Strike three. The search was on, and a great opportunity came. Each of the three strikes gave me pause and an opportunity to reflect. I don’t like seeing strikes, and – frankly – I hope I know I never see them. I, however, allowed myself a count and time for reflection along the way. Was this really want I wanted to do? Was this the environment that I wanted around me? Was this the cultural fit I needed to succeed? You know when it’s time to get off the field; one of those ways is getting three strikes.
2. Little things can matter. Is there flexibility in your job? Do you feel safe? Are you appreciated? Seemingly small things can have a significant impact on your happiness. In my “Strike Three” above, I was having a daily meeting with that team every day at noon (preventing me from going to lunch with other people and coworkers). This seemingly small daily meeting was a bottleneck. But there can also be sneakier bottlenecks or ones that wear you down over time. The phrase “merger and acquisition” is a bit of a misnomer; one often happens ahead of or without the other. When a company acquires another company, the merger piece takes time. When you work in a technology space, that often means you have legacy systems and new systems…and different credentials for each. These credentials expire over time. And there’s a possibility you can get locked out with the only way to get back in through a service desk and an IT ticket. Your productivity and success is a function of the tools you use, especially in a virtual, work-from-home world. Fatigue is real, and small tokens of respect – the “you get a lunch hour,” “thank you for your hard work,” and “I’m your boss, and I support you” matter. Along the way, assess your happiness as you work hard.
3. Personal and political attacks are a red flag. If you aren’t valued or respected, take it seriously. You should not be making repeated mistakes, but know that you can’t take on the blame for larger scale, organizational-level mistakes or missteps. Mistakes will happen; take ownership of them, but don’t take on unnecessary blame…especially repeatedly. If the blame is fair, accept it; if it’s not, it’s a signal of a bigger and more personal problem. Those that are volatile and excessively blame others are unlikely to do you favors, and those close to them are likely not worth your time either (and are probably feeding the monsters).
4. In time, you should be growing and – if you want to – advancing. I’ve learned a lot over the last 4 years, but I’m still in the same position. I want to advance in time, and I’ve found one of the best ways to do this is not vertically. When people talk about the “great resignation,” I think they are saying a few things: 1) there’s a lot of quantity but not as much quality of jobs out there, 2) the job and talent market is increasingly competitive, and you should strongly consider asking yourself if the benefits you have now are as good as you could get elsewhere, 3) people are realizing how stagnant they are, 4) people are realizing that they have at least some power in a world of large corporate influence, 5) one of the most powerful weapons employees have is to resign.
5. Happiness, joy, and success are still king. It’s pretty simple: are you happy? Are you successful? Are you joyful? Is what you today checking those boxes? If not, how are you going to get those checked? Can it be done in your current environment? How do you get there? Whether you think life is short or life is long, disappointment, frustration, anger, and sadness is no place to wallow; now is the right time to be happy, successful, and joyful…or at least work towards getting there. Go forth and find them!

I was 11 years old. I was so young that I remember playing with Legos on the family room floor. At the time, I found it a point of pride to answer the phone in the house, but at 5:15pm that day a quarter-century ago, I didn’t know that the man on the other end of the phone would reply “Ummm…is your mother there?” and likely be a police officer or firefighter looking to deliver terrible news to my family. That evening was a blur, with friends and family coming to the house, and me being whisked away with the distraction of games and other fun activities.

As I discussed in a blog post back in 2015, my father was a passionate pilot who came to Cincinnati in 1979. Nearly all of the planes he flew were based at Lunken Airport, and that’s where I spent a weeks of my childhood with him. We also traveled as a family a lot; I look at my time like the career of The Beatles: a partnership built on love and care with many good memories but which also ended too soon. He died in a plane crash on September 17, 1996.

Now 25 years later, I have learned a lot from my father’s death, but I also have many questions. Because of my loss, I’ve also had to help, assist, or grow with people who have experienced tragedy. If you’ve lost someone you care about – whether it was recently or years ago – I want to share some things I’ve learned as an unfortunate veteran of loss.

1) It’s okay to grieve, and you should grieve. Weakness – including sadness of frustration – are often dismissed or frowned upon in the world. There is a seemingly constant pressure everywhere to be strong and resilient. But – despite what everyone tells you – you should and must grieve when you experience a loss. Pushing hard-to-deal-with feelings aside only prolongs and delays the pain and keeps the healing that it found through hardship away. If you don’t take the time to process the loss or emptiness you’re feeling, your grief will just be waiting for you until you get to it, and the lack of resolution within will bring you down eventually. Grieving is not something you should fear; in the end, you’ll see that it was a path to your own peace. If you’re a person of faith, know that Matthew 5:4 says “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

2) You’re going to need to re-visit grieving sometimes. During the pandemic and through months of stress and strain, I realized that I never fully grieved. Grieving isn’t a process you go through and just put away; losses you experience – to some degree – last a lifetime. There will be many times you realize you didn’t resolve all of the issues or needed help. I wish my father was around when I was growing up to teach me about relationships or how to deal with highly political job environments. It would have been nice for him to guide me through career changes, too. He wasn’t here, and sometimes it’s just nice to have that voice to guide you…including when everyone else is quiet. In those moments, it’s easy to get frustrated or even angry. Why did he or she leave? Why where they taken from me? You can’t be too busy to work through it; you need to talk to someone, but you also need to understand that you can’t just deny feeling sad or frustrated – which you should be. You didn’t know that 20 years after they were gone that you would win an award and they would not be there. You didn’t know that after a tragedy would come a celebration that just felt emptier than usual because you just lost someone. There’s no way around it; you must work through it. Grieving is like rest; when your body and mind need it, there’s no substitution for it. And when you help others with your grieving, you’re going to need something constructive – perhaps even your own grieving – to heal and recharge.

3) Mentally prepare yourself for supporting others and their losses that may be bigger than yours. I remember I was in college when I got a call from the family member of a close friend. He said my friend wanted to see me immediately. He was grieving. His sister had just killed his mother, and he said I could help him with the grieving and calm him down. While I was happy to help my friend, my loss was far more extreme than mine. I had lost my father suddenly, but he had just lost his mother and likely contact with his sister for many years to come. How was I to help a friend through this? Somehow, when I walked up to my friend minutes later, I assured him we would get through this no matter how awful things seemed right now and gave him a hug. Outside of sleeping, I spent the days that followed sitting next to my friend. That experience reminded me that giving someone a hug, holding someone’s hand, and listening to them helps both you and others grieve. You don’t have to solve their problems, even if they are bigger than yours or what you think you can handle; the goal is to be their friend and support them unconditionally.

4) Life goes on quickly for others and far more slowly for you. By the way, no one tells you this, and it’s frustrating. A week after my father’s death in 1996, I went back to school. People were happy to see me, but they didn’t know my father, and they didn’t understand my loss. From their point of view, I was just not at school for a week. My teachers came to my father’s funeral, but – again – they were just there to support me; my loss was not their loss. In hindsight, all of the adults that came to my father’s funeral and visitation over the previous weekend were back to work on that Monday; they were likely sad or still reflecting that day, but some had moved on. Fast forward to the clock 6 or 12 months in the future, and even more people had moved on. They were healing a lot faster than I was. At some point, your life, too, must continue. Being alone or isolated in your healing is not ideal. You’ve been dealt a blow, and it doesn’t seem fair. But this reality means it is important for you talk to someone, including a medical professional. There is no shame in talking to a psychiatrist or psychologist. Talking to friends is good, too, but you must quickly realize that they will grow tired of listening, especially without incremental progress; friends are not designed to keep you afloat after a significant tragedy or loss. As this blog post shows, you are not alone. A network of friends will help, but your help from them will be limited. Do not hesitate to talk to someone, and stay connected to the ones you love.

5) Keep your memories in a form that is up to date. I still have the C-tapes where my father recorded home movies. Physical media breaks down over time, so those C-tapes have gradually worn out. During the years I was grieving, recovering, and going through life, my memories on video have been sitting in a drawer…slowly breaking down. I realized this a couple of years ago, and I have converted over many of the individual tapes thus far. Those tapes are one of only a few ways I can hear my father’s voice again. I’m glad I remembered about these tapes and got the tools to keep the memories alive; I encourage you to do the same. Put your memories in a form where you can enjoy them for years to come. More importantly, keep a record of dates, times, and who is in the photos and videos you keep. You may not want to hear this, but other people you may know may die in the years that come; this is a reminder to not just treasure your time with them, but this is also a reminder to use their knowledge to help you know as much as you can about your memories. Who is in that photo? When was that video taken? Is there a good story that goes with that photo that you’ll want to tell your kids?

6) A loss is a great time to see who really cares. When the funeral is over and people have to go home to their home and job, who will still contact you? Who will send cards? Who will call and see if you’re OK? Who actually cares about your happiness and well-being? A loss or tragedy can really do a number on you, but it’s also a teaching moment. You deserve friends that care and want you to be happy. Don’t make drastic moves, but take note of who just says “I’m sorry for your loss” and who actually cares about your health and peace.

7) Your mind will likely work differently after a significant loss. The times of loneliness in life seem longer than the times of joy. You’ll spend many hours of your life after a significant loss searching for answers, trying to understand why the healing isn’t coming faster, why you don’t feel better, why others around you never seem to bear the burdens you have, and why everyone else has seemingly forgotten about the loss you all just went through. You may also wonder what you could have done to prevent your loss. Why did my father go flying that day? Why did he fly an experimental plane? Why didn’t he tell me about that plane? I could be angry and upset; I have every right to be. But I’ve also learned that I could better spend my time talking to a professional, talking to a friend, or grieving. Your loss is part of your story. Being bitter will not help you; you can’t just wish them back. Life goes on, not backward. Your story, however, will be different because of the losses or tragedy you experience. Let that be your strength, not a weakness.

8) Days will get better, but the loss never completely goes away. As you get older, the memories become less clear, the number of days you don’t think about them or think about them as much increase, and the pain and frustration go down. Despite this, there will be days where you wish you were there to learn from or listen to the person you lost. Some days will feature reminders of those you lost, and some days will go smoothly without these memories entering your mind. As days go by, you also see what people told you along the way – “you will get through this,” “brighter days are ahead,” and “life goes on” – become true.

I’ve learned a lot about happiness, success, and joy in the last few years. Many would say my father died doing what he loved. He did love flying, and it brought him joy. I could be upset from losing him in my life, but I – instead – am thankful for the limited amount of time we shared; we accomplished a lot in our years together. In time, you have to find a way to let the pain go and focus your life on what is good.

Rest in peace, Dad.

Do you ever take your work home with you? I encourage you to do just the opposite: take the lessons learned at home to work with you.

After a relaxing Friday night of watching people learn the basics of blacksmithing, I found myself with two challenges Saturday: blindsiding news of investment (apparently) made too early and a heavy, emotional conversation about repairs and future building. Just two days earlier with a friend in town, I found myself in a dense discussion on the quality of our mutual friendships. There are few reminders in life more humbling than those that expose what we can’t control. Yet I found myself today not just enjoying brunch and preparing for the week ahead but also coming across a well-needed and well-timed indication that we can control more than initially thought.

I went to church this morning, and I’ve recently make a change to go to Crossroads in Oakley. Today was only my second time being at Crossroads, but senior pastor Brian Tome shared a sermon and wisdom that we can all take to work and safely bring home, too.

When was the last time to looked at those around you? Where is the knowledge base for friendships and relationships? What are your core convictions about friendships and relationships? How do you choose your friends, who you associate with at work, and even where you work? Is your barometer calibrated correctly?

After all, we are who we spend time with. If you want to be the best version of you, you need to understand who surrounds you.

Brian Tome – in his sermon that I heard today – defines four groups of people around you: VDPs (Very Draining People), VNPs (Very Neutral People), VEPs (Very Energizing People), and VIPs (Very Important People). You deserve to have VEPs and VIPs be the centerpiece of your life.

You know a VDP when you see one:

You react negatively to VDPs because they are negatively affecting your life. Advice you have for them is turned around back on you. Your time with them is not productive, and there is no learning. There is a negative feedback: VDPs’ attitude has a high transmissivity. Cosmetically appealing or not, they are not worth your time.

If a VDP is an overcast day, then a VNP is a mostly cloudy day. A company that is breaking even isn’t much better than a company that is losing money. When the goal is to have relationships that add value to our life, a VNP is still a loss. If names surface after asking these questions, it’s probably time to do some spring cleaning:

I like the spirit of being a gift in someone’s life. Presence alone isn’t a present.

What does where you want to live look like? What does where you want to work look like? What characteristics do the people in those places have? VEPs should be there, and they should be there in abundance, too. You’ll know you’re in good company when they add value to your life or they surface on this list:

These people are your top-shelf peers who you connect with and make your life better. There are those, however, who are there to not just help and guide you, but they are also there to build, grow, and sacrifice for you. You need at least a couple of VIPs nearby:

The VIPs are there to not just celebrate your life, but they actively make it better and are rarely if ever not willing to make you healthier, wiser, smarter, and more successful. Alternatively, you have the same or similar obligation to them.

Your friendships and relationships will drive the joy, happiness, and success of your life – at least in part – so it’s best to get good company around you. Filling your life with VEPs and VIPs is paramount to your success at home and work. You must also work to eliminate VDPs and VNPs from your life and world; let them go for – if nothing else – your own peace. VDPs and VNPs may return to your life, but they are not worth your time if they have no potential or intent to become a VEP or VIP quickly. Before this work begins, though, you must learn to question the relationships and friendships you have and identify the VDPs, VNPs, VEPs, and VIPs.

If you find yourself in a swarm of VDPs and VNPs, it’s time to move forward elsewhere. If you find your work environment making you into a VDP or VNP, it’s also a signal that you must move on.

Structure relates to function, and you can’t afford to sink to the level of being a VDP or VNP.

Who enters the room and immediately makes you smile? Who has sacrificed for you to make sure you were taken care of? Who is a blessing in your life and works to make you better? Answering these questions are paramount your success and your ability to make others successful.

Long before I got a bobblehead, grocery bags with his name on them, worked with him, spoke with him on the phone, or trained to be a meteorologist, Tim Hedrick did something for me that put the pendulum in motion. When you help or speak with someone today, you’ll never know who you’ll inspire over 20 years later.

When I learned of his death, I immediately went looking for photos of or with him. I only found one with him, and I found several of him. A few hours later, I realized I had one memory of him that I have had for over 25 years.

I was at my mother’s house a day later, looking through bookshelves and bins in my old room. I couldn’t find that memory. A few days later, my mother thought I might have it at my home. I went through my bookshelves, and I found it.

The memory of him is from when I was a young child, approximate 5 to 8 years old (I can’t remember exactly). I went to the Blue Ash branch of the Hamilton County Public Library one morning during the summer for a short weather presentation Tim was giving; Tim was just starting a career in Cincinnati. I remember my mother taking me there, but I don’t remember the presentation. Before the presentation, my mother encouraged me to bring something for me to get Tim’s autograph. I brought a book my mother had gotten for me through the Scholastic school catalog (remember those)? Because I was young, it was simple and appropriate for an early grade school student.

After days of searching, I found that book today:

The book is very fragile. The book is intact, but it wouldn’t take much to get pages falling out of the book. Inside of the book’s front cover is a special message:

In an ironic twist as I read these words today, rays of sunlight started pouring from behind the clouds through my window.

As I have mentioned an earlier blog post on April 9, 1999, my love of meteorology was strong as a young child, waned some through grade school (mainly by the amount and other types of school work), and developed again in the wake of the Blue Ash/Montgomery/Symmes Township tornado.

I suppose things end about where they begin. My time with Tim began with sun, had days of turbulence, days of storms, days with bumps, but ended with sunshine. No bobblehead will inspire you to follow a dream, but words of inspiration early in the game seemed to do the trick for me.

Everyone has dates that cannot be scrubbed from their mind. September 17, 1996 is at the top of my list. It is the day that my father suddenly died.

Long before his death, my father lived his dream. He was born in Freeport, Long Island, and his father – my grandfather – was a pilot for TWA. My grandfather was a navigator and often flew flights from New York to Europe on Lockheed Constellations. Because of this, mMy father was destined to be a pilot from the time he was born. He got his pilots license before his drivers license. He soloed in an airplane at age 16 in 1966.

My father worked from crop dusting all the way to being a corporate pilot. He had licenses for multi-engine planes and even for hot air balloons. He loved to fly.

He shared that love of flying with me. He refused to let a commercial airline pilot give me my first flight; he took me up for a quick flight just days before I flew commercially:

As I grew, his love for aviation and flying remained strong. I spent a lot of time in a cockpit as a child:

I always thought it was cool to be in a plane and see all of the dials and controls in front of me. Perhaps it was the view out the window of one of my father’s planes that got me interested into weather. My mother can’t remember a time where I haven’t loved weather, and I don’t think my father could either.

We would travel as a family in airplanes. Road trips were only for trips to Indiana to see family or nearby to Rocky Fork Lake.

My father was a proud Purdue University graduate. After living in Long Island very early in his life, his parents moved to northwestern Indiana. His love for aviation grew there; after getting his license, he went to Purdue and focused on aerospace and aviation. He wanted to make flying his career. Years later, when he had a son, it was clear he would fly him places and Purdue would be a place his son respected. Even at Acadia National Park, a picture of Neil Armstrong (the first man on the moon and a Purdue graduate) holding a Purdue flag covered my father’s shirt and mine:

Unsurprisingly, my father was a USAF ROTC Cadet. The Army or Navy did not have the draw that the Air Force did…for obvious reasons.

My father came to Cincinnati in 1979. He flew Challengers, Lear Jets, and Hawkers for Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores and Chemed. He was based out of Lunken Airport for his job but also as a private pilot. He owned numerous airplanes, and he loved to take his wife and son to places. He was a flying instructor, and even gave me two lessons was I was 11 years old.

Of course, some of those trips were related to aviation, such as Kitty Hawk, North Carolina:

Other trips were to Michigan, Minnesota, Maine, or other scenic spots. With his help, I was fortunate enough to visit over 40 states by age 11.

Because he loved to fly, he was away from home a lot. My mother was a teacher, and she was often there to pick me up from school or get me to practice as I grew older. Despite being under the care of my mother most of my childhood, my father seemed to make it a priority to help me and bond with me when he was around. For the first ten years of my life, I seemed to bond with him more than my mother.

My father was a determined man. As a pilot, he had no choice but to get the plane on the ground every time; that way of thinking translated into other aspects of his life, such as putting a basketball pole 10 feet under ground at my childhood home when I was 9. It took all day, but that pole was getting in the ground:

Some of my memories with him as a child have faded with time, but many have lasted to this day thanks to photos.

Unfortunately, my relationship with my father ended suddenly on September 17,  1996. He was flying in east-central Indiana when the plane he was flying had a mechanical malfunction and crashed.

I remember the phone call as an 11-year-old. I answered the phone, and a man said “Is your mother there?” I passed the phone to my mother, and went back to playing with Legos. Several minutes later, I remember looking up at my mother crying and still on the phone. She got off of the phone to deliver the news, and in a matter of hours, there were dozens of people at the house.

There were a lot of people at my father’s funeral. He was well liked, and I remember how many people had good things to say about him.

19 years later, I still think of him and how life would be different with him here. My mother and I both agree that our lives now would be similar in many ways to what would have happened if he was still here, but we still wonder what specifically would be different.

I learned a lot about the grieving process in the years following my father’s death; most importantly, I learned that the process is different for everyone. Friends grieving from murder or a prolonged, drawn-out death have reached out to me in the last 19 years, and I’ve learned that being there long term and just being a shoulder to cry on or a person to listen is the right way to handle those situations. Being exposed to the grieving process at an early age made me realize how unique our experiences in life are.

On a daily basis, I think of my father when I check weather conditions. One of the prerequisites to getting clearance to takeoff is knowing the weather conditions at the airport for which you are departing. I am reminded of my father writing down weather conditions on a piece of paper in the cockpit and talking to the control tower every time I check the latest weather observation at Lunken Airport. With aviation being so closely linked to weather, it makes sense that I am a meteorologist today because of what my father taught me and/or exposed me to.

On Wednesday, I was at Lunken Airport for a meeting, I took a photo of the terminal not just because of it’s scenic qualities, but because it reminds me of my father:

Nearly 20 years after his death, I still remember my father being a “by the book” man. His friends – many of whom I still talk to and know very well to this day – remember him as Dale “know when to have fun, but default to sticking to the rules” Dimmich. He did not cut corners, and he kept the eye on the goal. Safety was his top priority, but taking care of others – including his passengers – was a close second. While my dad was known for these things, those around me can make a strong case that those qualities have been passed on to me.

There were moments where my father was a fighter and stuck up for what was right. There were times where he contemplated issues and got frustrated. He disagreed with people. There were some that got in his way or clawed at him. I saw he was human; even in the limited about of time I spent with him, I learned that getting it all right was not always easy and was sometimes unattainable.

Most importantly, my father taught me about a dream. He wanted to fly, and he became a pilot; similarly, I loved weather, and I became a meteorologist. His death, however, taught me a lot about how distancing yourself from the dream (even if occasionally) can be a good thing. Had my father not being flying in that plane September 17, 1996, my father would likely be still be here. I have no way of knowing what would have happened had he not been flying that day, but I’ve thought a lot about that flight. Do I celebrate him dying doing what he loved, or do I wish he had taken fewer flights to decrease his odds of something going wrong? Either way, I know there are hazards in any job, but I’ve often pushed myself back from the desk to enjoy life elsewhere. Time away from the hazards is not only good for the soul, but it may tip the scale just enough to make life longer.

The metaphor of flying – from takeoff to taxi and from arrival to departure – is a good metaphor of life. My father and I had 11 years together; that’s not a lot of time, especially when you don’t remember half of those years. What my father did do, however, is plant a seed of success in me. He never saw the plant grow to its peak, but he gave it the support to live.