3 STAR Scientists Honored with Distinguished Career Awards
9 December 2014 - NOAA's Distinguished
Career Award honors cumulative career achievement of sustained
excellence, rather than a single defined accomplishment. Three
distinguished managers and scientists at STAR were honored this year.
Felix Kogan, Bill Pichel, and Kent Hughes have together served NOAA for
over 100 years.
Kent H. Hughes (OceanWatch)
Distinguished Career Award for Excellence in Management and Supervision
Kent was honored: "For sustained excellence and leadership in scientific management and
support for the NOAA ocean mission during 42 years of public service.
Through May 2014, Mr. Hughes' federal service spans 43 years and 8
months under three federal Departments (Interior, Navy and Commerce), 8
U.S. Presidents, and every NOAA Administrator (10). He has served
extensively at sea for the Department of Interior and U.S Navy in the
Pacific, as Deputy Director of the NODC, Division Director of SOCD, and
Program Manager of NOAA CoastWatch. Mr. Hughes has chaired NESDIS Line
Office level committees including the Combined Federal Campaign and
Equal Employment Opportunity.
Felix Kogan (SMCD / EMB)
Distinguished Career Award for Excellence Scientific Achievement
Felix was honored: for applying NOAA satellite data to monitor
global land surface conditions and providing data for critical
applications worldwide.
Felix joined NESDIS in 1985, applying his expertise to a number of
areas, including remote sensing; ecosystems; climate and weather
impact assessments; land cover/land use change; monitoring droughts,
desertification and deforestation; mosquito-borne diseases;
productivity of land landscape; some issues of agriculture and
forestry; agricultural meteorology and climatology; and environmental
zoning.
Felix has acted as Principal Investigator of numerous national and
international projects funded by the Agency for International
Development, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization,
NATO and NOAA. He has lead global-scale international cooperation with
government institutions, universities, and private organizations in
transferring new technologies. He is a member of the UN World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) Technical Team and of the editorial
board of the Indian Journal of Remote Sensing.
William G. Pichel (SOCD / MECB)
Distinguished Career Award for Excellence Scientific Achievement
Bill was honored: for continuously advancing state-of-the-art satellite
operational ocean remote sensing throughout 44 years of service to
NOAA.
Mr. Pichel's career with NOAA began in 1970 when
he joined the NOAA Commissioned Corps and served aboard the NOAA Ship
Researcher attaining the rank of Lieutenant and serving as Computer
Officer. He has been an employee of NESDIS since 1973. He has been
Product Area Leader for Oceanographic Products (1973-1985), Chief
of the Product Systems Branch (1985-1988), and then since 1988 has
been a research scientist in the ORA/ORAD. His primary research
interests have been in improving satellite sea surface temperature
measurements and in ocean applications of synthetic aperture radar
(SAR) data. He served as PI on ERS-1 and RADARSAT-1 SAR projects,
and Co-I on an ERS-2 SAR project. He is now PI on ENVISAT, ALOS,
and RADARSAT-1 projects, all related to demonstrations of coastal
ocean applications of SAR data.
Currently the focus of his SAR
work is the Alaska SAR Demonstration and the Gulf of Mexico Experiment
which are near real-time and retrospective demonstrations of
practical SAR applications (high-resolution surface winds for
safety of life and property, vessel positions for fisheries management
and enforcement, river ice spring breakup monitoring for hazard
warnings, sea ice imagery for ice forecasts, oil spill mapping,
and river plume monitoring). He has received four Dept. of Commerce
Bronze Medals (2002, 1999, 1997, 1993) for his work in developing
ocean requirements, for the Alaska SAR Demonstration, for implementing
a system for operational use of RADARSAT SAR, and for CoastWatch sea
surface temperature product development and implementation. In 2004
he received the Dept. of Commerce Silver Medal for his work on
convergence zone monitoring with satellite data in support of
marine debris detection.
