SUMMIT COUNTY RESIDENT HONORED FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
TO NOAA’s NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE VOLUNTEER
OBSERVER PROGRAM
Recognizing 42 years of dedication, NOAA’s National Weather Service
has named Marvin Mair at the Echo Dam, Utah, a 2009 recipient of the agency’s
John Campanius Holm Award for outstanding service in the Cooperative
Weather Observer Program. The award is one of the agencies most prestigious,
and only 25 were awarded in 2009 to deserving cooperative weather observers
in the country. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is
an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The John Campanius Holm Award was presented to Mr. Mair in a small
ceremony by Dr. Lawrence Dunn, Meteorologist in Charge of the Salt Lake City
Forecast Office. Also in attendance were Mr. Steven Summy, Observations
Program Manager Salt Lake City Forecast Office, and Eugene VanCor,
Hydrometeorological Technician.
Marvin Mair has distinguished himself by joining such notable American
pioneers as Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson who
maintained early weather records. Jefferson kept an almost unbroken record of
weather observations from 1776 through1816. Washington took his last weather
observations just a few days before he died.
Marvin personifies the conscientious and unselfish weather observers
imagined by Thomas Jefferson when he envisioned a weather network across
the United States. Clearly, he deserves the recognition this award bestows for
his contribution to the nation’s climate record and his community
The Echo Dam cooperative weather station began on February 1, 1940.
Weather records were rather sporadic until Mr. Mair’s father took over the
weather reporting duties in 1961. Marvin assumed the weather reporting duties
from his father in 1968.
There are approximately 300 cooperative weather observers in the state
of Utah. Data collected by Mair and other cooperative observers benefits many
federal, state, and local agencies including the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, U.S.
Geological Survey, and the Natural Resource Conservation Service which use
the information to assist in water and irrigation management.
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