Did you know who Joe Fletcher is?

Who is Joe Fletcher?

Joseph O. Fletcher was the driving force behind the development of U.S. arctic drifting stations. Air Force Lt. Col. Fletcher established ice station T-3: the first U.S. drifting station. Col. Fletcher, Air Force Alaskan Air Command, also participated in establishing Ice Station Alpha for the International Geophysical Year in 1957. Fletcher's dedication to arctic research found expression in numerous leadership positions. He headed the Air Force Geophysics Research Directorate at the Air Force Cambridge Research Center in 1950. He served briefly as the first Arctic Ice Dynamics Joint Experiment (AIDJEX) program coordinator, a position he left to head the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs. He served the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as director of the Environmental Research Laboratories in Boulder, and as assistant administrator and head of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.

Fletcher recognized the value of scientific data management, and was instrumental in the development of the Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set. COADS contains marine data from ships, moored environmental buoys, and drifting buoys dating to 1854 in the most extensive data set of surface marine observations ever compiled.