Dr. Richard L. Carpenter, Jr., earned his Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma (OU) in 1994. His dissertation, "Entrainment and Detrainment in Numerically Simulated Cumulus Congestus Clouds," received OU's Outstanding Dissertation Award in the area of Engineering and Physical Sciences. Dr. Carpenter also received an M.S. in Meteorology from OU in 1989 and a B.S. with Honors in Atmospheric Science from the University of California at Davis in 1985. He is a Certified Consulting Meteorologist (American Meteorological Society). Dr. Carpenter worked as a senior research scientist for the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS) at OU from 1993 to 2000, where he was lead scientist on a storm-scale numerical weather forecasting project with American Airlines. He then joined WDT as Vice President for Numerical Modeling. Dr. Carpenter is experienced with the operational use and commercialization of the Advanced Regional Prediction System (ARPS), Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF), and Global Forecasting System (GFS) models. He developed operational forecasting systems using ARPS and WRF for commercial aviation and broadcast meteorology, international systems using WRF, and global forecasting using GFS for the energy industry. He also has experience with mesoscale processes including fog formation and air pollution, as well as statistical processing of numerical model output. He has taught courses in meteorology at universities such as OU.