b'Conversations with Leadersextreme events, and increasing demand from an expandingoperations, planning and programming, and budget. user base for weather, water, and climate forecasts andTogether, we identify agency priorities and needs and information. More sectors of the economy are nowdevelop longer term strategic goals and objectives, including recognizing the importance of weather information, relyingservice improvements. There is never a dull moment in my on our forecasts to meet todays challenges. job; no two days are ever the same. I think the worst thing is to come in and say, well, I have a slow day today, because it On How NWS is Organized never works out that way. The National Weather Service is fundamentally an operational unit. We have the action verb in our missionFrom a leadership perspective, I visit the field and have statement to provide the data for weather, water, and climategone to over a hundred of our forecast offices. I emphasize and to provide forecastsactually predict the future state,how important the field structure is to accomplishing our which is a very unique aspect of a mission statement for amission in a cost-effective manner. From a headquarters government agency. Within NOAA the word predict mapsperspective, theres always this tension about what we into their mission statement as well. Its the only agency indo, because we know our field structure touches every the federal government that has that word in its mission. Wecounty every day, and is very visible to the countrys entire have a core team of support functions at headquarters, butpopulation. We have to ensure that were all marching most of our staffing is in the field. We are decentralized, withtowards the same goal. We have a very important strategic offices all over the country: 122 weather forecast offices,goal of building a weather-ready nation. Were continually 13 River Forecast Centers, six regional headquarters, ninereminding our workforce that their job doesnt end with National Centers for Environmental Prediction, 20 Centerproducing the most accurate, timely forecasts and warnings. Weather Service Units, two Tsunami Warning Centers, andIt really involves that connection to good decision making, a National Water Center. We have 4,189 funded positionsespecially for public safety. Consistency, therefore, is a onboard. Our agency is small compared to many others, butvery important attribute of our products and services. An our footprint is nationwide. Our budget for FY19: $1.163emergency manager or public safety official, for instance, billion. In the past few years, we conducted an operationscannot be getting three or four different forecasts from the and workforce analysis, which concluded that our localsame agency and be expected to make decisions five, four, presence in communities throughout the country is key tothree days before an event. Thus, we have implemented our ability to provide effective IDSS. Our ability to meet oura collaborative effort. That means all of us rolling up our mission is dependent on local relationships. sleeves and making sure were getting the job done that has to get done with a consistent product in mind.On Leading the NWS DirectorMy top management role is to ensureOn Challengesthat our forecasters have the tools,One of the main challenges I encountered when I became skills, and training they need to providethe NWS director in 2013 was that we didnt have a the excellent forecasts that Americaworking governance structure, which had caused some fairly needs and expects from us. Ourcomplicated budget management issues. My first goal was to operations are decentralized. I trustfix this problem. We developed a new governance structure our forecasters and their managers tothat mirrors our forecast process. I hired a new management do the job we hired them to do. Atteam and implemented a new budget process that maps to PLANNING ANDheadquarters, my executive councilour main portfolio areas. We had to shore up our business PROGRAMMING is comprised of theprocesses to understand where every dollar was going and directors of ourimplement fiscal discipline.core function areasFor example, we did not have a separate budget category for dissemination. Social media is a major way of communicating the forecast, current conditions, and OPERATIONS situational awareness with emergency alerts on cell phones and tablets. How much money were we spending on it? How was it organized? In November 2013, we BUDGET discovered during the severe weather outbreak how fragile our dissemination capability was at NWS. The entire 20 www.businessofgovernment.org The Business of Government'