Lance Seman, a senior systems engineer at NOAA's Fairbanks Command and Data Acquisition Station, is NOAA's Employee of the Month. The station is part of the Office of Satellite Operations of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS).

Being cited is "a great honor and surprise," he said. Lance lives in Fairbanks, Alaska, with his wife Sheri. He has worked for NOAA/NESDIS for four years and is looking forward to exciting years ahead for NOAA satellite operations.

Lance proposed installing a 3-meter antenna and ingest terminal at Barrow, Alaska, remotely operated from Fairbanks, to provide blind orbit support for NOAA's Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites (POES). A blind orbit is one that cannot be tracked by either of NOAA's Command and Data Acquisition Stations located at Wallops, Virginia, and Fairbanks, Alaska. The Barrow system will replace a station at Lannion, France, that currently supports POES blind orbits, enabling NOAA to support all POES spacecraft contacts with NOAA assets located on U.S. soil - with less cost and more reliability. NOAA will also have new capability to share imagery with Barrow's Native Alaskan population.

"Because of Lance's 'can do' attitude, diligence, persistence and meticulous attention to detail, the system is operational," said Greg Withee, assistant administrator for satellite and information services. Lance provided outstanding leadership for procurement, installation and technical efforts. At the same time, he promoted the achievement of engineering and technical goals and fostered teamwork between contractors and NOAA technical experts. Without his unique blend of leadership, technical skills and dedication, the system would not have been possible."

Lance researched location, identified an excellent NOAA Research facility in Barrow, negotiated approval of the installation and on-site technical support. He generated the systems specifications and initiated the procurement process, later working with contract engineers to resolve all technical issues. Lance also worked with the foundation design engineer and provided on-site oversight for the installation and test effort.

Greg Withee said, "Lance actively participated in every phase of planning and followed the process all the way through to completion." For his diligence, NOAA is honoring him as Employee of the Month.

For more about NESDIS' Office of Satellite Operations, see: http://www.oso.noaa.gov/