Lilly, Doug, 1988-08-08

Oral history interview with Doug Lilly, 1988. Interviewed by Nancy Gauss. 1 sound cassette (ca. 1 hr.) : analog, mono. UCAR/NCAR 49; two physical versions (one master, one copy). Forms part of the UCAR/NCAR Oral History Collection. Doug Lilly begins the interview by discussing his educational training prior to arriving at NCAR. Although Lilly completed his undergraduate work in physics at Stanford University on a Navy ROTC scholarship, he always envisioned going into meteorology. After serving his time in the Navy, Lilly attended graduate school at Florida State University in Tallahassee with a one year break spent in Germany working for Radio Free Europe flying balloons with propaganda into Eastern Europe. After graduate school Lilly spent five years working at the United States Weather Bureau, before NCAR was established. Lilly visited NCAR in his fourth year at the Bureau and decided to move their permanently in 1964. Lilly reminisces about working with some of NCAR’s first generation computing systems and provides some impressions about the people, culture and facilities at NCAR at the time of his arrival. Lilly speaks about his research goals and preference for being involved in smaller-scale activities rather than large-scale field programs like the GARP project, although he was involved in the formulation of some of these programs. Lilly provides personal insight and general observations into NCAR’s strengths and weaknesses in research, management, organization and culture throughout the years.