Candidate for
Board Member; McKinleyville Community Services District; 2 Year Term

My name is Don Dodd and I am running for the Board of Directors for the MCSD. And I'll say right up front that if your main criteria is someone who was born locally and believe that only a native will understand and can contribute to the positive growth of this community then you won't vote for me no matter what. You need not read any further.

I am honored to have served the public now for over 20 years and I am eager to offer my services to the community that I have chosen to make my home and in which I will raise my children. And while I may have no direct experience working for the local public works department treating water (I wonder how many of our board members actually do) I do have direct experience managing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment and assets that belong to the taxpayer. I take pride in my abilities and experience and federal training as a supervisor and in ensuring the health, welfare and safety of my employees.

If you managed to read last weeks Press you may have gotten a sense of my extensive career as a civil servant. As a brief overview of who I am, I am currently the Systems Analyst and Program Manager for the Electronics Program at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Eureka, CA. I am also the Information Technology Specialist for the National Weather Service which is a part of NOAA the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and so I have a variety of skills to offer in service of my community. As a manager I am responsible for the supervision of several Technicians that maintain the local Doppler Radar and all the surface weathers sensors in our County Warning Area (CWA) such as the Automatic Surface Observing Systems or ASOS at Arcata/Eureka (which we know is really McKinleyville) Airport and Crescent City Airport, Ukiah Airport, and Santa Rosa Airport. The Electronics Program also supports the NOAA Weather Radio transmitters at Brookings, OR, Eureka, CA or Mount Pierce, CA, Ukiah, CA, and Cold Springs Peak, CA. Our office issues forecasts watches and warnings that serve the communities from Oregon to Santa Rosa out into the Trinity Alps. As an IT Specialist I support the Advanced Weather Information Processing System or AWIPS which is a vast network of computers that process all of these inputs from the various weather sensors and compiles the information into useable data that can be issued to the public. And as a Systems Analyst I am also the systems administrator of the local area network for WFO Eureka, CA. These systems are required by federal standards to be operational 96% of the time for the protection of life and property. I meet or exceed these requirements annually.

The image that is produced by the local radar I support can be viewed at:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/radar/latest/DS.p19r0/si.kbhx.shtml

The Eureka National Weather Service Homepage can be viewed at:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/Eureka/