Confessions of an Accidental Meteorologist: Meteorology Then, Now, and ????

From the perspective of someone who entered the field in the paper map, grease pencil, and teletype era, who survived the changeover to the electronic arena, and who now lives in the “you can get anything you want at any time in any place” on-demand internet era, the changes in the field of meteorology over the last 50 years have been stunning in their swiftness, especially since the turn of the 21^st century.  These increasingly rapid changes in the field of meteorology have impacted how students are educated, how research is conducted, how scientific opportunities are seized, how weather forecasts are generated, how new jobs are created, and how jobs are obtained.  This presentation will attempt to address the aforementioned changes from a retrospective and a prospective viewpoint.