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| Scott Ryan. Image Credit: WLTX-TV. |
Almost 10 years ago Scott Ryan began broadcasting in
Columbia. During that time he became a
fixture of the morning and noon shows.
His enthusiasm and colorful ties have gotten our viewers on their way
each day. Today, Friday, March 9, marks
the end of Scott Ryan’s weathercasts at News19.
It is a bittersweet good-bye. We hate to see him leave, but a wonderful
opportunity awaits him. Scott has
accepted a position with WSI, which is the vendor we use to produce much of
what you see on-the-air each day. They
were as impressed with Scott as we were and created a position for him. His new duties will be to help their
television clients get the most from their computers.
Scott has meant a lot to me and the television
station. First, he is a very good and
conscientious meteorologist. Secondly,
he has a talent for computers and graphics.
Both have served us well.
The weather center operation became more than a one-man
operation long ago. Thus, my management
style has been to let each member do what they do best and want to do. This I learned early in my career from my
boss in Oklahoma City. Scott was
interested in computer programming and graphics.
One of his early tests was to create a way from us to
track our forecasts and performance.
Over time this has helped us refine our forecasts. He also set-up a climatological database
using the Columbia data which has helped us track climate changes and extreme
weather.
Scott helped us manage the text alerts. I was deeply concerned when we were informed
that forecasts and warnings could be generated and sent each day as text alerts. He saw my angst when my reply was “please
tell me that you have automated the warning process.” Can you imagine the idea of manually issuing
all of the warnings while trying to update the web and be on-the-air at the
same time? Scott wrote a program that
would automate the process and it was tried at some of our other Gannett
stations.
It seems that things were always changing in the weather
center. A couple of years ago Gannett
upgraded our graphics system to the Trueview Max system (from WSI). This allowed us to create HD graphics even
though we were not broadcasting the local news in HD at the time. This was a major upgrade and it was at a time
when I was already busy trying to get Climate Matters off the ground. It also was at the end of severe storm season
and was typically busy. Time was in
short supply for me, so I turned over the graphic development to Scott. This was just up his alley and he came
through for us. In fact, a number of the
graphics he has developed have been used by some of the other Gannett stations.
However, his most important achievement in the area of
programming came after the installation of the Trueview Max. Scott developed a program matrix that would
allow us to input the forecast once and it would populate all of the forecast
graphics. This was an enormous benefit
to us because it saved us a least 30 minutes worth of work instead of creating
each graphic individually. He has also
created an almanac program that did the same thing. This was a huge productivity boost and a
number of Gannett stations use it.
Scott has set the standard for the morning weather position.
He has always tweaked my forecasts, but
in a good way. In addition, he has
managed to keep the producers up-to-date on anticipated weather events. This has been a big help so that the
producers know what to expect when I come in to work.
A number of meteorologists at WLTX have gone on to bigger
(and hopefully better) positions since I came to the station. Darci is now our anchor and Ros Runner is
doing weather for the NBC affiliate in Richmond, VA. Todd Santos went to work for NBC WeatherPlus
and is now with the Weather Channel.
Lewis Turner went to our sister stations in Jacksonville, FL, and is
doing weather there. Scott will not be
on-air, but he will be involved with the broadcast clients.
We wish him and his family well. This is a big change in his life and I know life will be unsettled for a few months. However, I also know that he will settle in to his new position and will do well.
