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NTHMP Chair Position

The NTHMP Chair presides over the NTHMP Coordinating Committee and shall exercise all powers usually incident to the office. In addition to Chairing meetings, the NTHMP Chair also has these responsibilities:

  • Appoints the emergency management and science representatives for the East Coast and Gulf Coast states, confirmed by a majority vote of the Coordinating Committee.
  • Votes only to break a tie.
  • Attend meetings at which important NTHMP recommendations are presented and shall speak on behalf of the NTHMP.
  • Has discretion to close meetings if sensitive matters will be discussed.
  • Approves draft meeting agendas and meeting minutes as prepared by the NTHMP Administrator.
  • Reviews recommendations for NTHMP grants from the Federal Grant Review Panel and provides his/her endorsement of those recommendations to the Analyze, Forecast, and Support Office Director at National Weather Service Headquarters for approval.

The NTHMP Chair position is appointed by the Director or Deputy Director of the National Weather Service on behalf of the NOAA Administrator. The position is reconfirmed by the NTHMP Coordinating Committee every two years after appointment.

NTHMP Chair

The current NTHMP Chair is Dr. Grant Cooper, Director, NOAA/National Weather Service Western Region, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Dr. Cooper was appointed as NTHMP Chair by NWS Deputy Director Laura Furgione in November, 2015. Dr. Cooper replaces Ms. Aimee Devaris as Chair upon Ms. Devaris' departure from the NWS to become the Director, Alaska Region, of the U.S. Geological Survey on November 30, 2015.


Grant CooperGrant Cooper, Ph.D., is the Director of the National Weather Service (NWS) Western Region. His team of weather service professionals at 24 Weather Forecast Offices, 3 River Forecast Centers and 4 Center Weather Service Units provide weather, water and climate services for more than 65 million people in 8 western states.

Dr. Cooper joined the NWS following a thirty year career with the United States Navy. As a meteorologist and oceanographer, he served in a variety of operational weather tours and senior leadership positions including command of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center / Naval Maritime Forecast Center in Pearl Harbor, HI and Naval Central Meteorology and Oceanography Center, Kingdom of Bahrain. As Weather Services Director, Dr. Cooper had programmatic and operational oversight of the Navy’s aviation, maritime and expeditionary weather lines of operation. He also served as the senior meteorologist for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and later for Headquarters, U.S. Pacific Fleet. While on the U.S. Pacific Fleet staff, Dr. Cooper served as a charter member of the National Ocean Council’s Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning Body for the Pacific Islands. His most recent assignment was as a member of the defense acquisition community where he served as senior advisor on the staff of the Navy’s Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence.

Dr. Cooper received his Ph.D. in Meteorology and M.S. degree in Meteorology and Physical Oceanography from the Naval Postgraduate School. He graduated with a B.S. degree in Geological Sciences from San Diego State University.


For more information on the positions within the NTHMP, please see the Official NTHMP Coordinating Committee Members list.




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