Long-time viewers of the Weather Channel may remember Melissa Tuttle, who worked the weekend overnights about five or six years ago. She hasn't appeared on-camera in years but she is still working at TWC and doing quite well apparently. Women in Cable Telecommunications did a feature on her recently, telling about what she has been doing since leaving the OCM apprentice program. Very impressive, check it out.
http://www.wict.org/WICT/Research/PARNe ... leCarr.htm
Melissa Tuttle Carr knows that you don’t have to supervise people to be a leader. Carr is the manager of weather information distribution for the Weather Channel. In that role she manages cross-departmental projects, writes technical requirements, and provides customer support for the channel’s distribution systems. She also manages numerous data sets, investigates new data sources, and serves as a liaison to the National Weather Service (NWS).
Although she has no direct reports, Carr has sought a variety of opportunities to gain leadership experience during her 10 years with the company. She is a participant in The Weather Channel’s Leader Certification Program and expects to graduate in December 2007. She is a member of the board of directors of the Atlanta Lady Thrashers Women’s Ice Hockey Team, and she chaired the Social Concerns Committee at her church. Her most ambitious leadership project is probably her involvement with the Weather and Society—Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) workshop.
WAS*IS seeks to integrate the weather industry with social science so that people better understand weather predictions and how to respond, Carr explained. She applied to attend the workshop and was selected. The Weather Channel gave her the week off to participate and paid her expenses.
While at the workshop, Carr and others launched the WAS*IS Partnership Initiative, which seeks to improve communication and collaboration between the government and private sectors for the benefit of the entire weather enterprise and the public. Carr now works closely with the initiative’s co-lead at the National Weather Service to promote this collaboration. She has given nearly a dozen presentations to some 300 individuals in government, industry, academia, and other weather-related groups.
“WAS*IS has helped me from a career perspective. I’m learning a lot, networking, and spreading my wings beyond my daily job,” she said. Plus, she finds the work rewarding. “We have helped to initiate numerous projects that are very important to the weather industry and that in their end state will help the public get the weather information they need. I’m very proud of my work on that.”
Advice to Women
Carr had this advice for women: “Be true to yourself. You have to have passion for what you’re doing,” she said. Carr also recommended that women seek leadership opportunities. “If you’re not leading in your day-to-day job, that doesn’t mean you can’t lead in your company,” Carr said. She suggested that women look for opportunities in company-sponsored activities, such as diversity councils; industry groups, such as WICT; and community groups such as church and volunteer organizations. “There are chances to learn leadership skills everywhere in and out of the work place. You need to be open to seeing those,” she said.
Proudest Accomplishment
Carr cites her work with WAS*IS as her proudest accomplishment. “[WAS*IS] has opened up a lot of opportunities for improvement in the weather industry. That is so exciting,” Carr said. “In the end, it helps the public. It help everyone from the emergency manager to the random guy sitting on his couch trying to understand whether he needs to evacuate or not.”
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