Randy was a founding member of the METplus team and the primary developer of the Method for Object-based Diagnostic Evaluation (MODE) tool that has become so incredibly popular within the verification community. Randy retired in 2020 just as COVID was settling in and causing chaos in our world. Once the doors to NCAR opened again, he came back to the office as a casual employee to work through problems when the team needed his support and expertise. We lost Randy and all of the talent he brought to our mission on May 27, 2024.
Randy grew up in Wadena, Minnesota and graduated from Jamestown High School in 1976. He attended North Dakota State University where he earned a BS in Mathematics. He went on to teach calculus at the University of Wisconsin while earning his Master’s Degree. He relocated to Boulder, Colorado to pursue a PhD in Mathematics. He joined NSF NCAR in 1991 and worked as a software engineer for 33 years.
Randy made vast and numerous contributions to the scientific community, and his perseverance and tenacity for problem solving were legendary. As a brilliant mathematician and software developer, he was instrumental in the creation and support of tools (e.g., MODE; Method for Object-based Diagnostic Evaluation) used by countless DTC visitors and staff, as well as the worldwide community of METplus users. Randy was known for his ability to explain things in an easily digestible way and humorous slides in his METplus tutorial presentations.
Randy led an extraordinary life outside of his job. One of his hobbies was astronomy. He wrote a beautiful program that enabled the user to view any solar eclipse from any spatial perspective (e.g., from the moon or any other point in space). He was a gifted guitarist as well. Randy would joke that his favorite "sport" was reading. Reading was a passion that began at a very young age and this love for reading blossomed into a library of books that graced his home and his office.
Randy is remembered as so very much more than his accomplishments or hobbies, though. He had a quirky, mischievous sense of humor that manifested in practical jokes and clever conversations. He took advantage of a coworker’s fear of snakes by luring them to his office with an offer of Halloween candy from the skull on his desk (another Randy staple). A huge fake snake placed at the doorway scared the wits out of this coworker, sending a broad smile across Randy’s face. Another office feature was his Underdog lunchbox on the window shelf. The entire office exuded his mirthful personality.
He was characterized by so many personality traits from stubborn, to generous, to warm, to intractable. Staff and students raved about his ability to present complex information with humor and his unique explanations that enabled anyone to grasp and appreciate the material. He was widely appreciated as a patient teacher and mentor, always finding the time to help staff solve bugs and problems. For Randy, creation was its own reward. He had created his own documentation formatting software and used it for all of his own documentation. Staff raved it was one of the best documentation softwares they’d ever known.
Perhaps the best way to remember Randy was that he closed many one-on-one conversations by asking “Anything else, as long as I’m here?” Yes Randy, we do wish you were still here.
