GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Green Bay’s only ever Warning Coordination Meteorologist is retiring at “Last.”
National Weather Service’s Jeff Last is calling it a career after 25 years as acting as a liaison between the office, the public, and the media.
He has been in this line for work for 32 years.
The desire to keep his passion for the weather is playing no small part in that decision.
“I think because I enjoy the weather so much, I never got to that point where I was burnt out and I want to continue that interest and that love for meteorology, so this is a good time to expand into other opportunities,” Last said.
The Warning Coordination Meteorologist (WCM) role is one he says he wanted since the day it was announced.
“Back in the early, mid-90s the NWS went through a restructuring which included this new position called the Warning Coordination Meteorologist. It was a position that I was really attracted to as I started my weather service career,” Last said.
Technically speaking, Last is the best WCM Green Bay has ever had.
Now, this is partly because he’s the only WCM that Green Bay has ever had, and he’ll be the first to crack that joke.
His co-workers say he is tough to lose.
“Working with the media, working with the EMs, other partners, schools, DOT, everything. He has his hands full with a lot of thing and he does the juggling very well,” said Green Bay NWS meteorologist, Scott Berschback.
NWS senior meteorologist, Phil Kurimski, said, “During severe weather he’s been a very good source of information, like this last event we had on July 19, he likened it to the event we had Labor Day of 1977, so the fact that he knows those kind of things is really impressive.”
“I still remember the very first day coming in, and Jeff had a one-on-one with me wanting to know what my goals were, where I wanted to see myself in 10 years, in 20 years, and he was very adamant about having that conversation,” said Green Bay NWS meteorologist, Kira Jesse. “It was very great just to have that insight right away from someone who’s clearly passionate about their job and has been successful at it for 30-plus years.”
And after decades of irregular schedules, media requests, and the demands of our wild weather, it’s safe to say that Jeff Last has at last earned this time to enjoy retirement.
Last and his wife are heading to Florida to pursue new opportunities together.
If you’d like to keep tabs with him, he says he’s going to remain active on Twitter– though the content may have more of a tropical lean moving forward.
