Ex-Hurricane Center Chiefs: Job's Tough

Bill Proenza, director of the National Hurricane Center, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press Friday, July 6, 2007 at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Proenza was temporarily reassigned Monday, July 9, 2007 amid calls from about half his staff that he be ousted for undermining the public's confidence in the center's forecasts. Director Bill Proenza will be replaced by Deputy Director Ed Rappaport, said center spokesman Dennis Feltgen. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) (Wilfredo Lee - AP)

MIAMI -- A day after the director of the National Hurricane Center went on leave amid leadership questions, former directors said Tuesday he should have listened more carefully to his staff and made changes more slowly.

Bill Proenza went on leave after 23 employees _ about half his staff _ urged his immediate removal last week. Center employees said Proenza damaged public confidence in their forecasting ability and distracted the center from its work.

"I think the bottom line is that he simply did not listen to his senior staff," said Proenza's predecessor, Max Mayfield.

A chief complaint was the way Proenza called for a replacement of an aging satellite called QuikScat, used for hurricane forecasting.

"If he would have hung in there for one season and had kept his head down for one season (without making changes), he would have been much better off," said Jerry Jarrell, director of the center from 1998 to 2000, who now lives in Oregon. "He forgot that he had to be an advocate for the forecasters. He should have waited until he had some more experience, but sort of plunged in."

Still, Proenza's "heart's in the right place," he said.

A hurricane center spokesman said its interim director, Ed Rappaport, was busy preparing for the 2007 hurricane season and would not comment. A cell phone message left for Proenza was not returned.

Proenza, the center's eighth director, had been on the job since January.

Proenza may have set himself up for removal by criticizing his bosses at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on budget shortfalls and other issues, Jarrell said.

"When you criticize your boss and when you do it publicly in the media, you're sort of inviting your subordinates to do the same thing to you," Jarrell said.

Jarrell said that he had at least one situation where he felt he had to be outspoken as director, during a threat of budget cuts in the 1990s, but that he made his comments with the support of his staff and others, including Proenza, he said.

Neil Frank, the center's head in the 1970s and 80s, said he had few controversies during his 13-year tenure, the major one being which office should directly oversee the center. Now the chief meteorologist at a Houston TV station, Frank was credited with reaching out to the media. He said he was careful to work within the system.

"Talking to the media and bypassing NOAA headquarters is fraught with some danger, as you now know," said Frank, who remembered a young Proenza helping him on his doctoral dissertation.

A Commerce Department team sent to conduct a review of the center after Proenza's comments was finishing its work Tuesday. Proenza had said the inspection was unnecessary and blamed some staff animosity on the team, which has a report due to the Commerce Department on July 20. The department oversees NOAA, the hurricane center's parent agency.

The Senate Commerce Committee planned to take up the issue of QuikScat and other weather and environmental satellites in a hearing Wednesday.