David "Rusty" Billingsley, acting NWS Southern Region deputy regional director (Photo: SRH)
(7/27/2012) - NWS Southern Region Science and Technology Services Division Chief David "Rusty" Billingsley has been assigned the duties of deputy regional director for the region. The assignment was necessitated by the temporary detail of Steven Cooper as acting deputy director of the National Weather Service in Silver Spring, Md.
"The duties and responsibilities of the deputy regional director position in the Southern Region are essential to the operational support of our region and its critical mission delivery," said Bill Proenza, regional director, NWS Southern Region. "With the numerous mission support issues facing the region in the arena of the budget, personnel and other direct field impacting support matters, we cannot afford to have anything less than a full-time, experienced senior staff leader in this position."
A 28-year veteran of the National Weather Service, Billingsley joined the Southern Region headquarters team as a senior member in 2005. Prior to that, he served as a forecaster at the office in Albuquerque, a SOO in Boise, Idaho and as the MIC in Lubbock, Texas. He also served as the manager of the national fire weather program at the National Inter-agency Fire Center in Boise.
Billingsley holds a bachelor's and a master's degree in Meteorology as well as a master's degree in Business Computing Science from Texas A & M University.
Proenza added, "His wide ranging meteorological field experience, computer programming skills and proven leadership is invaluable to a region that experiences such active and extended severe weather events throughout the year."
