James Michael Connelley

After I graduated from WTSC in Canyon, I went to the Air Force Officer Training School and was commissioned in 1963. I spent the first 3 years assigned, as a missile launch control officer on a nuclear missile site in Germany....from there I went to Texas A&M for an MS in Meteorology and spent the next 20-Plus years as an Air Force Meteorologist with lots of different assignments (Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Greenland, Colorado, Montana, Washington DC, Virginia, Georgia, Florida and Nebraska.) I concluded my AF career as Director of Operations at the AF Global Weather Central in Nebraska...some assignments were short 3 months or so and some were 3 years....some seemed they were way too long...lots of exotic places.

I retired from the Air Force in 1984, went for an MBA at Michigan and started a Marketing Career at Raytheon Company as the Marketing Director for Weather programs…my project was the Doppler weather radar which is the weather radar that produce the display you see on TV--the development and production of that project lasted about 7 years....after that program was completed I moved on to a variety of other programs for the FAA that were a derivative of the Doppler radar designed for aviation safety, such as Microburst and wind shear detection.

Later I moved to Alden Electronics as the International Marketing Director for weather products such as meteorological communications and displays systems where I marketed to the World Meteorological Organization member nations.

Following that I went to American Optical (named AOtec after the company went private) as VP Marketing, focused on Government and International Markets until I retired in 2004---AOtec was a fun job where I was involved in the development of laser protective eyewear for the military. In 2004 I started my consulting business and after 5 years, I finally determined that fly fishing is the best way to spend my time....so that's what I do now....and a lot of it! I finally found my niche.

I'm have been living in Hudson, MA since 1985 and don't anticipate moving again...I did enough of that in the Air Force.