34年, seven months and 13 days of government service — that’s how long Augustana alumna 茱莉亚伯格 ‘88 worked at the National Weather Service (NWS) in 南达科塔州 and Nebraska. A long career, which 伯格 said she owed in part to Augustana.
伯格, 原灵湖, 爱荷华州, was first introduced to Augustana by her father — a farmer who once passed on the opportunity to attend the college.
“它(12bet游戏平台)很小. I came from a small town,”贝格说。, who resides in Glenvil, Nebraska. “I’m an extreme introvert and knowing this now, 我可以回首往事，说, ‘It was small enough that I didn’t feel intimidated, 或者至少, 非常害怕.’”
伯格 said because she was an introvert and also had a part-time job, she wasn’t involved in many activities at Augustana — she was happy being a “wallflower” and liked being at home. 事实上, 伯格 finally declared a major the second semester of her senior year — interdisciplinary studies in mathematics and geography — because meteorology did not exist at Augustana in the traditional sense.
“在我成长的过程中, 作为一个农民的女儿, 天气预报什么时候开始, 你很安静,”贝格说。. ”,, 我妈妈的爸爸, 只是因为他喜欢那里的天气, 我接受了高温治疗, the low and the amount of precipitation and snowfall for like 50 years. So, between the two of them, I kind of got interested in weather.”
In high school, 伯格 recalled telling them that she wanted to do what she thought was impossible. 她想成为国家气象局的预报员.
“Impossible dreams are not impossible if you work hard for them,” 伯格 said.
但是，她首先要迈出第一步. 伯格’s academic advisor at Augustana had a connection at the NWS in 苏福尔斯, 当她还是学生的时候，谁给了她一份兼职工作. After she graduated, the NWS made her a full-time employee, even during a hiring freeze. 过了一会儿, NWS打算取消她的职位, but offered her another opportunity if she was able to get the equivalent of a degree in meteorology.
“In 11 weeks, I took 12 credits in meteorology from San Jose State University — that was my summer. They paid for my room, board, books, tuition and w年龄s. I was one of 18 people chosen from across the whole United States. I was the only female, and I was the youngest by nine years. It was kind of like having 17 older brothers,”贝格说。. “这是一个相当大的成就. 这不是一件容易的事.”
伯格 worked in the NWS Sioux Falls office for 11 years before moving to the Aberdeen, 南达科塔州, 再干五年. In 2003, 伯格 moved to Nebraska to serve as a forecaster for the NWS in Hastings up until she retired in February 2022. Along with her long tenure came a plethora of weather-related anecdotes.
“2009年我取消了圣诞节，”伯格回忆说. “We had a winter storm coming through between the 23rd and the 25th of December. We were just starting to do what we called Impact-Based Warnings. We were looking at potentially 12 inches of snow; we were looking at winds; we were looking at traveling. 你想要多大的影响力? So, it was enough to get people to pay attention to what was going on and travel a little earlier before the holidays.”
和, don’t think she hasn’t heard any and all of the criticism that comes with the title; the criticism that often comes with trying to predict mother nature.
“I would just tell them, ‘Come sit in my seat; do what I do.“我要看五个屏幕. I’ve got multiple forecast models that are telling me different things. I can’t tell you how many times in a day I would be looking at two forecast models and one of them would have a ridge, 这意味着好天气, 另一个则处于低谷, 这就意味着坏天气,”贝格说。. “那么，到底是哪一个呢??’”
Regardless of the criticism and long hours, 伯格 kept at it for more than three decades.
在退休后, 伯格 lives on an acre年龄 south of Hastings with several horses and her corgi, 达科他, 并且爱好丰富, 包括针织, 编织和摄影. 她最亲密的家人, 包括她的哥哥, 父亲和母亲已经去世, which led her to think about what to do with her estate — her legacy. 这使她回到了12bet游戏平台.
“Every semester, I would go in and talk to the business office. I would say, ‘I still want to go to Augustana, but I don’t have the money.’” 和, they would find money for me to go to college,” recalled 伯格. “I knew how much my dad had taken out for college loans, and I knew the approximate cost of my college education and I realized that Augustana had basically written off a third of my college education. 和, the reason they were able to do that was because of donors.”
伯格 said she wouldn’t be where she is today if it hadn’t been for those donors. So now, she has committed to pay it forward with an estate gift that will establish the Julia C. 伯格在12bet中文官方平台捐赠科学奖学金. 伯格’s hope is to give back to those just like her — to wallflowers; to those in need; to those who were once little girls driven to break a glass ceiling or two in the world of science. One day, 伯格 hopes their impossible will be possible, too.