{"id":12605,"date":"2020-03-31T16:49:12","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T16:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/?p=12605"},"modified":"2020-07-10T15:43:22","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T15:43:22","slug":"remembering-tom-haig-satellite-pioneer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/articles\/12605","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Thomas Haig, satellite pioneer. June 12, 1921 &#8211; March 15, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">\n\t<!--START Juicebox EMBED.-->\n\t<script src=\"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/plugins\/ssec_slideshow\/include\/js\/juicebox_lite_1.5.1\/web\/jbcore\/juicebox.js\"><\/script>\n\t<!--suppress JSUnresolvedFunction -->\n\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n        let jb = new juicebox({\n            containerid: \"juicebox-container\",\n            backgroundColor: \"rgba(0,0,0,.9)\",\n            galleryWidth: \"100%\",\n            galleryHeight: \"100%\",\n            configUrl: \"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/ssec_slideshow\/v1\/config\/10150\"        });\n\n        \/\/ re-enable right click that Juicebox disables by default\n        jb.onInitComplete = function() {\n            document.getElementById('juicebox-container').oncontextmenu = null;\n        };\n\t<\/script>\n\t<div id=\"juicebox-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"><\/div>\n\t<p style=\"text-align: right\"><a href=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Edit Slideshow<\/a><\/p>\t<!-- END Juicebox EMBED -->\n\n    <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thomas\nO. Haig, former executive director of the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison Space\nScience and Engineering Center (SSEC), and pioneer in remote sensing, died on\nMar. 15, 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A retired US Air Force Colonel, Haig joined SSEC founder\nVerner Suomi as executive director in 1970, serving in that capacity until\n1979.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Haig\u2019s instrument design experience would inform his work at SSEC. Before coming to UW\u2013Madison he directed the development of the polar-orbiting meteorological satellite program for the Air Force. In the early 1960s, he was selected to lead a classified program tasked with developing a weather satellite that could help the military collect aerial reconnaissance imagery for tactical forecasts.&nbsp;That program was later named the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. By suggesting that the camera optic axis should be aligned with the satellite spin axis, Haig&#8217;s ideas became key to resolving imaging difficulties with the early satellite instruments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Haig joined SSEC at a pivotal time in the field of remote sensing. The advances in geostationary imaging of weather systems of the 1960s had set the stage for the development of cutting-edge tools to navigate the images onto earth latitude-longitude locations, and then, to animate and analyze those images. To meet the new challenges posed by a wealth of satellite data, Haig and Suomi, along with a team of scientists and engineers, developed WINDCO, a prototype system to visualize satellite data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote is-style-ssec-pull-quote\"><blockquote><p><em>Tom knew how to get things done and was key <br>to making this and many other projects of interest to Vern Suomi happen.<\/em><\/p><cite>Hank Revercomb, former director of SSEC<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>They demonstrated WINDCO to officials from NASA, the\nNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science\nFoundation in 1972. With encouragement from the agencies, the SSEC team\ndesigned and built an operational version of WINDCO, today\u2019s Man-computer\nInteractive Data Access System (McIDAS). It was the first data visualization\ntool of its kind and importantly, it allowed scientists, for the first time, to\nderive winds from tracking cloud motions that are crucial to weather\nforecasting.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Haig\u2019s own words, \u201cToday, throughout the world, when you\nsee a weathercaster on TV standing before an image of moving clouds combined\nwith graphic displays of other data \u2013 thank SSEC. It was all developed there\nand given to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Haig\u2019s meritorious career service was recognized with three\ncommendations, two Legion of Merit medals and the Space and Missile Pioneer\nmedallion from the Air Force, a silver medallion designating him a Pioneer of\nSatellite Meteorology from the Secretary of Commerce and election to the Hall\nof Fame at the National Reconnaissance Office. His portrait hangs in the Hall\nof Fame at Air Force Space Command, Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With an abiding sense of the importance of extended family\nand community, Haig and his wife, Bobbie, opened their home to dozens of foster\nchildren while raising their own family.&nbsp;\nAfter his retirement from SSEC, Haig dedicated his creative energies to benefit\nthe Madison area through involvement with theater and leadership of the Madison\nTheater Guild. He is credited with establishing the Bartell Theater in Madison.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He remained a creative force within the SSEC community, often returning to suggest new projects and to amaze with his total recall of the evolution of satellite remote sensing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thomas O. Haig, former executive director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), and pioneer in remote sensing, died on Mar. 15, 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-12605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-stories","tag-cimss"],"acf":{"include_for_media_link":"no","guest_author":[{"first_name":"","last_name":"","link":""}],"sub_title":"June 12, 1921 - March 15, 2020","ssec_home_page_carousel_image":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2020\/03\/Tom_Haig_Web_Banner.jpg","short_title":"Remembering Thomas Haig, satellite pioneer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12605"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13013,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12605\/revisions\/13013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssec.wisc.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}