Introduction

Hello everyone!

I am Austin Pearson and I am a new Purdue Extension Educator in Howard County. My main focus is in Agriculture and Natural Resources and I am trying to gain as much experience from Paul Marcellino as possible. I will be in Howard County for at least six months to up to a year as part of the Extension Educator Development Program. Once I complete this program, I will hopefully receive a position in another county in the central region of the state.

I am very happy to be back in Kokomo after being away for six years. I grew up on the south side of Kokomo and went to Western High School. I graduated in 2009 and began studying agricultural meteorology at Purdue University in fall 2009. 

While studying at Purdue, I was able to work at the Indiana State Climate Office where I gathered data for public requests and forecasted for the Purdue University Field Crops group during the drought of 2012. From this experience, I developed an interest in Purdue Extension and how they serve the various communities in Indiana. During the summer of 2012, I also was the intern meteorologist at WLFI-TV 18 in West Lafayette, Indiana. In May 2013, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Meteorology in the Agronomy Department. 

After graduation, I married Alicia Hobbs (from Russiaville) and continued to live in West Lafayette. Our honeymoon was rather interesting. Alicia and I traveled to West Palm Beach, Florida during tropical storm Andrea. I remember receiving an early phone call that we had tornadoes near us one morning. Being a meteorologist, I thought it was kind of a cool experience. Even though it rained almost the whole vacation, Alicia and I made the best of the situation and found plenty of museums and attractions to visit. 

When we returned from our honeymoon I began working as an air quality technician at the Purdue Applied Meteorology Laboratory. While working in this position, I studied the influence of anhydrous ammonia applications on greenhouse gas emissions from corn fields at the Purdue Agronomy Center for Research and Education. Somehow, my boss trusted me with very expensive equipment at our research site and I managed to not break anything while I was there. This position lead to graduate school where I worked under Dr. Richard Grant. I began graduate school in January 2014 and graduated with a Master of Science in December 2015. 

I am beginning this blog to get back into weather forecasting and to provide educational articles about weather and agriculture. I am open to any advice of the information you all would like to see. I would like to provide daily forecast information and at least one article a week. 

Once again, I am very excited to be back in Howard County and I look forward to meeting many of you in the coming year. Please like our county Facebook page and follow us on twitter for event information.

The link for our Facebook and Twitter accounts are below:

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=purdue%20extension%20-%20howard%20county

Twitter: 

https://twitter.com/PUExt_Howard

My contact information is provided below:

Address: Howard County Government Center

               120 E Mulberry St.

               Suite #105

               Kokomo, IN 46901

Phone: 765-456-2313

Email: pearsona@purdue.edu