Mr. Brian Strahl is the Director of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), a United States Air Force and Navy jointly manned unit charged with tropical cyclone reconnaissance, warning, and decision support from the east coast of Africa to the west coast of the Americas, as well as global tsunami decision support.  JTWC provides strategic level resource protection to Department of Defense assets in excess of 125 billion dollars and over 375,000 permanently-assigned personnel throughout USINDO-PACOM and portions of USAFRICOM and USCENTCOM areas of responsibility. The Departments of Commerce, State, and Homeland Security use JTWC warnings to protect the lives and property of U.S. civilians and allies throughout Guam, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and American Samoa. 
 
Mr. Strahl earned his Master’s Degree in Atmospheric Science from Purdue University in 2000, and began his federal career as a tropical modeling and applications programmer at the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC).  In 2004, Mr. Strahl moved to the Air Force Technical Applications Center where he was a meteorological modeler and analysis section leader, supporting the United States Atomic Energy Detection System (USAEDS) program.  He was instrumental in the acquisition and implementation of the center’s first high performance super-computing cluster.  In recognition of his distinguished performance in support of Operations TOMODACHI and PACIFIC PASSAGE following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power disaster in 2011, Mr. Strahl was presented an Air Force Award for Civilian Achievement. 
Prior to becoming Director, Mr. Strahl held several roles at JTWC since coming to the command in 2011.  Most recently, he served as Strategy and Requirements Department Head (N8) and Senior Scientist, responsible for overseeing the command’s strategic advancement initiatives and requirements portfolio, including the evaluation and integration of state-of-the-art technologies into the Department of Defense (DOD) Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecast system (ATCF).  As Technical Development and Research Coordinator, he liaised with U.S. and international scientific communities to plan, coordinate, and assess research and development efforts. Mr. Strahl has served on the steering committee of the U.S. Weather Research Program Joint Hurricane Testbed, and on the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorology Tropical Cyclone Operations and Research Working Group.  He has co-authored several publications on the topic of operational forecast improvement.
 
Mr. Strahl was competitively selected for the CNMOC Civilian Executive Leadership Program in 2018, and is a 2020 graduate of the Graduate School USA Executive Leadership Program.  He resides on Oahu with his wife and son. 

Last Updated: 6 June 2022