Gentleman Doug Gauntlett Retires

I first met Doug Gauntlett when he was posted to Hobart in 1962, not long after he finished his meteorologist training course. He hasn't changed much in almost 40 years; still a quiet, polite and friendly person, self-contained but with a solid core of idealism and compassion.

Even then he projected style and a sense of achievement, exemplified by a white sports car and a place in the state hockey team.

We were on the forecasting roster together for a couple of years, but Doug disappeared during a holiday visit to the Western Australian Regional office; the Regional Director, George Mackay, effectively kidnapped him to cover a staff shortage on the forecasting roster.

Doug was keen to be close to the action, and it wasn't long before he found his destiny with Ross Maine's Numerical Methods Section of the Research and Development Branch.

Numerical weather prediction was emerging as a new and exciting area of research, and Doug participated in early experiments with the University of Melbourne, from which he emerged with a PhD.

Dr Brian Tucker had replaced Neil McRae as Assistant Director (Research) and was keen to see the Bureau become a leader in numerical weather prediction. So Doug was chosen to spend a year at the Geophysical Fluid Dvnamic Laboratory at Princeton in the United States, tailoring their primitive equation model for forecasting experiments in the southern hemisphere.

Those of us still in operational forecasting were incredulous and not a little envious when Doug told us of his impending mission.

Not too many years later I found myself being interviewed by Doug for a position in the newly formed Commonwealth Meteorology Research Centre, an amalgam of Bureau meteorologists and CSIRO research scientists. He put me at my ease when I didn't have a clue what sigma coordinates were.

I worked in Doug's group for five years and was always impressed with his great reserves of tact and patience. One of our favourite characters was "Swiftie Gonzales", the hero of one of Doug's jokes. Swiftie was smooth and charming like Doug himself, and the fastest lover on earth.

Bureau of Meteorology