Transcriber: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Fell in love when I was three years old -
with snow.
I used to stand at the window, according to my mother,
and say, "Snow, snow, snow," as I walked back and forth
as if I could will it to snow heavier and last longer.
As I got older, I realized that didn't work,
although it is interesting that coming to Philadelphia this weekend,
we did have a rare late-season snow.
When I was seven,
I remember a snowstorm, vividly, that tied up the city.
And I was fascinated by how much of an impact it had.
My aunt was stuck in our house because you couldn't travel,
and she slept on the sofa downstairs.
I came down during the night several times
to look out on the snowstorm and what it was doing.
There was no traffic on our street,
and it was such an awesome sight, and yet it was so beautiful.
That same year, my grandmother gave me a diary,
and I started recording daily weather conditions in it,
and as I did that, I started to realize
there were different patterns to the weather.
I started getting up early in the morning
and listened to various radio stations around the country
to try and figure out when the next snowstorm was coming
and piecing together the weather map
because there were no real-time weather maps in those days,
and that started to give me a feel for how things evolved
and some insight into weather patterns.
I was entrepreneurial as a child.
I was always looking to make money.
I had a paper route.
I made potholders and sold them.
I knocked door-to-door,
asking people if they would let me sweep their steps for a dime.
I started to get the idea that maybe there was more to this.
My father showed me an article when I was 11 years old
about a meterologist
who was selling forecasts to fuel-oil dealers,
and I got the idea then
that perhaps my love of weather forecasting
could be combined somehow with a business.
But as I talked about being a weatherman,
some of the adults I know said,
"Don't go into that field:
you'll wind up working for the government" -
the government paid very little in those days -
"There are more, better professions."
But I was not to be deterred.
That was my love, and I kept at it.
I remember a major snowstorm in November of 1953.
November 6th, to be exact.
I pedaled my bike to school, Central High School,
about a mile from my house,
and the forecast called for cloudy with a high of 50 degrees
and a chance of a snow flurry.
I pushed my bike through heavy snow at the end of school back to home.
It took probably a half-hour or more.
The snow was coming down at two inches an hour.
We wound up with 11 inches, and the temperature was 32 degrees.
I started to have an inclination then that perhaps I could do better than that.
(Laughter)
I grew up in East Oak Lane,
and at 15, I was one of the youngest weather observers in the country,
and the snowfall amounts at Oak Lane,
because of the higher elevations,
were sometimes greater than at the airport,
and when it was a significant difference,
I would call in my reports to the Channel 6 meteorologist,
Francis Davis,
and occasionally, he'd put my name in the reports on the air,
which gave me a little bit of fame at Central High School
but also encouraged me to go on with my dream.
Any successful business person has their share of luck along the way,
and I certainly had mine.
My first was getting to Penn State.
My parents could only afford to send me to the state university,
and Penn State had a meteorology program,
so that was the only option.
It turned out, though,
that Penn State had the best meteorological department in the world.
I got a great education,
earned three degrees there,
did research,
had the opportunity to teach for 21 years
and had great mentorship,
Dr. Charles Hosler, who was the department head.
And Charlie knew of my dream,
and he knew of my forecasting prowess -
because I had won 11 straight bets
from the professor who taught the forecasting course -
(Laughter)
and so when someone came to the local gas company and said,
"We want somebody to do weather forecast,"
he said, "I have just the man for you."
I remember the ripped envelope he gave me with a phone number on it
and said, "Call this fellow.
I think he'll pay for weather forecast"
because he knew of my dream
to develop an enterprise like none that had ever existed.
So I did.
They bought the service from me,
paid $50 a month for the three winter months,
and AccuWeather had $150 in annual revenue,
and we were off and running.
You cannot imagine the level of rejection I faced next.
I would call ski areas and [inaudible] companies
and all kinds of prospects,
ask them to buy my service,
and they would say, "You must be crazy.
Weather forecasts are free.
Why would I pay? All I have to do is turn on the radio."
But I kept at it.
When you believe in a dream, you don't give up,
and I kept calling and calling.
My goal was to have 100 paying customers.
And I finally reached that goal after 25,000 calls,
which meant I had 24,900 noes.
But I reached it.
I remember it wasn't only accuracy -
I was selling the idea that my forecasts were more accurate
and proving it to each client -
but I remember when Michael Strauss of The New York Times, the ski editor,
called me and said,
"How much snow will we get from that storm off the coast?"
I said, "It's probably going out to sea; we're not going to get any."
"But if it comes, how much?" He kept persevering.
"I don't think it's coming, but 6 to 12 inches."
Well, guess what?
There was no snow, but the headline read,
"Myers predicts 6 to 12 inches of snow."
So I learned the importance of communication and being precise.
That was as important as the accuracy of the forecast.
I guess I learned something from that because a few years later,
The New York Times called me
"The most reliable man in the forecasting business."
We introduced the AccuWeather name - "accuracy" plus "weather."
I had to come up with a name,
so AccuWeather was a natural, it seemed to me,
and we went on radio with it in 1971,
and our first television station was Channel 6, here in Philadephia.
They again played an important role in the development of AccuWeather.
Our first big event -
where we clearly saved lives and had national attention -
was in 1972, with tropical storm Agnes,
where we predicted widespread flooding well ahead of any other source.
And there was a lot of death and destruction from that storm,
and we saved people -
the first example, clear example, of saving lives.
That was important.
And it's based on us telling people
how, why and what the weather's going to do.
What's the impact going to be?
What do you need to do?
And it's been based on accuracy but also the impact.
The main thing I've achieved
is putting together an organization of amazing people
that are dedicated to my dream and achieving this goal
of providing forecasts that save lives and property.
Probably over our history, we've saved tens of thousands of lives
and tens of billions of dollars in damage.
We now reach 1.5 billion people worldwide
as the largest source of weather forecast and warnings.
We've always strived to do the right thing,
and despite the fact that sometimes it's a bit controversial,
we've gotten blowback,
but we have to tell it the way we see it.
One great example of that was with Hurricane Katrina,
where we were very bold in our forecast,
more dramatic than anyone else,
further ahead,
and we warned of the severity of that storm,
and, of course, it was a disaster.
And we were confident.
We saved 10,000 lives in that one storm.
And as a result, we got cards and letters of thanks,
and that's really -
that's really the best payback for what we do.
(Applause)
Congress recognized what we did by saying,
"AccuWeather issued a forecast
predicting the target of Katrina's landfall
nearly 12 hours before the National Hurricane Center
issued its first warning,
and argued the extra time could have aided evacuation of the region."
Let me give you a few other examples.
Up there is Wrigley Field, and Eddie Vedder was doing a concert,
and he got on the stage and said,
"We just heard from AccuWeather: we need to clear the field.
The Pearl Jam concert has to stop."
They did.
Severe lightning hit the stage 15 minutes later; nobody was injured.
They resumed the concert, and everything was fine.
Union Pacific, one of our clients,
got a warning from us that a tornado was heading toward the tracks in Kansas.
They stopped the trains two miles apart.
The tornado went between the trains.
Both engineers saw it; nobody was injured.
(Applause)
The Caterpillar plant, destroyed, in the bottom.
That's a factory that subscribes to our warnings.
There were no other warnings in effect.
We gave them 23 minutes' notice.
They had 80-some people in the plant; they all got to safety.
As you can see, it looks like an atomic bomb hit
as a tornado destroyed the plant.
That's what we're all about.
Now, I want to present you with a vision of the future.
Imagine you're in a smart car with your family, heading on vacation,
and a rapidly moving coastal storm
is now throwing wind and heavy rain in your path.
The car readjusts your route to avoid the worst weather
to get you there the safest way and in the quickest time.
Imagine a refrigerator in your house that knows what's in the refrigerator,
and we notify it that a ice storm is coming
and you may be trapped in your house for three days,
and it's going to start in five hours.
It immediately tells you,
"Go to the store now, and you need to buy these things
because if you don't,
what you have in the refrigerator
may be spoiled, those things, within three days."
Also, we've already done some of the future
in terms of the length of forecast.
We were the first to have a 10, 20, 30-day forecast, 45.
Very soon, we're going to introduce a day-by-day forecast through 90 days
for every place on the planet.
We also have MinuteCast,
which gives minute-by-minute forecast for the next two hours for every address.
Consider your health.
Here's an example.
You suffer from allergies or asthma or migraines,
and you're about to go on a bike ride into the forest,
and it tells you, on your wearable or on your phone or your watch,
"Delay for two-and-a-half hours.
The pollen count will be down then.
You don't have to worry about an asthma attack or a migraine."
So you put off your bike ride.
It may not seem like a lot,
but clearly, you're going to have much better health and quality of life
for the next couple of days.
We'll never stop innovating and expanding on my dream.
In times of severe weather,
we strive to help people answer the most important questions:
Is my child safe?
Is my mom okay?
Will this hurricane impact my business?
My dream was to create a global enterprise
that answered these and other significant questions.
My message to you today
is if you have a dream, follow that dream.
Don't give up.
Whether you're 3, 33 or 73,
follow that dream and don't give up.
And if you do, you'll have a happier life,
and if you can help a child follow his or her dream,
there's no greater satisfaction.
Following my dream obviously meant a lot to me.
Thank you.
(Applause)