Gerry O'Mahony—Thirty Years On

Gerry, 54, has joined the directing staff of the Australian Administrative Staff College at Mt. Eliza. His successor as Assistant Director Computing is his former deputy, Ross Maine.

Scientific talents aside, Gerry's repartee had made him a Bureau institution. At his farewell he received a portable typewriter and the genially offensive reminiscences of colleagues from three decades with the Bureau. Some memories: O'Mahony, always nimble of tongue, coming from his beloved Western Australia in 1941, and wearing an overcoat during a Melbourne Christmas in protest against the poor weather . . . O'Mahony, known to the Yanks as "Omar Honey" . . . the "terrible man" from WA, interested in only weather and cricket" . . . later, O'Mahony wrestling with the planning and operation of the Bureau's two computers, his "infernal machines".

Gerry, B.A., B.Sc., M.Sc., offered Weather News the following "Life and Memoirs"—("try using iambic pentameter"):—

I joined Met in 1940 after an apprenticeship in the PMG as a clerk. My introduction to meteorology was in the Perth Bureau. In 1941 after transfer to the RAAF I came to Melbourne to a Weather Officer's training course. After discharge from the RAAF in April 1946 I seemed to spend my time oscillating between aerodromes in W.A. and the University, accumulating frustrations in both institutions.

In 1953 I was translated to Melbourne to the Statistical Section. In 1957, the then Director, L. J. Dwyer, commissioned me to go to America to investigate hydro-meteorology techniques being used in the United States Weather Bureau. I was given the job of betting up hydro-meteorology within the Bureau.

Mr. Dwyer then inveigled me into exploring the mysteries of automatic data processing and electronic computing, and my waking moments since 1962 have been mostly occupied in this field. A significant milestone was reached in 1968 when we installed the first of our 360/65 computers after three years of rather strenuous planning, both for the equipment itself and the building and the environmental conditions in which it would operate. Since then, the major problems within the ADP Division have been associated with recruiting, and above all retraining, trained staff.

Bureau of Meteorology