Grant Cooper, Ph.D., is the Director of the National Weather Service (NWS) Western Region. His team of weather service professionals at 24 Weather Forecast Offices, 3 River Forecast Centers and 4 Center Weather Service Units provide weather, water and climate services for more than 65 million people in 8 western states.

Dr. Cooper joined the NWS following a thirty year career with the United States Navy. As a meteorologist and oceanographer, he served in a variety of operational weather tours and senior leadership positions including command of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center / Naval Maritime Forecast Center in Pearl Harbor, HI and Naval Central Meteorology and Oceanography Center, Kingdom of Bahrain. As Weather Services Director, Dr. Cooper had programmatic and operational oversight of the Navy’s aviation, maritime and expeditionary weather lines of operation. He also served as the senior meteorologist for U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and later for Headquarters, U.S. Pacific Fleet. While on the U.S. Pacific Fleet staff, Dr. Cooper served as a charter member of the National Ocean Council’s Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning Body for the Pacific Islands. His most recent assignment was as a member of the defense acquisition community where he served as senior advisor on the staff of the Navy’s Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence.

Dr. Cooper received his Ph.D. in Meteorology and M.S. degree in Meteorology and Physical Oceanography from the Naval Postgraduate School. He graduated with a B.S. degree in Geological Sciences (Geophysics) from San Diego State University.

Back to NWS Biographies Page