ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. -- The U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command's Aberdeen Test Center finds that Kelly Fling, supervisory meteorologist and the first female in more than two decades to lead one of the ATEC meteorology teams, is a valuable asset as the Center conducts the Army's test mission to find truth in data and provide Army acquisition makers the information they need to make decisions on the Army's acquisition of new and improved capabilities.
"As we've just celebrated Women's Equality Day, we remember the significance of contributions women in defense have made throughout the years in service to our Army and our nation," said Karen Taylor, ATEC chief of staff. "Kelly and her team make an impact every day to our Army as they support our Aberdeen Test Center's test mission here."
Born and raised in Wisconsin, Fling earned her bachelor's degree in Atmospheric Science from the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. After graduating, she decided to head southwest to Tucson, Arizona where she completed her master's degree in Atmospheric Science at the University of Arizona.
Upon graduation from her master's program, Fling was hired as an intern in 2004 with the Federal Career Intern Program, now called Pathways. Ten and a half years later, Fling is leading the meteorology mission at the test center.
"When I graduated, I never thought I would be an employee for the Department of the Army," said Fling. "I was not exposed to the military throughout my childhood, like many other people [who work here] are," said Fling.
Being hired as the permanent Branch Chief, Fling was the first female to fill this position not only at ATC but amongst all the seven ATEC meteorology teams. To date, she is the only female meteorology team lead within ATEC's Meteorology teams.
"Leadership and professional development is a key element in training our workforce here at ATEC," said Taylor. "In fact, we're in the process of launching an ATEC Leadership Development Program to further develop our seasoned professionals and prepare our more junior team members to take on leadership roles over the course of their careers."
Fling, who was put into a position of leadership early in her career, supervises a four-person team including Mark Mitchell, engineering technician, ATC; Gerald Luft, meteorologist, ATC; Mike Padovani, meteorologist, ATC. Their day-of-day consists of supporting the Army's test mission of testing Soldier capabilities to survive direct- and indirect fire and explosions while in battle.
"Kelly has really furthered our team [progress] by opening up more opportunities for test around APG, which has led to an increased workload. Instead of saying 'no we don't want to get involved,' Kelly says 'how can we get involved and what can we do to support you,'" said Padovani. "Personally, I can't think of anyone else better, to be as good as her, in her position," said Padovani.
Fling and her team work with Army testers and evaluators to provide weather reports and other related data important to the successful testing of the Army's new and existing systems and capabilities.
"It's kind of great here. There's never a dull moment here and there's always something interesting going on. Either something I have never seen before, or something I have never done," said Fling. "It's not the monotonous weather surveillance of day-in and day-out, sunny, clear, it goes beyond that."
A designated Major Range Test Facility, the Army's Aberdeen Test Center is the Defense Department's lead agency for land-combat, direct-fire, and life-fire vulnerability testing.
The meteorology team at ATC is responsible for providing weather data to test range experts on Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. This data helps testers plan and schedule tests for days with the best weather conditions given the test requirements.
"We are trying to minimize noise pollution and pollution from the open burn and detonation activities. We are doing what we can to accomplish the mission without adversely affecting the surrounding community," said Fling. "Additionally, if we see that severe weather may impact APG, we start the communication process with the emergency operations center along with issuing advisories from what we are observing."
One of the daily responsibilities for the meteorologist team is to release packages that are tied to balloons and sent into the atmosphere to collect the temperature, wind, dew point, humidity, and density as rises, according to Fling. The information that is collected from the package is not only used for forecasting efforts but also information goes into a model which then helps the noise model for that day.
Fling's experience with the ATC Meteorology team would have never happened if she was not willing to relocate and advises new college graduates to be mobile and ready for change as they look for career opportunities.
"If you're not willing to relocate than you have limited yourself expedientially. I was willing to go from Wisconsin to Arizona and from Arizona to Aberdeen and it was a big sacrifice. It's not easy and was scary but, thankfully, this worked out for me," said Fling.
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