Joel Myers

Inducted 2000

Born:  November 3, 1939, Philadelphia, Pa.

Joel N. Myers is founder, president, and chairman of the Board of AccuWeather Inc., the world's leading commercial weather service.   AccuWeather provides weather forecasts, graphics, data, information and computer systems to more than 12,000 clients throughout the world, including 1,000 radio and television stations and newspapers.    

Myers demonstrated his fascination with weather early in life.  At age seven, he began recording daily weather conditions in a journal. While still a schoolboy, he declared his intention to become a meteorologist and form his own weather company. 

Myers founded AccuWeather in 1962 while studying for a graduate degree in meteorology at Penn State.   Not only did he know weather patterns, but he had insight into the impact of weather on businesses and people as well. His earliest successes included working with ski resorts to determine best times to operate snowmaking equipment and with highway crews to decide when to use road salt.

Myers earned his doctorate at Penn State and remained an active member of the Penn State faculty until 1981.  He has served on the Penn State Board of Trustees since 1981. AccuWeather shares his commitment to excellence in education by awarding several scholarships annually to Penn State meteorology students and State College High School seniors.   In addition, AccuWeather is a sponsor of the National Collegiate Weather Forecasting Contest.

In 1971, AccuWeather began service to radio and television stations.  Five of the first seven broadcast stations served by AccuWeather in the early 1970s are still clients. Today, AccuWeather serves hundreds of television and radio stations across the United States and stations in Canada, South America, Africa, Australia, and the Philippines.

AccuWeather's pioneering developments have extended beyond the creation and dissemination of weather forecasts.  In 1983, AccuWeather made color weather graphics available.  More than 200 television stations as well as several networks use these graphics. Another AccuWeather innovation is FirstWarn, a warning service which automatically generates a crawl over a television station's broadcast signal to notify the public as soon as an official warning is issued. 

AccuWeather received the 1997 Technology Company of the Year Award for Growth from the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania.  In 1998, Myers was named one of the greatest entrepreneurs in American history, with his biographical inclusion in Entrepreneur Magazine's Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurs, published by John Wiley & Sons.