Allen Macklin's Biography

I was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, on June 13, 1947, to Rear Admiral W.A.S. Macklin and Mary Margaret (Allen) Macklin. I had an older sister, Margaret Ann. We lived in Norfolk, Virginia; New York, New York; and Woolford, Maryland before my father died in 1957. The following year, my mother and I moved to Frankfurt, Germany, where I remained through high school.

Returning to the U.S., I spent two and a half years at the U.S. Naval Academy pursuing the family military tradition during the tumultuous 1960s. However, I found myself savoring a civilian science career instead. I moved to Seattle, married my high school sweetheart, Sharon Palmer, and enrolled in the University of Washington. I stayed there for graduate work, studying atmospheric turbulence and boundary-layer processes under Joost Businger and Bob Fleagle.

Along the way, my first wife and I parted, and I met my second wife, Diane, with whom I had two children, Christopher (March 14, 1987) and Katherine (June 7, 1991).  Diane and I separated in 1998 and divorced a year later.

After earning a Master's degree, I went to work for NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in 1975, studying atmospheric marine boundary layers of the Alaskan coastal zone. More than thirty years later, I am still enjoying the challenge of scientific research. In the late 1980's I also began to assume managerial and supervisory responsibilities. I am, or have been, the coordinator for several NOAA fisheries oceanography research programs: FOCI, Bering Sea FOCI, and Southeast Bering Sea Carrying Capacity (SEBSCC).  I direct the Bering Sea and North Pacific Ocean Theme Page, a World Wide Web clearing house for information, and co-direct the Bering Sea Ecosystem Biophysical Metadatabase. I co-chair the Alaska Ocean Observing System's Data Management and Communications Committee.