Global Science & Technology Donates Real-Time Pilot Weather Briefing System to Pierpont Community & Technology College

Fairmont, WV – Global Science & Technology, Inc. (GST) is sharing its unique, state-of-the-art weather briefing system for pilots, called BriefNet™, to Pierpont Community & Technical College. The system is being used by students and faculty at Pierpont's Robert C. Byrd National Aerospace Education Center, located at the North Central West Virginia Regional Airport.

"We are so pleased to have a working relationship with Pierpont Community & Technical College," said GST President Chieh-san Cheng. Our BriefNet™ system should be a wonderful asset for students who are training to be aviation professionals."

"The BriefNet™ system is an advanced weather briefing system that simplifies the process of creating and distributing current weather products and notices to pilots," explained Paul Heppner, GST Weather System Products Director. "The system also provides pilots and weather professionals with quick access to weather information."

Using a web browser, pilots or weather professionals can quickly access weather information from any PC or computer. Although BriefNet™ services aviation, the system is general so that it can service any web briefing need, where the user has access to finished products and information. BriefNet™ is a self-contained production system that automates the creation of finished meteorological products from raw input data, making those products available to end-users. In addition to automatic product generation, the system assembles en-route product packages for pilot briefing. Pilots or other end users can obtain weather information briefings from a browser on any PC on the local area network or Internet.

"We are so pleased Global Science & Technology was willing to provide us with such an important and useful tool," said Pierpont Community & Technical College President Dr. Doreen Larson. "Clearly, GST's gift will help give our students real-world weather briefings on the state-of-the-art equipment and software used both locally and internationally."

GST's BriefNet™ system is one of three weather forecasting products Global Science & Technology currently offers. The other two are the METLAB II™ visualization workstation which offers the latest technology for data integration, weather monitoring, user alerts, graphical editing, and more. The third system, called Directmet®, is a low-cost Windows-based satellite data capture, display, and analysis system. Directmet® images of West Virginia and the Northeast United State are inputs to BriefNet™.

About Global Science & Technology, Inc.

Global Science & Technology, Inc. (GST) was founded in 1991. Currently, GST has offices in Greenbelt, Maryland; Washington, DC; Fairmont, West Virginia; Huntsville, Alabama; Boulder, Colorado; and Asheville, North Carolina. GST has built a highly specialized workforce that includes experts in key domains of engineering, science, communications, and information technology. GST provides all levels of scientific and technical expertise and support within the federal Research and Development (R&D) laboratory environment. GST's major clients include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), NASA Headquarters (HQ), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Justice (DOJ), and the State of West Virginia. Much of GST's work has been in direct support of NASA and NOAA science missions and related data systems. GST's signature emphasis is on systems interoperability and solutions based on open standards to create efficiencies and reduce overall cost of operations.

About Pierpont Community & Technical College

Pierpont Community & Technical College specializes in preparing students in two years or less for practical hands-on careers, such as culinary arts, physical therapist assistant, graphic arts, or aviation maintenance. Pierpont offers a variety of types of training, including skill sets, certificates, technical studies (in partnership with career technical education centers in the region), occupational development (in partnership with employers and trade unions), associate degrees, and non-credit training. Studies at Pierpont can also prepare students to continue for 4-year or graduate degree programs.

Pierpont serves a thirteen county region in North Central West Virginia, including Barbour, Braxton, Calhoun, Doddridge, Gilmer, Harrison, Lewis, Marion, Monongalia, Preston, Randolph, Taylor and Upshur counties.

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PRACTICAL … POSSIBLE … PIERPONT