Your NRAO Ombuds

Socorro - DSOC

Brad Strong

Brad Strong, NRAO’s newest Ombuds Representative, is the DSOC / VLA Management Information Services (MIS) System Administrator and has been employed by the NRAO since 2001.  Brad has served on the NRAO Personnel Recreation Association and, with his “other hat,” is a leader for the local 4-H Maverick’s club and stays busy helping his daughter feed and exercise her show animals.  For his free time he enjoys riding the back country by-ways in his Jeep or fishing on the river with the family.

Brad stated, “As an Ombuds Representative, I will always be willing to listen and try my best to offer sound advice and if needed offer any help I can.”

Pam Ford

Pam has been a software engineer for NRAO since 2009, transferring from Green Bank to Socorro in 2014.  She works for the CASA group developing the Plotms tool for plotting astronomy data.

When not writing code, Pam enjoys hiking and sightseeing trips to explore her new state.  Her hobbies include quilting, photography, and guitar.

Pam looks forward to helping her coworkers at the DSOC as an ombuds representative.

Socorro - VLA

Michael Romero

Mike has worked for the Engineering Services Division at the VLA site as a Mechanical Engineer since 2014.   When not saving the world at the VLA, Mike and his wife enjoy many automotive,  power-sport, and outdoor related activates.

“As an Ombuds representative, I will listen to your issues in detail and offer advice or help when I can”

Green Bank

Marty Bloss

Marty is the Program Manager for the Green Bank site. All projects at the site are coordinated by Marty and he also maintains the assignments of NRAO staff to Green Bank projects.

Marty came to NRAO in 2007 after working for 16 years at NPR where he was responsible for the technical operations of the satellite program distribution system. He currently splits his time between one of the NRAO houses (country estate) and an apartment on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

When not tracking projects, Marty spends his time riding his motorcycle around West Virginia and attempting to coerce workmates into post work activities.

"As an Ombuds Representative I appreciate the trust and responsibility placed in my by my coworkers and I look forward to being a resource to the people at Green Bank."

Teresa Alkire

Teresa currently serves as the Payroll Administrator.  As you can imagine, Teresa’s schedule is pretty hectic but she will work very hard to make herself available as one of the Ombuds Representatives in Green Bank.

Charlottesville - ER

Jennifer Donovan Meyer

Jen has been employed by the NRAO since January of 2013, first as a postdoctoral researcher in the NAASC, and since mid-2015 as a member of the scientific staff. She spends most of her time supporting ALMA and its users, most recently on the ALMA data reduction management team. She also serves as the Charlottesville Recreation Association President, and in the rest of her spare time, she coaches the Charlottesville Derby Dames, the local Division I roller derby team.

Charlottesville - CDL

Rich Lacasse

Rich is a senior engineer at the NRAO Central Development Lab.  He has been with NRAO since 1976.   Except for a 1.5 year stint at CSIRO in 1984-85, he worked in Green Bank until 2006.  While there, he worked on a variety of projects including VLBI instrumentation, spectrum analysis, deformable surfaces and telescope servo designs.  Since moving to Charlottesville in 2006 he has spent most of his time with the ALMA correlator.

In his spare time Rich enjoys a variety of activities including running, pounding the ivories, hiking, pickin’ a guitar and hanging out with his 7 grandkids.  An avid soccer fan, he attends most of the UVA men’s and women’s games.  He is active in his church and regularly plays for worship services at Our Lady of Peace nursing home.