An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Read to children when they are young and staying actively involved in their progress in school. Ask them about their highs and lows at school, check in with their teachers, be aware of the courses they are taking and their schedules. When my children were in school, I made it a point to ask them several times a semester, “What questions did you ask in class today?”
As a part of my series about “How extremely busy executives make time to be great parents” I had the pleasure to interview Dr. Joel N. Myers.
Named “the most accurate man in weather” by The New York Times, Dr. Joel N. Myers is considered the “father of modern commercial meteorology” and the nation’s most respected authority on the business of meteorology. Founder and chief executive officer of AccuWeather, he has been recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine’s Encyclopedia of Entrepreneurs book as one of the greatest entrepreneurs in American history and is a proven visionary leader. Founding the company in 1962, he has successfully established AccuWeather as the most accurate and best-known source of weather forecasts and warnings in the world. An active and engaged father, he founded the Dads’ Resource Center and considers his eight children, ranging in age from 10–55 years-old, among his most important and precious priorities and accomplishments.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Certainly, I grew up in Philadelphia. When I was three years old, I fell in love …. with snow. At seven, I decided to become a weather forecaster. When I was 11, I told my dad I was going to combine my burning desire to be a weather forecaster with my developing entrepreneurial spirit (I had a paper route and some other little businesses I started) as a means of starting my own weather business. I was very certain of my ability to be successful and very determined. My mother called me, “One-track-mind Joel.”
Can you share the story about what brought you to this specific point in your career?
When it was time for college, I went to The Pennsylvania State University, the only college we could afford. It turned out to have one of the best meteorology programs in the world.
A few days after arriving on the Penn State campus, I convinced the city editor of the Daily Collegian to allow me to become the campus newspaper’s first-ever weather forecaster. And a few weeks later, I also began providing weather forecasts for the campus radio station. This gave me valuable insight into how the media works at an early age.
I earned three degrees from Penn State and beginning in my first year as a graduate student, I taught the 400-level course in weather forecasting and then taught it continuously for the next 21 years, founding AccuWeather as a 2nd year grad student in 1962.
By the time I retired from teaching, it is estimated that I had trained 17 percent of the nation’s weather forecasters. I am forever grateful to Penn State for the opportunity to teach and conduct research. It also allowed me to hire my best students and create a crucible of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship at AccuWeather.
Can you tell us a bit more about what your day-to-day schedule looks like?
When I am not giving speeches or doing media interviews, I maintain a vigorous pace with a full schedule of daily meetings individually and with my team leaders on the state of the business for each unit — digital, B2B and traditional media (radio, television, newspaper, podcasts, digital out of home), product innovation, the latest forecasting developments, technology enhancements and marketing. I also serve on several boards and think tanks, such as the Committee for Economic Development, the Nantucket Project, No Labels, and of course, the Dads’ Resource Center. I am a firm believer in taking care of the body as well as the mind, so I work out regularly. I am also a devoted husband and father and very much enjoy spending time with my wife, Mariya, and our children, their spouses and my grandchildren, especially the concentrated time we spend ALL together twice year during the winter and summer holidays.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the core of our discussion. This is probably intuitive to many, but it would be beneficial to spell it out. Based on your experience or research, can you flesh out why not spending time with your children can be detrimental to their development?
Frederick Douglass, the great American orator, author, activist, and abolitionist — who started out as an escaped slave — perhaps said it best, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” The evidence is overwhelming and backed up by thousands of years of anecdotal data and numerous studies over recent decades — children develop much better when both of their parents are actively involved in their lives.
Tens of millions of American children grow up without fathers in their lives. As the Dads’ Resource Center — which I started more than five years ago — has found through our research, the cost of father absence is absolutely crushing on both a personal level, and a larger societal and economic level, as well.
Incidents of poverty, malnutrition, homelessness, crime, incarceration, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse and more societal ills are all commonly linked to the absence of two, loving, involved and present parents.
On the flip side, can you give a few reasons or examples about why it is so important to make time to spend with your children?
In addition to an abundance of social and emotional support, spending as much time as possible with our children is important for their growth, development, confidence and mental and physical wellbeing on the road to becoming, functioning, independent adults. Spending quality time with our offspring also provides exposure to new ideas, thoughts and experiences that is so important to their own development as they learn to discover who they are and define their own place in the world.
For society at large, there is an economic toll when one parent, fathers, especially, do not spend time with their children, in many cases because of biases against single fathers’ role. In 2008, the National Fatherhood Initiative made projections on the annual cost to taxpayers due to father absence. At that time, they estimated the cost to be about $100 billion dollars annually. The Dads’ Resource Center recently updated this figure using the same models. The cost of father absence to American taxpayers is now estimated to be $269 billion per year.
From greater income support, nutrition programs, healthcare needs, and social services, our entire society bears the weight of this consequential hole that cannot be filled by government subsidies and programs. Even more consequentially, the estimated cost of lost wages for children who grew up in fatherless homes is nearly $491 billion annually.
According to this study cited in the Washington Post, the quality of time spent with children is more important than the quantity of time. Can you give a 3–5 stories or examples from your own life about what you do to spend quality time with your children?
Twice each year, in summer and winter, most of my family and I meet up for an extended vacation. That time is sacred to us. This past July, we gathered at Avalon, New Jersey for two weeks and enjoyed the beach, family meals and recharged and connected in a way that shuts out the outside world. We also do a Broadway, museum and shopping trip in New York City every winter and a trip to Florida or the Caribbean for a week over New Year’s. This December, we will be 25 strong together in Florida.
Of course, COVID was a disappointment in creating a barrier to getting together physically, but my family make the time to have a Zoom — religiously and without exception — every week. It is an opportunity to check in and get the latest Myers family news.
When my children were younger, each one of them, at one point or another, has worked at AccuWeather and this tradition continues for my younger children and even grandchildren. In addition to spending time together, this gave them insight into my company, how it works and taught them valuable lessons about earning, hard work and the value of a dollar whether it was stuffing envelopes or designing a weather app.
We all live in a world with many deadlines and incessant demands for our time and attention. That inevitably makes us feel rushed and we may feel that we can’t spare the time to be “fully present” with our children. Can you share with our readers 5 strategies about how we can create more space in our lives in order to give our children more quality attention? Please include examples or stories for each, if you can.
- Read to children when they are young and staying actively involved in their progress in school. Ask them about their highs and lows at school, check in with their teachers, be aware of the courses they are taking and their schedules. When my children were in school, I made it a point to ask them several times a semester, “What questions did you ask in class today?”
- Show a keen interest in their hobbies and interests. Nurture their talents for sports, music, web design, or any entrepreneurial endeavor and be encouraging.
- Make time for family — as a group and with each individual member. I am so proud of the fact that my children are good friends and truly enjoy each other.
- Be present and a good listener. Pardon the weather pun, but snowplow parents tend to want to push all of life’s barriers out of the way for their children; it is important to sit back and listen, while your child figures out their own path forward.
- In a divorce or separation, ensure both parents have full access and involvements with children. As a dad, many long-time institutions may be tipped against you, but you don’t have to willingly accept that. Your child and their wellbeing are worth the fight.
How do you define a “good parent”? Can you give an example or story?
A good parent is a present parent. Do not abdicate your important responsibility to nurture your child into adulthood. That is the unwritten contract all parents have. When my oldest children were younger and I was working very long hours to make my business a success, I may not have been as present as I should have been.
I regret that, but I have worked very hard to maintain deep, meaningful and loving bonds, and today we are as close as ever. I have eight children ranging in age from 10 to 55 years, and I have had at least one child living with me in my home for 55 straight years. My children know they are loved, and they know I am forever in their corner.
This is also why I established the Dads’ Resource Center. There are far too many children in our country who are denied access to good fathers by our legal, government and social services systems.
How do you inspire your child to “dream big”? Can you give an example or story?
I also tell my children to pursue their passions, dream big and don’t quit, don’t quit, don’t quit, using myself as an example. I faced unimaginable headwinds from every segment of the weather enterprise when I started AccuWeather from those who challenged “Why would anybody pay for weather forecasts that the government gave away for free?”
I did not accept “no” for an answer. I knew I could offer forecasts that were more specific, more tailored and therefore more valuable. I called 25,000 potential prospects before I had 100 paying customers, which meant I had 24,900 rejections! But I did not quit and today, AccuWeather serves more than 1.5 billion people every day through our apps and website, our forecasts provided to more than 1,600 media clients and more than half the Fortune 500 companies and thousands of other businesses globally.
I use this and other examples to inspire my children to achieve their dreams.
How do you, a person who masterfully straddles the worlds of career and family, define “success”?
President Kennedy said, “Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.” You need to take personal ownership of your own success — if you rely on someone else and abdicate your responsibilities, you will limit your own success and the success of your team — whether that team is at work or at home.
What are your favorite books, podcasts, or resources that inspire you to be a better parent? Can you explain why you like them?
I am such an avid reader that I cannot specifically name any one book or source, as there have been many tips from a wide variety of sources that I have gleaned over the years to be the best parent I can be. I am always on the lookout for more guidance to benefit my children and grandchildren on the topics of development, health and independence. My children have noted publicly that I never miss an opportunity for a teachable moment.
I am also a fan of the book, How to be a Gentleman, by John Bridges, which teaches valuable lessons about common courtesy in a rapidly changing, highly transforming technology-reliant world.
Malcolm Gladwell comes to mind as an author who proffers excellent life lessons in his many books, all of which I have read. For example, in his book, Outliers, The Story of Success, he discusses how your birth month can make you a more successful and confident hockey player in Canada. The best players all had January, February and March birthdays by an overwhelming margin because in Canada the eligibility cut-off for age-class hockey is January 1st. A player who turns 10 on January 1, could be playing alongside someone who does not turn 10 until closer to the end of the year, so age factors into ability and performance and therefore confidence as this gap represents an enormous difference in physical maturity.
I factored this “age advantage” into my own kids’ and grandkids’ ages and school performance with regard to their school start dates, knowing they would perform better, get more out of their schooling and develop greater confidence with the advantage of more maturity.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Just one? I have many. One of my favorites is, from Warren Buffet who said, “The people who are most successful are those who are doing what they love. Money isn’t what drives them. What drives them is a love of what they do.” I think that is inspiring no matter what your life’s goals are. Find your passion and do not quit.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I always considered being a parent the most important job I have. And, it is a job that never ends. It transitions as we grow and as our children get older. My own father committed suicide when my youngest brother was still at a vulnerable age, so perhaps that impacted my focus on the importance of fathers being present in their kids’ lives.
My wish for the health and betterment of all children is that they know the love and commitment of both parents; and my wish for all fathers is that they can have the essential time and interaction with their children that both fathers and their children need and depend on for healthier, happier, and more fulfilled lives.
The Dads’ Resource Center will continue advocating for the fairer treatment of single fathers on behalf of children. Our families and American society will all be better for eliminating some of the biases against the important role of single dads.
Thank you so much for these insights! This was so inspiring!
Dr. Joel N. Myers of AccuWeather: How Extremely Busy Leaders Make Time to Be Great Parents was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.