Brooke Bingaman, Class of 1991, was selected for induction into the Bud and Dorothy Page LHS Hall of Fame in the category of medicine and science for her leadership in communication as a meteorologist.
Of her many accomplishments following graduation from Lebanon High School, one of Bingaman’s more recent achievements was to become the first liaison between the National Weather Service (NWS) and the White House.
This new role as a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Liaison to the National Security Council (NSC) began in 2023 when the NSC requested the NWS provide a liaison who could brief the Situation Room and the Resilience & Response team during weather events impacting the US and its territories.
Today, Bingaman regularly creates briefings for the president, educates the NSC about weather and climate, and assists in policy matters relating to weather. In fact, in that role, she had the opportunity to criss-cross through Hurricane Helene, a 350-mile wide hurricane that recently passed through the southeastern states.
On board “Miss Piggy,” one of the NOAA’s three Hurricane Hunter planes, Bingaman experienced her first trip through the eye of a hurricane this past September.
“Luckily, it was a fairly smooth flight,” she said. “Sometimes you can get tossed around pretty good if the storm is rapidly strengthening. During our mission, the crew was able to confirm that tropical storm Helene had strengthened into a hurricane.”
Bingaman said that while she was a graduate student at the University of Hawaii, she helped put out a product for Hurricane Jimena as it approached the Big Island, but in all her years with the NWS, she hadn’t done much storm chasing.
“So this trip on the Hurricane Hunter was my first real storm chase,” she said. “I was even given a patch by the flight crew for flying into my first hurricane.”
Bingaman’s love for weather started early during childhood.
“I grew up in the Midwest and was always fascinated by thunderstorms, especially when the lightning struck close to my house and you’d hear the huge ‘boom’ of thunder right after,” she explained. “That was my first sense of how powerful Mother Nature could be. Plus, I think as a kid, it was fun when our parents let us play in the basement with flashlights after the power went out from nearby thunderstorms.”
The 1991 Strawberry Festival Queen described a country life where as a child she would find tadpoles in ponds, catch toads in the yard, chase lightning bugs at dusk, search for “Indian beads” and watch stormy weather. As she got older, she said, she began seeking to understand how the world around her worked, so she obtained a college degree in environmental science at Willamette University. The education submerged her into the study of geography, geology, weather, chemistry, sociology, economics and politics.
“It was a fabulous combination that helped me understand the physical scientific world and how humans interacted with that world,” she said.
It was a television news broadcast that spurred her on toward meteorology after the news team simply introduced their new on-air meteorologist. That’s when she realized that kind of career was a perfect fit for her, so she went back to school to specialize in meteorology. She finds the role exciting because weather impacts peoples’ decisions about what they will wear, whether they should attend an outdoor event or if their flight might be delayed, and the like.
“Now that we are starting to see more frequent extreme weather events, meteorology isn’t exciting in the sense of how bad storms will be,” Bingaman said. “I would never wish a tornado outbreak, flooding, or hurricane on anyone because I know it means lives and property are at stake. What makes meteorology exciting to me now is that I play a role in helping communities get prepared so that families can stay safe.”
One might say her success originated from her high school days, during which time Bingaman was a member of the speech and debate team all four years. Looking back on her life, she believes speech and debate helped turn her from a shy child into a confident professional. According to Bingaman, it taught her to develop critical communication skills that ultimately strengthened her reputation at the NWS and highlighted her as first choice to be the liaison with the White House.
“I often tell people that learning to become a better public speaker is equivalent to developing a superhero power,” she said. “The two biggest fears of humans are death and public speaking. I haven’t figured out how to escape death, but I did learn to navigate the fears of public speaking. Once you do that, you become a part of an elite group of people in the world that do better at job interviews, can give impressive presentations to help build their network, and get noticed by senior leaders at work when they speak up in meetings.”
After earning her master’s in meteorology from the University of Hawaii, Bingaman accepted a position at the NWS and eventually integrated her public speaking skills into her job to help other weather professionals better communicate with partners, the media and the public.
Throughout Bingaman’s career, she trained local media on weather patterns, developed a drought resource information package for California’s NWS offices, was promoted at the NWS Training Center where she worked with the National Hurricane Center and the Weather Channel to develop better communications training, created a video series on the basics of public speaking that has become mandatory for all new forecasters, and was appointed policy advisor to the office of the NWS chief of staff where she regularly created talking points and presentations for the deputy director.
Summarizing a quote oft-shared within the NWS, Bingaman said, “You can make the perfect forecast, but if you don’t know how to message it in a way that motivates the public to take action, then that forecast has lost its value.”
In her role as a meteorologist, she understands the importance of establishing trust among all those with whom she communicates – the general public, media, emergency managers, government officials and other sectors that rely on weather. To create that trust, Bingaman relies on the effective communication skills she learned early on during her time at LHS.
While claiming an appreciation for all forms of weather, Bingaman would say that thunderstorms are still her favorite, so long as they aren’t severe or produce tornadoes.
“Any time thunderstorms are nearby, I watch the radar and will go to a window or a screened in patio to start listening for the distant rumbles of thunder,” she said. “Then the sky gets darker, the rumbles get louder, the light rain intensifies to a heavy downpour, winds get erratically gusty and lightning flashes. Then just as quickly as it arrived, it leaves. It’s a thrilling moment like experiencing a fun jitterbug dance or roller coaster ride.”