To provide highly accurate and reliable basin-wide distributed measurements of snow water equivalent and forecasts of snowmelt runoff with unique remote sensing and physical modeling, allowing the global water community to make the best use of our planet’s water resources.
Goals
Our goals address our mission statement by implementing the technology we originated at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory for customers worldwide who need accurate, spatially distributed snow measurements for water management and scientific investigations.
01. MEASUREMENT
Accurate snow depth, snow water equivalent, and snow albedo measurements across entire watersheds.
02. MODELING
Constraining physically based, distributed snow modeling for accurate daily representation of snow mass and energy states.
03. FORECASTING
Accurate snowmelt runoff forecasts at daily to seasonal time scales from physically based and empirically based model structures.
04. RAPID DELIVERY
Providing low-latency delivery of snow property measurements, snowpack modeling, and streamflow forecasts to support active, critical water management.
History
The early means for field snow measurement commenced with the near-simultaneous invention of the snow measurement tube by Dr. James E. Church and Robert E. Horton in the United States in the early 20th century. In the 1980s, the introduction of the in-situ snow pillow began to supplement snow courses with near real-time snow water equivalent (SWE) measurement, but with minor advances in forecast reliability. This combination of measurement infrastructure and empirical modeling has done fairly well in an average water year (seasonal forecast within a few percent error). However, for example in the American River of California, the uncertainties in quantifying total snowpack from such sparse measurements results in snowmelt runoff forecast accuracies of less than 80% in half of the years and less than 60% in a fifth of the years. Such errors when combined with tighter supply/demand margins impair the ability of water management entities to deliver on their obligations for both water supply and flood mitigation, markedly reduce hydroelectric generation efficiency, cost order hundreds of million $ in unnecessary groundwater pumping or opportunity loss, and thus are no longer acceptable or affordable.
In 2010, Dr. Thomas Painter was recruited to the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to lead the development of the program that would become the NASA Airborne Snow Observatory. He and his ASO team, along with partnership with the California Department of Water Resources, began in 2013 the breakthrough measurements and modeling of mountain snowpack that led to the first maps of distributed snow water equivalent across entire mountain basins. These measurements led to seasonal runoff forecasts with accuracies of 98% or better across the range of years from worst on record through average to top three in snow accumulation. At the close of the NASA program in 2019, the ASO span had reached large basins in the California Sierra Nevada, Colorado River Basin, Rio Grande of Colorado, Snake River Basin of Idaho, Deschutes River Basin of Oregon, and the Swiss Alps.
In 2019, Dr. Painter, Dr. Joe Boardman, Dr. Jeff Deems, and Pat Hayes founded Airborne Snow Observatories, Inc. to transfer the NASA technology to commercial operations available around the globe.
Leadership
Thomas H. Painter, PhD
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Tom Painter is a snow hydrologist and remote sensing specialist. He was recruited to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech in 2010 to create what became the NASA Airborne Snow Observatory. In 2018, he was awarded the NASA Exceptional Technology Achievement Medal and the Bureau of Reclamation’s John W. Keys III Award, both for his team’s work on ASO. In 2019, he was elected as Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. In 2019, he departed NASA/JPL to pursue the technology transfer of ASO to the operational commercial world to make true the vision of providing quantitative snow measurements and accurate snowmelt runoff forecasting around Planet Earth.
Joseph W. Boardman, PhD
Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer
Joe Boardman is a remote sensing geophysicist specializing in algorithm invention and the mission-critical middle ground between sophisticated sensor hardware and end-user application success. Noteworthy items during his 30-plus-year career include: owning and developing the industry-standard ENVI software package; playing a key role in discovering water on the Moon for NASA and ISRO; developing numerous critical imaging spectroscopy analysis tools including the Pixel Purity Index and Mixture Tuned Matched Filtering; and being a key player in dozens of airborne and three space missions for NASA, DoD and commercial clients. He holds three degrees in Geophysics, from the University of Oklahoma, the Colorado School of Mines and the University of Colorado.
Jeffrey S. Deems, PhD
Co-Founder and Chief Technical Officer
Jeffrey Deems has helped pioneer the use of lidar snow depth mapping in support of hydrologic science, water management, and avalanche mitigation. As a founding member of the NASA JPL Airborne Snow Observatory Science Team, he helped develop the lidar mapping and data fusion workflows while fostering connections with hydrologic forecasting and management entities. His interests and expertise in avalanche and snow hydrology research combine field data collection, modeling, and remote sensing in midlatitude mountain locations in the western US and around the globe, and actively further connections between science and management applications.
Pat Hayes, PE
Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer
Pat has over 40 years of professional experience in the water field. He is a registered civil engineer in California, Arizona and Nevada. Pat has worked in the private and public sector both nationally and internationally. Most recently he was General Manager of the Mammoth Community Water District. Mammoth was among those agencies to first use ASO technology to better manage its water resources. Pat has experience working with technology startups in the water field which include remote data gathering, data analytics and improved water management. He has considerable background in running growing companies and managing people.
Kat Bormann, PhD
Lead Scientist
Kat Bormann moved to the US from Australia to join the NASA JPL Airborne Snow Observatory Team after being awarded a NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech in 2013. Kat is a recognized expert in remote sensing of snow and snow density dynamics in the snow research community and is an active contributor to peer reviewed science. She has become an integral part of the team drawing from broad experience across all facets of the ASO program, in particular, in-situ field measurements and snow retrieval algorithm development from a variety of remote sensing data. In 2020, Kat left her NASA Scientist position at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to pursue the expansion of the ASO program and to help unleash the scientific contributions that the unique ASO snow products can bring to the field of snow hydrology across the globe.
Kate Burchenal
Lead Project Manager
Kate has a background in water resources management with a Masters of Environmental Science & Management from the Bren School at UC Santa Barbara. She spent several years in philanthropy working to identify and support promising and scalable solutions to the challenges of water scarcity in the Colorado River Basin. Kate serves on the board of directors of the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District representing the town of Minturn. Kate joined ASO as Lead Project Manager in January 2022. Kate wears many hats, but her work focuses on formulation development across the Western US and internationally, client relations, and providing general support for ASO’s internal operations.
Evan Burgess, PhD
Lead Data Scientist
Evan Burgess is a software developer and data scientist with an academic background in glaciology. Evan has worked with radar and lidar data, UAVs, atmospheric and land surface models, in-situ data, and more. Through this work, Evan has developed innovative software, visualization tools, and cloud computing solutions that can accelerate data-driven discovery. Evan’s PhD used synthetic aperture radar to discover widespread interactions between wintertime glacier flow speeds and climate. His postdoc distilled decades-worth of airborne lidar data to understand glacier mass loss in Alaska in ways that were not possible previously. As ASO’s Lead Data Scientist, Evan works to advance ASO’s processing pipelines, data analytics, and decision support systems. Evan holds a BA from University of Colorado, and a MS/PhD from University of Utah.
Liz Carey
Lead of Flight Operations
Liz Carey has a background in astrophysics and experimental planetary science and joined the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory to conduct experimental research on extraterrestrial ices. In 2016 she joined the NASA Airborne Snow Observatory flight team as a flight operator. She has since flown hundreds of hours of snow surveys for the ASO program. In addition, Liz is a member of the ASO SUPER Team that processes the data sets from each snow survey. In early 2020 she joined the Airborne Snow Observatories, Inc. as the Flight Operations Lead to oversee the data collection operations and continues to participate in data processing. She also oversees the ASO, Inc. Student Internship and Educational Outreach programs.
Cristina M. De Cesare
Lead Engineer
After earning her Computer Science B.S. at age 19, Cristina spent a few years doing web development at e-commerce companies Chegg, Inc. and AXS.com. She then spent 5 years at the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where she eventually became Compute Team Lead for the JPL Airborne Snow Observatory project. At JPL, Cristina was also Mission Interface Lead for the Planetary Data System (PDS) Imaging Node. For PDS, Cristina helped science teams design & produce archival metadata, to ensure usability of image data captured by missions including Juno, InSight, MER, and MSL. At ASO, Inc., Cristina’s web development background and her experience with science data management systems enable her to wear many hats, including: software developer, database admin, systems admin, and data engineer.
Dave Gochis
Lead of Prediction Services
Dave Gochis has conducted extensive field and modeling research in hydrometeorology for over 25 years. He holds degrees in both hydrology and atmospheric sciences from the University of Kansas (BS), Oregon State University (MS) and the University of Arizona (PhD). Prior to joining ASO, Inc., Dr. Gochis worked for over 20 years at the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, retiring as a Senior Scientist in late 2023. While at NCAR, Dave was the original developer and lead scientist of the community WRF-Hydro modeling system overseeing the implementation of multiple domestic U.S. and international instances of WRF-Hydro as an operational water forecasting system, most notably for the U.S. National Weather Service’s first National Water Model. Dave also has conducted extensive field research in multiple aspects of hydrology, snowpack dynamics and hydrometeorology specializing in terrestrial land surface flux measurements in high mountain watersheds and in developing critical, novel observations important to improving model forecasts of water resources and flooding.
Advisory Board
Dr. Charles Elachi
Former Director, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Charles Elachi is a professor of planetary science and electrical engineering at Caltech. He was the director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 2001 to 2016 and during his 46-year career at JPL, Dr. Elachi was a leader in developing the field of spaceborne imaging radar. The principal investigator on numerous research and development studies and flight projects sponsored by NASA, he is currently the team leader of the Cassini Titan Radar experiment and a co-investigator on the Rosetta Comet Nucleus Sounder Experiment, and a member of the science team on NASA’s mission to Europa. Elachi is the author of over 230 publications and the holder of several patents. The recipient of numerous honors, he was named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S News & World Report and the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 2006. He also has an asteroid named after him in recognition of his contributions to planetary exploration.
During his 15 years as the Director of NASA’s JPL he completed 23 successful deep space missions including landing 3 rovers on Mars (Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity); and two missions that returned extraterrestrial samples to Earth containing solar wind molecules and comet particles that are over 4.5 billion years old. In recognition of these extraordinary accomplishments the JPL/NASA mission control center was re-named “The Charles Elachi Mission Control Center” in 2016.
Shields Richardson
Entrepreneur
After graduating from the University of Southern California, Mr. Richardson began his 45+ year business career at Price Waterhouse. Working as a Financial Advisor to Professional Athletes, Fortune 500 Executives and high-net-worth individuals lead to the investment, management and ownership in the fields of Real Estate, Motion Picture Production, Insurance, the Internet, and Media companies, most notably founding and creating one of the largest National Out of Home (OOH) Media companies with over 5,000 ad panels.
Mr. Richardson was Technical Organizer for the Modern Pentathlon in the 1984 Olympic Games (Los Angeles) as well as the Jr. World Games in 1983.
A cowboy at heart, he and his family’s love of the mountains led them to move to Mammoth Lakes where he became involved in the community. Aside from the many Commissions he has served on, Mr. Richardson was elected to Mammoth Lakes Town Council, served as Mayor of Mammoth Lakes, and is currently on the Executive Committees for the Mammoth Lakes Foundation and Disabled Sports Eastern Sierra.
Pat Wilkison
Founder and Managing Partner, Integrity Partners
Over multiple decades of focus on transportation, big data, cloud, IoT and emerging classes of compute infrastructure, Pat has continuously developed and productized enabling technologies to build multi-billion dollars of enterprise value. He is best known for uniquely combining emerging technology, emerging markets & capital-efficient execution. Pat is passionate about practical applications of innovation, with acute focus on the machines and infrastructure which enable the manner in which businesses and people move, connect, communicate and transact.
He leads early stage investments in companies which uniquely focus on high value applications in mobility and modern compute infrastructure. Pat applies his operational acumen to a select group of high-performance companies, augmenting companies at the BOD level. Prior to founding Integrity Partners, Pat built Exponential VC, an early stage Southern California venture firm. Pat has decades of experience in high growth operating roles wherein he conceived and created high growth divisions within Western Digital, running Cloud and Enterprise Storage Products, and at STEC, a pioneer in high-performance solid state storage systems as their head of product. Prior to his operator roles at technology companies, Pat worked in the Technology Investment Banking Division of Lehman Brothers/Barclays, leading M&A and IPOs for a wide range of technology companies.
Mia Rondinella
Chief Tech & Media Executive
Mia Rondinella has over 25 years of experience leading business growth initiatives
across borders and cultures. She is recognized for her ability to combine innovative
thinking with rigorous market analysis to deliver growth opportunities. As Chief Strategy
Officer at Age of Learning, she co-led the company’s $300 million Series C fundraise,
developed the strategic plan for the company to enter the U.S. elementary school
market and expand overseas into the English language learning market. Prior to this,
during her 18-year tenure at The Walt Disney Company, Rondinella led a variety of
strategic growth initiatives. She oversaw the global growth strategy of Disney’s multi-
billion dollar network and content distribution businesses, she built a consumer data and
analytics function from the ground up, she managed the company’s annual strategic
planning process, and she grew ABC’s IP licensing business to $70 million. Rondinella
started her career at Accenture developing software to support the reengineering of
business processes. She graduated from Princeton University magna cum laude with a
degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and a certificate in Spanish
Language and Literature. She also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
As a mom to two boys and an avid outdoorswoman and conservationist, Rondinella also
contributes her time and talents to multiple causes in the Ojai Valley. She chairs the
annual gala fundraiser for the Ojai Valley School and is a founding member of the
school’s Upcycle program.