Arlette RIGAUD died on August 13. For some of you what is recalled below should be rather well known, but let us make sure that everyone understands the crucial role Arlette played in the ALADIN project.
Right from the start in 1990, she was at the heart of three crucial efforts that made our common project possible: the search for French financing sources, the link with the official international collaboration structures in meteorology and the "Direction to Direction" bilateral aspects of the official support to the project for each Partner NMS of Meteo-France.
Year after year, she dedicated all her skills and energy to these tasks, while always keeping her legendary good mood as the trade mark of the discussions she carried out with NMS bosses, embassies or ALADIN people.
The naturally fragmented character of such actions does not allow to immediately judge how important it was; however, it is recognised that without Arlette's work, the ALADIN project would never have reached the scope and success it has had and may even have collapsed in one of the two or three growth-crisis it encountered.
The efforts she did over the last four years in favour of our project were even more demanding on her, since she had started fighting with enormous courage the disease that finally took her. One remembers how disappointed she was to miss the first Assembly of Partners in Paris in November 96 owing to her first heavy treatment and how she spent still a lot of energy on the preparation of the Lisbon Assembly eight months ago, despite not being able to attend again. In between, she had had the pleasure to be a very active participant to the Brussels and Prague Assembly meetings and to see there the confirmation of the ALADIN progress, strongly linked to her dedication.
Arlette will be kept in memory as someone that had an extraordinary willingness to see meteorologists from all origins work together, effectively, truthfully and in the best possible mood!
The ALADIN project has lost one of its most important supporting personnality.
An e-mail address (arcndl++at++meteo.fr) has been opened in order to collect the messages of condolences and/or remembrance that whose who had direct contacts with Arlette might wish to be passed later to her family.
|
Home |