Joel Myers


Dr. Joel N. Myers is Founder, CEO and Chairman of AccuWeather, an American commercial weather service and media company.

Background

Myers is a native of Philadelphia, PA. He received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in meteorology from The Pennsylvania State University in 1961, 1963, and 1971, respectively. He founded AccuWeather in State College, PA in 1962. Myers served on the faculty of Penn State from 1964 until 1981 as instructor, lecturer and assistant professor and he estimates that by the time he retired from teaching he had taught weather forecasting to approximately 17% of all practicing meteorologists in the United States. Additionally, he served on the Pennsylvania State University Board of Trustees for 33 years, and continues to serve as an Emeritus Trustee.
In 2007, Myers appointed his younger brother Barry Lee Myers, a business attorney, as AccuWeather's chief executive officer. The younger Myers was nominated to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in October 2017. Barry Myers stepped down as CEO of AccuWeather on January 1, 2019 and completely divested himself of any ownership of AccuWeather in accordance with his pledge to the Office of Government Ethics and the U.S. Senate.
Myers has seven biological children and step-children: Dan Myers, Sharon Myers, Adrienne Johnson, Brad Mason, Erika Myers, Drew Morris and Lachlan Myers.

Political activities

Myers faced criticism in 2005 when he supported the National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005, a bill introduced by U.S. Senator Rick Santorum that would have prohibited the National Weather Service from publishing weather data to the public when private-sector entities, such as AccuWeather, perform the same function commercially. Myers has been a long-time large donor to the Republican Party, its candidates, and to Santorum, his home-state Senator.