Joel Martin

US Air Force, Retired

Board of Directors - Director

Joel D. Martin is a consultant for weather information and technology integration. He was formerly Director of Weather Planning and Prediction for Skydweller US, Inc. and served as Chief Meteorologist in 2020-22.

Joel is a former Air Force colonel who retired from active duty in 2003

• He is a fourth-generation Oklahoman who was born in Hobart, Oklahoma
• He attended school in Cordell, Oklahoma through the 8th Grade, then Shawnee schools
• He graduated in 1977 with a BS from OU's meteorology program and entered the Air Force from the ROTC program at the University of Oklahoma
• In his 26-year Air Force career he served as weather officer for the Flying Tigers, a flight meteorologist for the Hurricane Hunters, an Air Force officer recruiter, and USAF forces commander for Cobra Gold 2002 in Thailand
• He gained a graduate degree in tropical meteorology in 1988 at Colorado State University in the Af1T program and became the lead scientist and a forecaster at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center on Guam where he earned the American Meteorological Society's highest public service award "for revolutionizing the forecast and warning process at the center .11
 • He then commanded the largest Air Force weather unit at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota • His career track and subsequent promotion to colonel resulted in assignments to implement a complete reengineering of the weather career field and a final assignment to direct Pacific Air Force and .A.rmy weather support.
• Beyond weather, in 2002, following 9/11 attacks, he commanded a full Air Force expeditionary deployment of over 4,000 airmen to Thailand for Exercise Cobra Gold.
• After military service, starting in 2003, he served as VP of operations and marketing director at a weather workstation software-engineering company in Colorado before coming to work for Kelvin and The University of Oklahoma from 2004 to 2012, where he founded the radar data provisioning operation and then became the Associate Vice President for Commerce Information and Venture Opportunities. ​
• In 2013 he moved to Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana and worked with investors to commercialize emerging nanotechnology catalyst into a revolutionary natural gas to liquid-fuel process.
• In 2015, he became the contractor's site manager for weather support to the Reagan Test Site, Ballistic Missile Test Range, in the Marshall Islands. In 2018 he returned from the island and continued remote support from here in Norman to the test site mission before being hired by Skydweller.

Joel has been married to the former Elizabeth Roberts of Minden, Louisiana since 1980. They are active members of St. John's Episcopal Church in Norman. Joel served as president of the Norman Kiwanis Foundation and vice president of Norman Kiwanis before accepting the Skydweller position in 2020. Elizabeth served on the University of Oklahoma Theater Guild board. They have a four­year-old Golden Retriever named Roux B Doux.