Jean Labrousse, the second Director at ECMWF, sadly passed away on Saturday 9 July 2011.
A French national, Jean played an important role during the early days of ECMWF. As Head of Operations from June 1974 to 1979, he had the overall responsibility for the Centre's operational forecasting system and for the Centre's computer system. He was instrumental in establishing the operational facilities required for ECMWF to deliver its first operational global medium-range weather forecast to its Member States on 1 August 1979.
Jean Labrousse became ECMWF’s second Director from 1 January 1980. After a short period of two years he returned to France, since he was appointed as Director of Météorologie Nationale (Météo France) from 1 January 1982 by the French Conseil des Ministres. From 1987 to 1991, he was Director of the Research and Development Programme of the World Meteorological Organization.
Before he retired in November 1997, Jean Labrousse was Director of the Earth-Ocean-Space-Environment Department in the French Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (1991-1993), Scientific Secretary for Meteorology EEC/COST (1994-1997), and Head of the French Secretariat for Joint Implementation (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change).
Staff at ECMWF are enormously grateful for Jean's outstanding contributions in setting up ECMWF's first operational infrastructure and for his excellent leadership during his short period as Director of ECMWF.