[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 6]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 7249-7250]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           HONORING THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF MR. EDWARD J. KEPPEL

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JEFF MILLER

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, April 21, 2004

  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to 
Edward J. Keppel.

[[Page 7250]]

  Mr. Keppel entered active duty as a second lieutenant on Sept. 1969 
with an assignment to Det 10, 6 WW, Eglin AFB, FL. He separated from 
active duty in Dec. 1973 to pursue graduate studies in meteorology at 
Penn State University.
  In Dec. 1974, Mr. Keppel returned to Eglin to continue the work he 
enjoyed supporting weapons testing--this time as a civilian staff 
meteorologist for Det 10 (later renamed 46th Weather Squadron).
  Throughout the next 30 years Mr. Keppel has directly influenced many 
changes and great technical advancements. He has seen guided missile 
programs such as the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) 
develop from concept to operational capability.
  Mr. Keppel was a pioneer in developing weather support for armament 
testing. He utilized DMSP equipment and ``metvans'' to instrument test 
ranges for real-time and post-test mission analysis.
  His efforts contributed greatly to the fielding of the first portable 
upper air sounding system--initially meant exclusively for testing, but 
is now used for many operational weather support applications around 
the world.
  Mr. Keppel was a driving force behind instrumenting the Eglin test 
range with Remote Automated Weather Stations (RAWS)--which are used 
today to provide critical data for missions ranging from armament 
flight test to Army Ranger Training Battalion swamp movement training.
  More recently, Mr. Keppel was recognized for his expertise with sound 
propagation models used in support of the first two test detonations of 
the Massive Ordinance Air Burst (MOAB), the largest conventional bomb 
in the U.S. inventory. This weapon was developed and tested for use in 
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM.
  Mr. Speaker, I, on behalf of the United States Congress, salute Mr. 
Keppel for reflecting a great credit upon himself, and our nation. I 
offer my sincere thanks for all that he has done for Northwest Florida 
and this great nation.

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