Gary Zell, 42, is Tucson's representative in today's Parade magazine story — you'll find it inside today's Star — on "What People Earn."
Zell, a National Weather Service meteorologist at the Tucson office on the University of Arizona campus, makes $77,500 a year.
Zell has a degree in meteorology from the University of Nebraska, has worked for the National Weather Service for 16 years and has been at its Tucson office for 10 years. He says he was hired out of college at $17,300 a year.
A quick Q&A:
Q: What is it you like most about your job?
A: "I love the people I work with in the operational area, the shift workers that come together for severe weather. There's a good camaraderie. I do love my job. It's what I wanted to do.
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"I feel good when we issue the warnings and give people advance warning. Our job here is not quite the same as some other areas, say Texas or Oklahoma; a tornado warning means something there.
"Here the big ones would be flash flooding."
Q: How did you end up a weatherman?
A: "I have pretty much always wanted to be in meteorology, ever since third grade. Only a couple directions seemed interesting to me in college.
"One was National Weather Service, the other was to be a climatologist (long-term and trends, rather than day-to-day and short-term forecasting).
"I applied and got a job right away, which I didn't expect to happen."
Q: Is it strange seeing your salary published for everyone to see?
A: "That didn't seem too strange, (but) I didn't want to seem like I was suffering making what I make. I feel like I'm middle class.
"I don't mind them (the public) knowing how much I make. Everyone can find that out on a government Web site. We are paid on a GS scale. (He's a GS-12.)
"The pay is pretty good. But we're here 24/7/365, and we work rotating shift work. Even Christmas Day and Christmas midnight shift.
"I don't have a set schedule. Next week I go to seven midnights in a row. I get two weekends off every five weeks.
"There's a lot of time where I don't even get to see my family, especially evening shift." (His 8-year-old son is at school when he leaves for work and in bed before he gets home.)
Q: You told Parade magazine your salary doesn't go as far as it used to.
A: "It's a combination of everything. When I go fill up my tank. When I get my electricity bill it's more. When I go to the grocery store, it's more.
"We're not able to eat out as much or go to the movies as often. Those are starting to be replaced with nights at home. Going to the park."
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