26 Facts About Vincent Schaefer

Vincent Joseph Schaefer was an American chemist and meteorologist who developed cloud seeding.

On November 13,1946, while a researcher at the General Electric Research Laboratory, Schaefer modified clouds in the Berkshire Mountains by seeding them with dry ice.

Vincent J Schaefer was the oldest son of Peter Aloysius Schaefer and Rose Agnes Schaefer.

Vincent Schaefer had two younger brothers, Paul and Carl, and two younger sisters, Gertrude and Margaret.

The Vincent Schaefer family lived in Schenectady, New York, and due to his mother's health, starting in 1921 the family made summer trips to the Adirondack Mountains.

Vincent Schaefer had a lifelong association with the Adirondacks, as well as interests in hiking, natural history, and archeology.

In 1931 Vincent Schaefer began work on creating the Long Path of New York.

Apperson introduced Vincent Schaefer to Irving Langmuir, a scientist at the GE Research Laboratory who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1932 for his work in surface chemistry.

Vincent Schaefer devoted much of his time to the fight for the preservation of many wilderness areas and parks, such as the Mohonk Preserve, Vroman's Nose, and the Great Flats Aquifer.

Vincent Schaefer did a lot of research on the original settler families of the Schenectady and Mohawk Valley areas.

Vincent Schaefer attended to the disposition of his papers and library.

Until their deaths they lived on Schermerhorn Road in Schenectady, in a house Vincent Schaefer built with his brothers, which they called Woestyne South.

In 1922, Vincent Schaefer's parents asked him to leave high school and go to work to supplement the family income.

Somewhat discouraged by the work of a toolmaker, Vincent Schaefer sought to satisfy a desire to work outdoors and to travel by joining, initially through a correspondence course, the Davey Institute of Tree Surgery in Kent, Ohio, in 1927.

At the Research Laboratory machine shop, Schaefer built equipment for Langmuir and his research associate, Katharine B Blodgett.

In 1932 Langmuir asked Vincent Schaefer to become his research assistant.

Vincent Schaefer accepted and in 1933 began his research work with Langmuir, Blodgett, Whitney, and others at the Research Lab and throughout the General Electric organization.

Vincent Schaefer's discovery led to debates over the appropriateness of tampering with nature through cloud seeding.

Vincent Schaefer was coordinator of the laboratory portion of Project Cirrus while the Air Force and Navy supplied the aircraft and pilots to carry out field tests and to collect the data used at the Research Laboratory.

At Munitalp, Schaefer worked with the US Forest Service at the Priest River Experimental Forest in northern Idaho with Harry T Gisborne, noted fire researcher, on Project Skyfire, a program to determine the uses of cloud seeding to affect the patterns of lightning in thunderstorms.

Project Skyfire had its roots in an association between the Forest Service and Vincent Schaefer begun in the early days of Project Cirrus.

Vincent Schaefer left Munitalp in 1958, turning down an offer to move with the Foundation to Kenya, but he remained an adviser to Munitalp for several years after that.

Vincent Schaefer worked with the American Meteorological Society and Natural Science Foundation on an educational film program and to develop the Natural Sciences Institute summer programs which gave high school students the opportunity to work with scientists and on their own to do field research and experimentation.

From 1959 to 1961 Vincent Schaefer was director of the Atmospheric Science Center at the Loomis School in Connecticut.

Vincent Schaefer helped found ASRC in 1960 and served as its Director of Research until 1966 when he became Director.

Vincent Schaefer brought highly qualified atmospheric science researchers to ASRC, many of whom he had met through his work at GE and Munitalp.