Joseph O. Fletcher

Joseph Fletcher was Research Professor in Atmospheric Sciences and Oceanography at the  University of Washington in Seattle, after a career as an Air Force pilot and polar explorer. In 1952, he was the co-pilot of a plane that landed at the geographic North Pole, making the plane’s crew  among the first Americans to do so. A graduate of MIT’s meteorology program, Fletcher later became director of NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. An ice floe in the Arctic contained a weather station established by Fletcher, and remained staffed for 22 years; it was informally known as “Fletcher’s Ice Island.” He received his doctorate from the University of Alaska.