Verner Edward Suomi was a Finnish-American educator, inventor, and scientist. He is considered the father of satellite meteorology. He invented the Spin Scan Radiometer, which for many years was the instrument on the GOES weather satellites that generated the time sequences of cloud images seen on television weather shows. The Suomi NPP polar orbiting satellite, launched in 2011, was named in his honor. Suomi was born December 6, 1915, in Eveleth, Minnesota. He received a B.E. in 1938 from Winona Teachers' College, Winona, Minnesota. Suomi taught science in Minnesota high schools from 1938 through 1941. Suomi came to the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1948 as one of the first faculty members in the Department of Meteorology. In 1953, he received his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. He taught at UW-Madison for his entire career, except for appointments as Associate Program Director for Atmospheric Sciences in the National Science Foundation (1962) and Chief Scientist of the U.S. Weather Bureau (1964). He received the National Medal of Science in 1977. He died in 1995 at the age of 79.