AGE: 35
POSITION: Owner, chief meterologist, Susan Genett’s Real Weather Ltd.
RESIDENCE: Newport
LIFELONG AMBITION: To grow the business into a small meterological team and stay in Newport
FAVORITE BOOK: “Storm,” by Georgia Stewart
GUILTY PLEASURE: Shopping in New York City
Susan Genett says she has “the most adventurous desk job.” Real Weather, a custom forecast service she started in Newport in 1999, lets clients know how the weather will affect their plans to sail across the ocean, compete in an aviation race, film a movie, go on an expedition.
Genett has been in meteorology since she was 18, after she enlisted in the Air Force. Her career was marked by tragedy early on: She was working in Alaska, and there was a blizzard. Her supervisor, the forecaster-in-charge, tried to keep a helicopter search-and-rescue team from going in to look for someone in distress, because there was zero visibility. The crew went anyway, and the helicopter crashed.
Genett’s business is part of a very small niche: There are fewer than a dozen private weather forecast companies in the United States, she says, and only a handful more worldwide. Her one-woman shop is “truly unique,” she notes, because it provides forecast services not only for marine clients, but also for sports aviation and commercial production companies.
On that front, Genett can claim some unofficial movie credits. She has provided forecasting services for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, and she has a testimonial from Will White, the production boat coordinator on the films:
“Mother Nature is truly a partner in the production of these films … [and] because of the thousands of dollars we have invested in every minute, it becomes absolutely critical to have the most accurate forecasts available.” That, he adds, is what Genett has consistently provided, “for just about a year now, without exception.”
Genett also was the meteorologist for the HMS Rose voyage for the “Master and Commander” production; Capt. Richard Bailey dubbed her the “weather goddess.”
But you don’t need to be a star or an adventurer to benefit from Genett’s services. Since 2001, she has been providing free online Narragansett Bay forecasts from Memorial Day to Labor Day, a service used by government, nonprofits, travel and tourism offices, and more.
