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Arthur always had just this very nice way of listenting

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to what your points were.
He really knew how to

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connect with people in a really gracious kind of way.

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Arthur should be remembered as 

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passionate about the mission. He was very passionate about everything

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we were going to do.
He could view things from the broadest

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scale, all the way down to the fine details of the mission.

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His attitude was just infectious of the people around him. Everybody just wanted to

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solve the problem, wanted to work with him.

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I actually knew Arthur's work before I

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knew Arthur the person. I actually

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was quite familiar with his seminal theoretical work on

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how the Hadley circulation responds to latent heating

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in the equatorial regions. And that paper actually

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formed the basis of many of the world in

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current IPCC modeling world in interpreting how latent

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heating can change the atmospheric circulation, and it actually

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formed the basis a lot of the theoretical work for

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work on GPM and TRMM, including my own.

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And we were actually looking for a person to

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replace and to step up and be the GPM project scientist.

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And at that time, my boss, Franco, and I were really looking for someone.

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For me, there's no question, the person I have in mind

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is Arthur Hou because I knew him as a scientist,

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his technical competence,

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his interpersonal skill, all are the hallmarks of

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a great future project scientist.
In many ways

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think he really saved GPM. Not to

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say anything negative about what was going on prior to that

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when he took over the program was

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in a bit of trouble. And he really came in and with

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experience that was really geared toward the modeling side of things,

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and he really learned everything about GPM

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that needed to be learned and really built an effective team,

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great collaborations, not only throughout the U.S. but

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internationally.
Arthur's most important contribution

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I think were building all the partnerships for the constellation

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so that we can have the truly global dataset of precipitation

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data. He was also very passionate about getting all

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of the GMI channels so that we can measure all of the different

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types of precipitation, from drizzles to downpours, from

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rain to snow, and be able to calibrate the data from the

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GPM Core with all of the partner datasets.
I like to say Arthur had

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a way with words, and he always, always 

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was just so precise with his words. And I think that that made

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a big difference with the GPM materials for how

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we advocated for the mission. And it was really important to say

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things just the right way because otherwise they could be misconstrued

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or they just made us look less credible. So

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I really appreciated the fact that he took the time

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to make the things that he was saying and the things that went in the written materials

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were as precise and as careful as they could be.
I think overall

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in GPM it's still going to be

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the focus he brought to the entire enterprise

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again, the science and the applications,

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the global coverage both data-wise but also

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involving people from around the globe

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and organizations around the globe. I think those are going to be his major 

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accomplishments.
One thing I really remember is his

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hearty laughter at anything, or even something

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that was probably questionable in his mind, his reaction would be

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just this hearty laughter. And then he come up with

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a very positive response to anything.
One of my favorite stories

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is from when Arthur and I traveled to Brazil for a science team meeting

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He fit everything into a carry-on duffel bag.

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And he had a collection of khaki pants and blue 

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Oxford shirts, and he would accessorize. So for

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the meetings he would wear a blue blazer with those, but

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then one night after the meeting we went out on a cruise, and he 

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accessorized with a white towel around his neck with his blue Oxford

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shirt and khaki pants.

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So Arthur and I would end up on foreign travel together

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or at the same time--obviously often times with lots of other people--and

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one of the things I found is that going around with Arthur

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you attended, number one, eat in the very good restaurants

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because he would know where to go. I remember going opal

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shopping for our wives together in Melbourne, Australia. That was a lot

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of fun.
I really hope

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that Arthur is remembered every time a piece of data

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from GPM helps to further our understanding of precipitation

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helps to predict the direction of the next hurricane,

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flood prediction, landslide, every time we save a life

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I hope that some scientist out there remembers Arthur

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and that his legacy for this mission lives on.

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We've suffered a great loss here in losing Arthur at a young

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age, but I hope the mission

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is successful and certainly I hope the community

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a few years from now still remembers his contribution.

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On the day that Arthur died, the very same day that he died,

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the GPM spacecraft with all of its instruments that he'd worked

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so hard to put together and improve the science for,

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on that very day he died was the day that the spacecraft

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left NASA Goddard on its way to Japan

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for a launch in early 2014.

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So he took the spacecraft as far as he could

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and maybe he let go at that point and said "It's not in my hands anymore.

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It will get launched. It will take great data."

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