Brendan is a climatologist, physical meteorologist and seasoned entrepreneur who previously founded WeatherLabs where he created its weather analytics software and intellectual property foundation on NextStep®. WeatherLabs pioneered online and web-based delivery of weather services to marquee customers including American Express Travel, America Online (AOL), Apple, Excite, News Corp., and The Microsoft Network (MSN), along with strategic technology partners NeXT (acquired by Apple Inc.), Nokia and Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle Corp.).
Brendan helped take WeatherLabs public on the NASDAQ stock exchange (NMS listed) as the world’s first publicly-held online weather company, and helped negotiate a $12M e-commerce marketing alliance with America Online. WeatherLabs was later acquired by The Weather Channel / weather.com prior to the $3.5B NBC Universal, Bain Capital, Blackstone acquisition.
Brendan taught the world’s first graduate course on Environmental Finance Weather Derivatives at the University of Hawaii’s Master’s of Financial Engineering program, co-founded and co-invested in the program’s hedge fund. Brendan has been a discussant on climate change, finance and weather risk management panels at the UH School of Ocean and Earth Science Technology, and is an invited business school guest lecturer on enterprise risk management / insurance.
Brendan has been quoted by The Wall Street Journal, Reinsurance News and Artemis.bm, CNET.com, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and interviewed by CBS (WBBM-TV) Chicago, ABC News Nightline, CNN Headline News and Asia Insurance Review. Brendan holds a B.S. in Meteorology from Northern Illinois University / John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences University of North Dakota.
