Could this be it?

This was one of those interesting weeks. Just before Thanksgiving, I was offered an interview for the Director position of a NOAA lab in South Carolina. I'm not going to go into specifics, but if it's offered (and there's three candidates that have been interviewed), my wife and I have a major decision to make. Much like the job I interviewed for earlier in the year, it represents quite a change in our living situation, the impacts on family and kids, and so on.

On the other hand, it represents an opportunity to become part of one of the best laboratory facilities within NOAA with state of the art research and scientific expertise in ecology, health, genomics, bioinformatics, and environmental chemistry. It's a way better fit than the previous job I applied for, and would be a real career advancement, with quite a large set of new esponsibilities. While largely administrative, I think I made it clear during the interviews and my seminar that I still am in the position of maintaining a science presence with a lab and post docs/grad students. Evidently I impressed, and I do feel it was one of the best seminars I've ever given. I know that members of the laboratory science board expressed the same sentiments, and so did members of the executive board including the chair of the board and Director of the adjacent lab that's in the same set of national labs within this part of NOAA.

I'm on the flight home now.....my wife and I will have a lot to discuss over the weekend. Supposedly the decision could come (unofficially) as soon as Monday. Oh, boy....