Lexington, Massachusetts – In January, 2002, AER received orders from Eprotel of Caracas, Venezuela, to provide a meteorological processing system (Sistema de Procesadores) and a provisional meteorological service (Sistema Meteorológico Provisional) as part of the VENEHMET program, managed by Unidad Ejecutora del Programa Venehmet (UEPV) under the auspices of the Ministerio del Ambiente y de los Recuros Naturales (MARNR).

The mission of the VENEHMET program is to contribute to the security of the country's citizens by improving the production and accuracy of weather and hydrological forecasts, to increase the efficiency of the socioeconomic activities of the nation, and to preserve natural resources.

AER is the principal subcontractor and will be equipping a new meteorological center in Caracas with meteorological message switching capabilities and with advanced weather visualization and forecasting tools. Existing facilities at Maracay will be enhanced and fully integrated. One of AER's major subcontractors is the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, which is the national meteorological service of Australia. The Bureau involvement adds the world-class operational capabilities and experience necessary to provide tested forecasting tools and procedures.

The meteorological center will be complete by the summer of 2003 and the provisional meteorological service implementation will begin immediately.

Founded in 1977, and now celebrating its 25th year, Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. is an award-winning environmental research and consulting company with demonstrated expertise in remote sensing, satellite meteorology, numerical weather prediction, climatology, atmospheric and oceanic circulation diagnostics, atmospheric chemistry, air quality and risk assessment, environmental mathematical modeling, planetary sciences, and systems engineering. AER is certified to the ISO9001 quality standard. In addition to its Lexington, MA headquarters, AER has offices in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, CA, Los Angeles, CA, and Omaha, NE.

Further information may be obtained from:

AER:	http://www.aer.com/
MARNR:	http://www.marnr.gov.ve/venehmet/venehmet.htm
BOM:	http://www.bom.gov.au

Glossary

VENEHMET program	Programa de Modernizacion del Sistema de Medicion y Pronóstico Hidrometeorológico Nacional
Eprotel, C. A.	Part of the Eprotel Group. Specializes in systems integration in the fields of telecommunications and information technology and is the prime contractor.