Chris Bedford  is a veteran of 7 America's Cup, 3 Volvo Ocean Race/Whitbread, and 4 US Sailing Olympic campaigns. He was a member of the 1987 Stars & Stripes team that successfully returned the America's Cup to the USA from Fremantle, Australia. He was proud to be illbruck Challenge's team meteorologist as they charged to victory in the 2001-2002 Volvo Ocean Race, setting a 24-hour monohull speed record along the way. 

Chris has also forecasted for aviation record attempts and for hot air balloon and auto racing. He is a licensed private pilot, a Certified Consulting Meteorologist, and Past President of the National Council of Industrial Meteorologists, an organization bringing together private sector meteorologists of all types. 

Photo by Bert Willborg

Jennifer Lilly is an experienced ocean sailor with a lifelong interest in marine weather. She began her sailing life at the tender age of 2. Since then, she's chalked up 2 Marion-Bermuda races and sailed on the USCG Eagle from California to Panama. 

A member of Connecticut College's nationally ranked co-ed sailing team as an undergraduate, she earned her Master's degree from McGill University's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science. She joined Sailing Weather Services in 2004.  

Jennifer's recent forecasting experience includes the US Sailing Team, providing weather data service to the 2005-2006 Volvo Ocean Race, forecasting for the North Sails Event Weather Center, and for the yacht Pindar during the last Global Challenge race.

Matt Jones is Sailing Weather Services' Chief of Meteorological Modeling. Having joined the firm in November 2006, he is the newest member of the team. Matt became integrally involved in Sailing Weather Services' work while still a graduate student at New York State's Stony Brook University. 

In 2004, Matt began constructing and managing a real-time mesoscale modeling ensemble for BMW ORACLE Racing for their use in their challenge for the 32nd America's Cup. He continues to manage this and other modeling projects, data analysis, and product development.  

Matt received his M.S. in Marine and Atmospheric Science from Stony Brook, and earned his bachelor's degree in Atmospheric Science summa cum laude from University of Massachusetts Lowell. 

Matt's masters thesis was recently published in Weather and Forecasting, a refereed journal from the American Meteorological Society. The abstract can be read here.