Roland Madden learned basic meteorology at Texas A&M University as a U. S. Air Force officer.  He spent his military time as a forecaster at Cape Canaveral Florida.  After four years in the military, he began studies at the University of Chicago working for Ted Fujita earning a Master’s Degree in 1967 specializing in the geometry of satellite meteorology.   That same year he joined the research staff at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.  His interests were in observations of tropical and large-scale meteorology, climate, and the limits on long-range prediction.  He earned a Ph.D. from the Colorado State University in 1978 where his advisor was Berhard Haurwitz.  He is retired from NCAR and continues his interest in large-scale, normal mode Rossby Haurwitz waves.