Frank served in the
United States Air Force (USAF) where he received training as a weather officer before being a graduate meteorology student. In 1961, he began working as a forecaster for the NHC. He was appointed director of the center in 1974. While director, he also served as chairman of the International Hurricane Committee, which coordinates hurricane warnings across North America. He participated in meteorological experiments conducted off the coast of
Africa. In 1987, Frank was called to testify as an expert witness before the
United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. he was the longest serving director of the NHC. As NHC director, Frank was in the news frequently and appeared in many interviews with
CBS news anchor
Dan Rather, whose early career included coverage of several hurricanes. In 1980, Frank implemented an
amateur radio station that became an important link for resilient communications and
ground truth information, including the influential Hurricane Watch Net. The first major tropical cyclone they operated was catastrophic
Hurricane Allen that same year. The NHC station communicated directly with the Brownsville Weather Center in
Brownsville, Texas after it lost all of its conventional communications links. The only remaining link was the amateur radio
station running on
battery power. NHC and Brownsville discussed the strange behavior of the
eye of Hurricane Allen while it stalled just off the
Texas coast for nearly two hours. The station also provided crucial radio relays between hospitals,
hospital ships, and relief organizations, sometimes again being the only communications method still operating in damaged areas. ==Broadcasting career==