Andre Bernier

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This section does not cite its references or sources. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) Any unsourced material that has been or is likely to be challenged may be removed at any time. This article has been tagged since March 2007.

Born in 1959 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, meteorologist Andre Bernier is currently WJW-TV's weekday morning meteorologist on the top rated morning newscast, "FOX 8 News In The Morning," having two Emmy awards for his weathercasts there. He has been at that post since February 1988 when Cleveland's very first, full-length local morning newscast began.

His interest in meteorology began at the very early age of 4 when he noticed dark clouds from an approaching storm. It was the beginning of an all-consuming passion to understand weather of all types, but during his boyhood years in New England took a particular fancy to winter snowstorms and the well-known "nor'easter."

At the age of 16, Andre became a fixture in New Bedford radio by beginning his broadcast career supplying weekend weather forecasts to his hometown radio station, WBSM-AM at the age of 16. With the patient help of a number of mentors such as WBSM's Stann Lipp, Jim Loomis, Dick Stevens and newsman Jim Phillips, he polished his skills as a broadcaster while continuing to educate himself in synoptic meteorology (forecasting) by shadowing the late Charlie Taylor, meteorologist for WLNE-TV, whose studios still resided in New Bedford in the 1970s.

After graduating from New Bedford High School in 1977, he attended Lyndon State College in Lyndonville, Vermont and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Meteorology in 1981. During his college years, he started a student-run company called "The New England Weather Net," which supplied local radio stations (including WSTJ-AM, St. Johnsbury, Vermont) with daily weather feeds by phone.

After graduation, he left New England to accept his first position as weekend meteorologist in Cedar Rapids, Iowa at eastern Iowa's then premiere station, KGAN (which was known as WMT-AM-FM-TV). After only eight months, Andre left Iowa to join the then speculative national cable channel start-up known as The Weather Channel. Andre Bernier and Bruce Kalinowski (Edwards) were the very first on-camera meteorology team when The Weather Channel started broadcasting on Sunday, May 2, 1982 at 8:00 PM EDT.

In 1985, he moved to Minneapolis where he worked at WWTC-AM (the only commercial AM radio station in the USA to attempt an all-weather format), Northwest Airline (as a trans-Atlantic flight forecaster) and eventually KARE-TV, Minneapolis, where he worked with his wife, Sally "Patrick" Bernier during the weekday morning newscasts.

In 1988, Andre and his family moved to Cleveland.

In addition to his activities as a television meteorologist, his faith journey began to take an increasing priority which led him to enroll in a distance-education seminary program. With completed courses from Southern Baptist Seminary in Nashville and ICU Bible Institute in Irving, Texas, he was licensed by the Evangelical Church Alliance in 2003 and ordained by an Ordination Council of pastors on May 21, 2004 at Grace Community Church, Massillon, Ohio. He is an active member of Fellowship Bible Church, Chagrin Falls, OH where he is a creative arts pastor. He occasionally accepts invitations to other local pulpits as guest preacher and evangelist.

He is also active in digital film production, having been mentored by Hollywood film director, Jason Tomaric. Aside from a number of shorts, Andre's filmography includes the mid-feature length drama, "Christmas Lights In Pilaf" (2004) based on the first chapter of his Christian fiction book, "Welcome To Pilaf," and most recently a full-length documentary about a family from France who, with their life savings, bought an old, abandoned building in Olmsted Falls, Ohio to open an authentic French bistro. "French Toast" (2006) has been submitted to numerous film festivals in the USA including Utah, DC, Cleveland, Dallas as well as the national Telly Awards.