You may have heard people explain how they were born with a passion for their current profession. WKYT meteorologist Todd Borek is not one of those people. He was well on his way to become a Major League Baseball player when it was pointed out he may need to rely on some other interest just in case the Detroit Tigers weren't interested in a 9-yea-old catcher.
It was then Todd (while continuing to play baseball) focused a little more of his attention to his other interest: weather. "It was the one thing that would ruin a perfectly good baseball game", Todd said. "Besides, I really became fascinated with hurricanes, which makes sense since I was born and raised in the metro Detroit area."
While his youth was spent in the Winter Wonderland known as Michigan, his interest in meteorology (particularly tropical and mountainous climates), grew. He went away to Michigan State University where he minored in Climatology. He's quick to point out "I am a Spartan at heart but I am also a Wildcat fan thanks to my wife, D'Arcy, who holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration from UK."
He's been a meteorologist since 2001, but he didn't always work in the news business. Immediately after college, he moved to Southern California and started work at the Walt Disney Company. He moved around the company, worked on the Studio Lot for a year and even performed stand-up comedy at such comedy clubs as the Improv and Pasadena's Icehouse. He also worked for a period of time as a sixth grade math/science teacher but his desire to further pursue weather kept tugging at him. "The science of meteorology and the inner-workings of the news industry kept tugging at me, even in sunny California. Besides, if you caught and of my stand-up act back then, and gone through proper therapy, you'll definitely see why I needed to go after my weather interest," Borek jokes.
He began to take post-graduate meteorology courses at Mississippi State University and was able to land a weather internship.
He got into the television news business and moved from the sunny beaches of California to the knee-deep snow of northern Wisconsin for his first weather job. He moved around to stations in Flint, Michigan, and WKYT's sister station (WSAZ) in Huntington/Charleston, West Virginia.
While he has lived in various parts of the United States, it is this experience that has given him an understanding at how important subtle differences in terrain can affect local weather on a grand scale. From the ridge/valley influences here in Kentucky to the lake enhancement of the Great Lakes to the sea/land breezes of the California coast, weather conditions can be vastly different over the course of a few hundred feet. "I remember a nice, sunny early wintry day in Michigan where high pressure was firmly in place and the bulk of the forecast area was filled with blue skies and a north wind of about 10 m.p.h., except for one little mile stretch of our viewing audience which received almost a foot of lake effect snow. That is why he is so excited to work at a station with its own dual-polarity radar. "Live First Alert Defender is such a great tool. I can see those microscale systems in such a way that I didn't have the luxury of seeing anytime in the past."
Todd is proud to be a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist (CBM), a designation he earned from the American Meteorological Society in 2007. This was the same year he won AP weathercaster of the year for the state of West Virginia. He moved to Kentucky in 2008 (a month before his wedding) to become WKYT's morning and noon meteorologist. He and his wife, D'Arcy, have enjoyed their time in Kentucky. They are big animal lovers, especially cats, where they spend a lot of their free time volunteering at the Lexington Humane Society, Woodford Humane Society, Madison Humane Society A.L.L. as well as cat population organizations like Spay Our Strays. They also have opened their home to fostering homeless kittens for these organizations.
When not helping cats, Todd is a sport and film fan. He loves to exercise and spends his down time watching films and array of sports. He's a big fan of all Detroit and Michigan State teams but also has adopted UK and, from the other UK, Sunderland from the English Premier League. He is hoping that one day; the Detroit Lions will win the Super Bowl. "Of course, if I'm allowing my mind to go that far", Todd said, "I might as well wish for a billion dollars, world peace, and my very own time machine so I can travel to a time where the Lions actually played in championships."
Todd and D'Arcy like to thank those who made them feel welcomed here in Kentucky.
