Jean Coiffier is now retired from Meteo-France, where he was Ingenieur en Chef des Ponts et Chaussees, and is a member of the Societe Meteorologique de France. His involvement in meteorological science began in 1968 at the new Algerian Meteorological Service, implementing elements of a modest meteorological forecast suite on a small computer, before joining the Direction de la Meteorologie Nationale (later Meteo-France) where he took part in the development and implementation of operational models. In 1989 he became the head of the General Forecast Office. He worked there until his retirement, also giving regular lectures on numerical weather prediction to students of the Ecole Nationale de la Meteorologie and training courses to professional forecasters. He also played an active role in realising Computed Aided Learning modules devoted to numerical modelling and forecasting methods.