Storm lands a seat at the Unicameral
Above: Sen. Jared Storm gives a thumbs up from his G-164B ‘Grumman AgCat’ airplane.
One of the first things you learn when speaking with Sen. Jared Storm is that flying a turboprop plane is harder than Alfred Hitchcock made it look in the classic film “North by Northwest.”
Storm explained that piloting such planes entails “pulling Gs” the entire time one is in the air, referring to experiencing acceleration forces that are greater than gravity.
“One positive is that I always drop a little weight during crop-dusting season from a combination of the heat and the energy it takes to fight the G-forces,” he laughed. “The negative is that you’re also always thinking a little bit about not dying.”
Storm comes by his love of flying naturally. He grew up in Scott City in western Kansas and knew from an early age that he wanted to be a pilot like his father. His dad owned a crop-dusting business and Storm earned his pilot’s license at 18.
But the District 23 senator isn’t only fast in the air. A track and field standout, he attended Kansas State on an athletic scholarship and ran middle distances for the university.
After earning a degree in exercise science, Storm set out on what he thought would be his ideal schedule: teaching during the school year and flying in the family business in the summer. A brief stint as a middle school teacher in Kansas City, however, proved pivotal for the freshman senator.
“It turned out, teaching just wasn’t my thing,” Storm said. “I decided instead to focus on agricultural aviation.”
Storm took a pilot position with a crop-dusting company in Wahoo in 1996 and set out on his own in 2004 to start an aerial application business. The company, now called Storm Aeronautics, has expanded and diversified over the years.
While he enjoys innovating and being at the helm of his companies, Storm’s heart remains in the pilot’s seat.
“There’s nothing like the intensity of flying low to the ground in one of those planes,” he said. “It’s probably the closest thing a civilian can get to combat flying.”
Storm’s family life is equally full. He met wife Colleen through a Catholic singles site back in 2004, before online dating really took off. She lived in Dallas, Texas, and was “blown away” by the Saunders County Fair when she came to Nebraska for a visit, he said.
“Being from such a big city, she’d never seen anything like it,” Storm laughed.
The couple dated for a year before marrying and now have six children, five of whom are still at home.
So far, life at the Capitol has offered some surprises for a man who is used to being an expert in his field and at the top of a company organizational chart.
“Honestly, it’s a little bit humbling,” Storm said. “As a freshman senator there is an immense amount to learn, but I’m enjoying myself so far. There are a lot of good people here on both sides of the political spectrum who are all working for the betterment of the state.”
