*This is more of a Blog post about my past 10 years than a FB
post but if you should definitely keep reading :)*
The post is a brief overview of my path to and through Virginia
Tech, the making of the StormCruzzer and
StormCruzzer LLC, and the progress and struggles that I’m dealing with now Some
of the following will be pretty hard to talk about.
I want to get something off my chest, and I don't mean it to
brag whatsoever, I'm saying it because I want you to know you can do literally
anything you set your mind to.
Growing up, I had always loved extreme weather. My first memory
of weather occurred when I was very young. It was the first time I was allowed
to stay home alone and my parents headed out to dinner. A severe thunderstorm
came through, and I was scared to death. I called my parents asking how soon
they would be home, telling them about my fear of the storm. The thing is, this
whole time, I was sitting right beside our storm door, eyes glued on the
branches swaying and snapping in the winds, and heavy rain blowing sideways.
Fast forward a few years to when I attended a college fair where
Virginia Tech had a booth. The main attraction of their booth was a display of
their upcoming Meteorology program. I had always loved extreme weather and grew
up a huge Hokies fan, so it was the absolute perfect combination. Sadly I
didn't care or try too much in high school, so my grades weren't high enough to
get into Virginia Tech straight out of high school. The meteorology program was
supposed to start in fall of 2008, so I was pretty upset. I attended Thomas
Nelson and enrolled in their 2+2 program with guaranteed acceptance into Tech
as long as I kept a 3.5GPA. A year and a half went by and Tech still hadn't
gotten their meteorology program. I changed my area of focus to architecture,
then engineering at TNCC, and almost gave up on meteorology. I enjoyed
engineering, but I didn't have the passion about it that I did meteorology.
I decided to attend Coastal Carolina University to study Marine
Science, as they have an awesome Hurricane Research Center, and multiple upper
level meteorology classes. My first year at CCU was amazing. Amazing friends,
classes, atmosphere, campus, sports, everything was great. It was my first time
living away from home so it was a huge learning experience, and that seemed to help
get me through. The second year, however, wasn't so good. 90% of the friends
that I made the previous year either graduated, transferred, or dropped out. I
went through a very rough stage of depression, and was at the breaking point
when I randomly got on Virginia Tech's website. THEY WERE OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCING
THAT THEIR METEOROLOGY PROGRAM WAS STARTING THE NEXT FALL! I was ecstatic! I
called my parents immediately (it was around 3am) and told them the news. We
talked over the next few days and decided that I was going to come home to work
on some of the pre-requisites at TNCC so I wouldn't have to take them at Tech.
Fast forward to 2012 and I was working on my first semester at
Virginia Tech. I had finally made it, but the journey had just begun. My
professor for a couple of my meteorology classes announced that each year he
leads a storm chase class out in the mid west. Somehow I hadn't heard about it
until then, and I geeked out. I applied for the class, was accepted, and went
on a chase that following Spring.
I had grown up watching the Discovery TV Series "Storm
Chasers," featuring Sean Casey and his TIV2, Reed Timmer and company with
their Dominator vehicles (Both Sean and Reeds vehicles are built to intercept
tornadoes), and Tim Samaras, an engineer turned storm chaser, who put his
engineering knowledge to work helping lead the field in ingenuity. Tim wasn't
just about the adrenaline rush. He loved researching the science behind it. He
holds the world record for recording the fastest pressure drop, with one of his
probes measuring a 100mb drop in pressure in just 12 seconds. Tim was one of
the most well respected, and even careful/safe chasers there was. He was my
storm chasing Idol.
On may 31st, 2013, we were in El Reno, Oklahoma with the Hokie
Storm Chasers, when we decided to dip south. We saw a very high potential for a
dangerous weather outbreak, and due to the terrain, road network, and chaser
convergence (traffic from storm chasers), we decided to play it safe and catch
other storms that we forecast to initiate further to the south. As we watched
our storm grow, we noticed a monster storm parked directly over El Reno. The
radar velocity signatures showed a probable tornado, but we didn't know just
how bad it actually was. After our storm died out, we took to social media to
search for facts and pictures about the El Reno storm. We saw reports of a
massive tornado (sometimes hard to take serious sometimes with the amount of
false reports that come in), and kind of brushed it off until we saw more and
more reports of injuries and even a few deaths. Later that night, we heard the
awful news that Tim Samaras, Paul Samaras, and Carl Young were killed in the
tornado. This hit me pretty hard as he was my idol in the storm chasing
community.
I had thought about making my own storm chasing vehicle
eventually, but that trip solidified my decision, and caused me to completely
revamp my process and final project. Tim Samaras and company were trying to
outrun the tornado in a Chevy Cobalt down a dirt road when the tornado overtook
them. Reports from a car of similar size and weight 100 yards ahead them said
that the driver had the petal to the floor and couldn't surpass 45mph, due to
low traction and an extremely strong head wind. I went from wanting to build a
vehicle just to chase in to wanting to build a tank of a vehicle, with enough
power to push through almost anything, while remaining safe, reliable, durable,
and still comfortable. After the chase, I spent the rest of the summer devising
different vehicle builds, scrapping them, and revising a few different plans
until I got to the point where I was extremely happy with the end result. I had
planned on spending maybe $10,000 on the vehicle after buying it to beef
everything up to make it safer, etc.. I decided to go with a Silverado 3500HD
Dually for many reasons which I won't go into in this thread (could write a
full essay on why I chose that vehicle), and luckily enough, my uncle was
actually selling his 2011 to buy a newer version. We purchased the truck and
went to work.
First off, let me start by saying that I never imagined I would
actually get to the point where I owned the base vehicle to build up to storm
chase, let alone get to where I am now. I had been working throughout high
school and some of college so I had a good bit of money saved up for the
vehicle. I was also lucky enough to have my wonderful parents throw in some
bonus cash as an early graduation present, to get the vehicle project off the
ground. The first year, we planned on just lifting the vehicle, Rhino Lining
the body of the truck, and installing radios and laptop mounts so we could
communicate and gather information about the storms and atmosphere quickly. In
November of 2013, I spent 20-30 hours writing up and sent out roughly 100
emails to all sorts of different companies asking if they would be interested
in sponsoring the vehicle. As the project was extremely new and truck was
currently completely stock, I wasn't expecting much, as I had nothing to show
but the truck. I though that if anything I might get a 5 or maybe even 10% off
discount. I received no after no after no after no, but wasn't too worried
about it. I hadn't put too much work into it, and had thought it was a long
shot anyways. Then one night I got an email from a company telling me they were
extremely excited to jump on board with the project, and of course I was
ecstatic as well. I got a call from them a few days later, and received a 25%
discount on my purchase of a lift kit for the StormCruzzer. I started to get a
couple more emails coming in with offers like 25, 33, even 50% off some
products, and felt like I was in a dream. I never would have imagined I would
have my own sponsors.
Fast forward to May 2014, and I had three paralyzing anxiety
attacks, three days in a row. I had never experienced one before, and thought I
was having a heart attack at the time (so did the paramedics the first time I
was in the ambulance with them). The attacks were so bad that I would pass out,
and become completely paralyzed, and could literally feel the adrenaline
pumping through my stomach and chest (I thought I was bleeding internally at
the time because it was so bad). The following week, I was extremely emotional
and my hormones were all out of wack. I would cry when I was happy, cry when I
was sad, cry when I was mad, and had no idea why it was happening. I ended up
having to withdraw from that semester at Tech to go home and recuperate. I was
in no condition to drive, so my amazing Dad actually came to pick me up. On the
way home, I got an alert of a tornado warning nearby (we were near Richmond),
and at the snap of my fingers the anxiety was 100% gone. I went into storm
chase mode and navigated us safely home. The remining 2 hours of the trip I had
no anxiety problems whatsoever. Two weeks went by. and it was time to make a
decision. We had planned on conducting our first solo storm chase out in the
Mid-West, but weren't sure if it was going to happen due to the anxiety and
severity of the situation. after talking with my doctors, and explaining how
the storms helped me cope with the anxiety, we decided that I was okay to
chase. We conducted our first chase that year, and I had 0 problems with my
anxiety over the whole 10 days.
Once we returned, I went to work on continuing to design the
StormCruzzer. I was also working part time as an intern at WeatherFlow, so I
was building up funds to spend on the vehicle. Over the next two years I sent
out 1000s of emails to different companies asking if they would be interested
in sponsoring our project. At the start, 99% of them said no, but as we added
more and more to the vehicle and the companies saw promise, more and more
wanted to come aboard. During this time, I was still struggling bad with anxiety. My social anxiety was
extremely bad, to the point where I would think everyone was constantly staring
at me and judging me, and it caused me to miss a great deal of classes. I
didn't do so well with the classes with participation grades, but the classes I
could study and do work from just at home in I did alright with. I spent the
summer of 2015 brainstorming different paths to take StormCruzzer with a great
friend, Hans VanBenschoten. Our plan was to start giving storm chasing tours in
2017, and work on private forecasting and student outreach until then. We
started our private forecasting business in the fall of 2015, but living 300
miles apart, dealing with school and resulting anxiety, preparing for tours, a
back injury, and much more, we decided to put it on hold. It was out first “failed”
business venture and may not be the last, but it didn’t stop us, and didn’t
hinder us. We used it a learning experience and have gained a lot of new
knowledge since. 2015 and 2016 we again chased out in the great plains, and had
tremendous success. We caught an amazing anti-cyclonic tornado in Simla, Co.,
sold the footage to The Weather Channel, and shared our video with Thompson
Reuters who then distributed the footage world wide, where it was aired on
major news networks in over 20 different countries. All the hard work was
starting to pay off! Although it had gotten much better, I continued to
struggle with school in a few aspects due to my anxiety.
In the Fall of 2016, after 8.5 years of college, I finally
graduated from Virginia Tech with a degree in Meteorology. My dream had finally
come true, but my journey has only begun.
A little bit about where both StormCruzzer and I am now:
In Sepember of 2015, my lower back gave out while playing
basketball. It was the first time I had experienced any nerve pain (didn’t know
that was what it was at the time). I had broken bones playing sports in the
past, but a broken bone compared to what I experienced was maybe a 2/3 out of
10, this being a 10. I went to an orthopedic doctor there where I got an x-ray
and was told nothing was structurally wrong. They chalked it up to a pulled
muscle and told me I was fine to resume normal activities. I injured it again
playing football later that fall, and then again in the gym in the spring, and
each time they told me it was just a muscle and told me not to worry about it.
Summer of 2016 the pain got so bad that I went in for a second opinion to a doctor
here at home. I had severe nerve pain all the way down both legs, and had
trouble even going on a 10-minute walk. I was given a steroid injection, and
when that didn’t help, the doctor ordered an MRI. I went in to get the MRI read
and found out that I had a severely herniated disk at L4-L5. The doctor that I
was seeing had just retired from his surgical practice, so he referred me to a
different doctor and set me up with an appointment with him for the following
day. I went in the next day, and due to the severity of the problem and timing
with school closing in, decided to have surgery the next day. Surgery and
recovery went well at first, and I even got back to feeling 100% roughly two
months after surgery. I went on a 31-hour Hurricane Hermine chase and 63-hour
Hurricane Matthew chase just two months after surgery, and had absolutely no
pain. I was ecstatic. About a month later, the pain started to come back,
slowly at first, but continuously. It
continued to regress, so I made an appointment with my surgeon to get checked
out again, and had an MRI scheduled. The results came back with nothing
structurally wrong, so I was discharged. Jump ahead three weeks and I had a
good amount of relief from the pain, and after talking with my physical
therapist, decided that I would be okay to go on a storm chase down in Dixie
Alley. The chase went well and I had minimal pain for most of the chase. A
couple days later, the pain came back, worse than it had been since surgery. A
week and a half later, I made another appointment with my surgeon due to the
severity of the pain as I was sure that I had reinjured it in some way. At the
appointment, I was told that nothing was wrong and not go come back in unless
the pain was 10/10 and I couldn’t walk. The main reason for the appoint was to
get advice on what to do next since the pain was so bad, so I was extremely
displeased with how I was treated. The physician’s assistant completely threw
out all my symptoms and rushed me out of the office and told me once again not
to come back. No progress was made in trying out to find out what the next step
should be. I was pushed under the rug again and told not to come back. After a
few second opinions and unnecessary drama, I was scheduled for another MRI and
appointment with the surgeon. Again, I
was told that nothing was structurally wrong and was rudely rushed out of the
appointment, and told that I “need to man up because at this point I’m being
ridiculous,” but after a heated conversation I was finally scheduled with a
pain management specialist. Why they couldn’t have just done so two months
prior, I still don’t know.
A little back story on the pain. It’s not just “my back hurts.”
If you’ve ever experienced nerve pain before you understand where I’m coming
from. I have constant nerve pain radiating from my lower back down into my
legs. If I move or twist the wrong way, I have a severe shooting pain in my
lower back that feels like my body is being cut in half. I cannot sit for more than 20 or 30 minutes
without extreme pain, and without my legs going to sleep. For the past weeks I have been working from
home, mostly in bed, and until last week, I was in bed for 16-18 hours out of
the day, getting up every once in a while to get everything moving and keep
from getting tight. For the most part, I work from my computer, and am unable
to get much work done sitting down, so I have to resort to working while lying
in bed.
As of writing this post, I’m scheduled to start Physical
Therapy again March 6th, and am currently waiting to hear back from
the Pain Management Specialist about my appointment with him. I’ve been working
the past week on strengthening my core and stretching everything out, and have
managed to slowly start to ease the pain. I still cannot sit for long at all.
But the overall pain is down from a 7-9 to 5-7, which is a huge improvement. I’m
now able to work and focus without the help of opiates, and am making progress
in the right direction.
As for StormCruzzer, we’ve had to put public storm chasing
tours on hold due to my back pain. Although it is a pretty big shot to the gut,
as it’ll be the first year in 5 years that I haven’t done a big great plains
chase, but in some ways it may be a blessing in disguise. With finishing up
school, dealing with my back problems, getting ready to start a new job, and a myriad
of other things, and figuring out if I would even be able to chase, the tours
have been on the backburner this winter. I started working full time as a
Financial Planner with Vector27 Financial Group in January, so luckily I do
have a steady job to keep me going throughout the next two years (and hopefully
many more to come), and also to make money to put into the StormCruzzer and
potentially next vehicle J.
Having the tours start in 2018 instead of 2017 gives us much more time to get
ready for the tours, work on the vehicle/s, and get more storm chasing footage
for advertisement (Alex will still be chasing this year).
I know this post is pretty ADHD and jumps around a bit as I
kind of just added in excerpts as they came to me, but I want to close with the
main reason I started writing this blog. I saw a video by Mike Rowe from last
year where he was telling people to not follow their dreams because it will
ultimately lead to failure. I say screw that. If you truly want something bad
enough, you’ll do what needs to be done to make it happen. It took me over
twice as long to graduate from college as most people, but I finally
accomplished it. Did I think about giving up and calling it quits? More times
than I can count. Did I fail along the way? You bet I did. Are there days where
I feel like giving up now due to the back pain? For sure. But what keeps me
going is the fact that when I get old, I don’t want to look back and say “I
gave it my best shot,” knowing that I really didn’t. I want to look back and
say “I did that,” and feel a sense of accomplishment, knowing that I strived to
do what I love and never gave up. I also want to say that there’s no way I
would be where I am now without the love and support of family and friends and
mentors that I’ve met along my journey thus far. Frank (Doc) Malone has been a
mentor and teacher when it came to building the StormCruzzer, so I want to give
him a huge thanks for that.
