Rico Stormer, S.B. '18: Small-town wrestler becomes electric grid engineer

Rico Stormer grew up on a ranch in Circle, Montana, a town with fewer than 600 people. As a second-grader, he was the only student in his class. This allowed him to learn at his own pace – and he liked learning math.

“My teacher said, ‘If you want to do the whole math textbook, go ahead,’ he said. “So I just was cranking out homework and really enjoying that. My dad told me I was so smart, I could be an engineer someday.I had no clue what an engineer was, thought it was a train driver. But I liked trains, so I just stuck that as a goal in my head.”

Stormer, S.B. '18, never lost that interest in math, science and engineering. He eventually made his way to Cambridge, where he studied mechanical engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Coming here changed his life, giving him technical and problem-solving skills that eventually led to him getting a master’s degree at Stanford, then becoming a professional engineer at Electrical Consultants, Inc. (ECI). He now designs substations and power grids across the country.

“I've done dozens and dozens of projects, mostly for battery energy storage yards, wind farms, solar fields, things like that,” he said. “I think my educational background with mechanical engineering really helps me. Our company combines electrical, civil and industrial engineers. I'm uniquely positioned to coordinate and work with all of those different engineering fields because of my education.”

Stormer is the son of two teachers who encouraged academic pursuits for all five of their children. The rigors of the Harvard curriculum appealed to him, even the introductory courses he had to take before he could really dive into mechanical engineering.

“It was a really humbling experience to realize there's a lot more to be learned out there, but it was an awesome experience too, because I got to learn so much so rapidly,” he said.

At SEAS, Stormer worked closely with academic advisor Harry Lewis, Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, Emeritus. As a junior in “ES96: Engineering Problem Solving and Design,” he helped develop an instrument to measure the concentrations of stratospheric chemicals that cause ozone depletion under the direction of Jim Anderson, Philip S. Weld Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry. Anderson, who also taught Stormer as a freshman in “PS11: Foundations and Frontiers of Modern Chemistry,” helped inspire Stormer’s interest in the power industry.

As a senior, Stormer built an assistive fence-building machine as his senior capstone with advisor Rob Howe, Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Engineering. The machine looked like a small tractor with a pneumatic tube attached to the side that could drive fence posts into the soil.

“I still have plans to maybe make that a reality one day as a company, but it's sitting on the shelf right now,” he said.

The move from Circle to Cambridge took some adjusting but Stormer built a community through athletics. After getting accepted early, Stormer reached out to Jay Weiss, David G. Bunning '88 Head Coach for Harvard Wrestling, and was invited to try to walk onto the team. He wrestled all four years here.

“I can remember showing up on campus, and there were eight other guys in my class that were on the team, and we all met at the John Harvard statue and shook hands,” he said. “Never seen any of them before, but I instantly had eight of the best friends. And then the rest of the team, it's 25 guys that bleed and sweat together, and there's just a friendship there that you can't find elsewhere. I needed it, because it was a long way from home, being separated from my four brothers.”

Wrestling also enabled Stormer to pursue a master’s degree. Because an injury freshman year left him with an extra year of eligibility after graduating, Stormer spent a year wrestling for Stanford, then finished his master’s in energy resources engineering while coaching high school wrestling in Palo Alto.

“I thought if I was going to wrestle somewhere, I might as well get the best degree I possibly can,” he said. “Between my heat transfer class here and a few of the internships I'd gotten, such as one at a nuclear power plant, I'd had all these experiences in the energy field, and this degree fit in the same area.”

Stormer first joined ECI as an intern while at Stanford, then became a full-time engineer after graduating in 2020. His work draws on so much from his time here and at Stanford, from learning technical circuit design to communicating across engineering disciplines to approaching problem-solving through an engineering lens. Whatever challenges he faced while here, they helped change him for the better.

“I loved Harvard,” he said. “Every minute of it was a great experience. It was hard. It was challenging, but even as I'm in my job, I tell myself, ‘It's not midterms at Harvard. It'll be alright.’”