Northern State’s Krayle Stormer is much more than a ranked wrestler. The graduate student came to the Wolves in the transfer portal this past summer with big plans ahead of him.

Stormer graduated from Oregon State where he wrestled for four years, earning a degree in mechanical engineering with a focus in aerospace. Stormer put it another way: “In laymen’s terms, I do rocket science.”

Coming out of high school, Stormer was a decorated wrestler with two state championships in the state of Montana. Stormer chose Oregon State to further his wrestling career and to become a rocket scientist.

“The aerospace department at Oregon State is notably really good,” said Stormer. “One of the coolest things is they have actually tons of hands on, so most of my classmates were all in like actual leagues where they built rockets.”

How does someone get into mechanical engineering? It was actually Stormer’s dad who started him on that route.

“Pretty much my dad chose for me. He was like, you seem like a nerd,” Stormer said. “I definitely enjoy math and physics. Like I just really want to understand how the world works.”

To further narrow it down to have a focus on aerospace, that was thanks to his dentist.

“My dad I think was talking to our dentist or something and the guy flew a plane to work, because I’m from the middle of nowhere,” Stormer said. “And my dad’s like ‘hey, I think you’d like planes.’ And I was like yeah planes sound cool to me. And then I got into aerospace. … and I chose rockets over planes.”

While at Oregon State, Stormer built some pretty cool things.

“So for my space systems class, it’s like orbital mechanics and space subsystems, I designed a mission to Mars as the proposal project for it. I wanted to name it BATS but I actually had to deal with a crew and they renamed it to DIGGER,” Stormer said. “The project was sending out a rover that was focused on digging and the purpose was to take samples. And then they use sonar to detect if there’s any cavities that you could establish colonized civilizations into.”

Along with the Mars Mission project, Stormer headlined quite a few other projects in his time at Oregon State.

Once the 141-pounder graduated with his degree, he wanted to spend his last year of eligibility wrestling for a new squad. After looking at over 20 schools, he visited Northern while on a trip to an NSIC foe, Southwest Minnesota State.

“My brother, Lincoln, wrestled for Minot State and he loved this coach named Chase Jackson, who coaches now over at SMSU. And so, I was like OK, I’ll go check out one DII school just to see what this guy’s about,” Stormer said. “And then from that, Northern had also contacted me and they set up a trip. And so, I was like, since I’m checking out one DII school, I guess I’ll check out this other one in the same area.”

What really stuck out to him was the culture of Wolves wrestling, not knowing that Northern was a legitimate option for him.

“When I actually came here on my visit trip and Rocky (Burkett) showed me the gym, I was like it’s cool, but I’m never going to be here. Well, it turns out that it’s really awesome here,” Stormer said. “I think really between talking to the coaches and learning the culture of the guys, that they got it together.”

Stormer has been making an impact for the Wolves this season wrestling at 141 and even found himself in the top 15 in the nation for a couple weeks. He took eighth place at the Midwest Classic on Dec. 14, and recently helped the Wolves gain their first dual win over Sioux Falls.

About a month ago, Stormer was interviewed for a job as a launch engineer for SpaceX, but he’ll finish his wrestling career before he enters the work force as a rocket scientist.

“They wanted me to start working immediately, or like really soon. They’re looking for a guy to fill the role, and I pretty much said ‘I have to wrestle,’” Stormer said. “If they don’t find another candidate or wait till summer or something, other than that, I will be wrestling over rocket science any day.”

Stormer has big plans for the future, but he also has a couple of side quests in mind.

“When I’m done with college wrestling, kind of the plan right now is to get into break dancing,” Stormer said. “But who knows, maybe I’ll get into flying planes.”