Mike Stom

1941-2012

Clear the Air has lost a leader and a wonderful spark of energy, and the world has lost a amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Mike have lost a dear friend and inspiring mentor. Mike leaves behind a company that has been built around his tenacious drive to serve others. His spirit will forever be the foundation of Clear the Air.

Mike was born in 1941 and was raised in Buna (a little town in east Texas). He went on to serve in the United States Navy and came back home to work for one of the most respected Government Agencies, NASA. He was part of the Gemini, Apollo and the Shuttle program. A few of his proudest moments were helping get a man to the moon and the Apollo 13 mission when they helped return the crew back to earth safely.

Retiring from the space program in 1990 Mike went on to start up a service company continuing his desire to help others and serve the community. His sons and late daughter all worked in the business with him. Mike retired in 2006 from all work and his son Jason has continued on with his vision and is the President of Clear the Air.

Mike was a warm and gentle person. He was well known for just walking up and talking to any stranger and learning their life story. He was a great listener. Anyone who might have meet him would also have commented on what a wonderful sense of humor he had. He was always looking to make someone smile and laugh.

When someone at the office asked about a customer or mentioned the location of a customer, Mike would be able to instantly go back in his mind and tell us what was done their to fix the problem, what good people they were and what kind of equipment they had. He was able to go all the way back to 1991 and pull this out of his head. We all went to him for customer history instead of pulling it up in our computer database.

With all his achievements in his career and business, family was his greatest enjoyment in life. Married to his wife Sandra, they recently celebrated their 47th anniversary together. A proud dad of 3 children and 7 grand children. There was never a day he didn't ask how his children were doing.

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”
― Thomas Campbell

I love you dad.  I will miss you!