MEET ROGER STORM the Johnny Appleseed of Michigan’S Rails-To-Trails Movement by TOM RADEMACHER
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TRAILBLAZER Roger Storm enjoys a sunny autumn ride on the Mike Levine Lakelands Trail, one of his first rail-trail acquisitions. MEET ROGER STORM The Johnny Appleseed of Michigan’s Rails-to-Trails Movement BY TOM RADEMACHER or someone with a last name that history may one day look back on and Born in the summer of 1952, Storm conjures up images of menacing proclaim him as “The Johnny Appleseed of remembers himself as an introvert, though weather, Roger E. Storm is instead the Michigan Rails-to-Trails Movement.” his older sister talked him into trying out and the kind of person who gets things Because — and there is little room for securing the part of 10-year-old Winthrop done by leaning on subtle persua- argument — if it weren’t for Roger Storm, Paroo, the adorable lisping youngster who Fsion and the Socratic method. it’s likely there would be far fewer trails steals several scenes in “The Music Man.” In other words, more like the famous throughout the state. Storm had a natural lisp at the time, so persona imbued in his fi rst name. “When it comes to solving issues, he’s much so that he underwent speech therapy “It’s funny,” he says, “but just recently like a dog on a bone,” says Nancy Krupiarz, for it. He laughs: “I could probably still sing here at work someone referred to me as former executive director of the Michigan all the words to “Gary, Indiana.” ‘Mr. Rogers,’ and that was after my time, so Trails & Greenways Coalition. “He’s just As he grew, he joined the Boy Scouts of I never watched him on TV. But I’ve now very creative in trying to get answers to all of America, embracing a love of the outdoors, come to learn who he was, and I take that the questions, and so skillfull in navigating though falling short of making Eagle Scout as a very nice compliment.” the whole thing.” “by maybe two merit badges,” explaining In the sometimes-wonky world of the What Krupiarz is referring to, in part, that “It was the late 60s, and I was walking Michigan Department of Natural Resources, are the myriad challenges associated with around in a Boy Scout uniform during what Roger Storm is that agency’s sole state-wide transforming a railway into a public trail was an anti-establishment era, so I kind of staff specialist responsible for acquiring — no easy task given the closed culture of let it slide.” railroad right-of-ways for use as recreational railroads and knowing who and what to tap It was, however, likely the only task in trails. It’s not a stretch to consider that in order to trigger action. his life he’s ever left unfi nished. 22 Michigan Trails Magazine 2020 With his new Schwinn Continental, Roger made several bike trips across the U.S. and Canada. WHAT WAS YOUR MOST DIFFICULT OR COMPLEX RAIL-TRAIL ACQUISITION? The Ironwood to Bessemer railroad corridor. This abandoned section of the Soo Line Railroad was acquired through a broad range of private and public entities, buyers, sellers, gifts and property exchanges. It has since been developed into the Iron Belle Western Gateway Trail. WHAT WAS YOUR In the early 1970s, he used money Development Commission. During his two LARGEST OR LONGEST wrought from odd jobs to buy a new years with them, while “renting an Schwinn Continental 10-speed bicycle. old fi shing shack across from a railroad RAIL-TRAIL ACQUISITION? Though a clunker by today’s standards, he line” in Whitehall, he rode his beloved A six-corridor package in the Upper rode it across the entire U.S. and Canada. Continental along what would become the Peninsula with Michigan Bell Telephone Those trips inspired a love of the open road, Hart-Montague Trail north of Muskegon. Company/Wisconsin Central LTD and paved the way for what would become “That’s where I got bitten, for sure,” he serves as both my largest and fi rst a zealous desire to develop rails into trails. says, and I did a lot of research about where acquisition. It included 88.65 miles for His early work history as a handyman abandoned railway corridors were.” the six corridors and 40.85 miles of and lawn care specialist put him in front of After a short stint teaching geography at two additional corridors that unique employers, including a Mrs. Perry Muskegon Community College, and then were railbanked. whose ancestors fought in the last Indian as a resource manager for Ingham County, wars in Minnesota. Another gentleman he signed on in 1989 as state director of the who employed him was a Rough Rider with Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, Michigan chapter. Teddy Roosevelt. At one point, he delivered He was hired by its co-founder, Peter Harnik, WHAT WAS YOUR HIGHEST cars to people from Michigan who were and it served as a pivotal point in his life, as COST ACQUISITION? snowbirding in Florida, which gave him the Storm would go on to make his mark in a $2,233,500 for a 0.9-mile section of chance to visit his parents and two younger profound way in the development of what inactive railroad corridor between sisters, who had moved south themselves. now are some 13,000 miles of trails that And then there was a woman doctor who wind throughout Michigan. Leonard Street and Ann Street in successfully fl ed the Nazis and settled on a Since 2000, Storm has served as the Grand Rapids purchased from Central 100-acre farm south of Dexter who gave him DNR’s sole, state-wide “Trailway Acquisition Michigan Railway to be developed as room and board in exchange for work he Specialist” responsible for assessing and part of the Grand River Edges Trail performed. “She was very well-educated and well-read, and at the end of every day, we would have dinner and I would get a lecture every evening.” Storm credits those brushes with older adults as stepping stones to learning how to wrangle information out of others with a mixture of patience and persistence. “And spending time with those older people I think helped me to not become a juvenile delinquent!” After graduating from Eastern Michigan University in 1979 with a degree in biology, and then a master’s degree six years later from EMU in geography with an emphasis on land use analysis, he took his fi rst full- time job as a planner with the Monroe County Planning Commission, in 1985. A year later, he moved across the state to become senior transportation planner with the West Michigan Shoreline Regional Roger was hired as state director of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy in 1989. www.MiTrails.org 23 complete with excerpts dedicated to history, topography, fl ora and fauna. He also owns the following credentials: • Established the fi rst offi ce of of the Michigan Chapter of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, which has grown into the independent Michigan Trails and Greenway Alliance; • Successfully organized and conducted the fi rst Michigander Bicycle Tour, recently named one of Bicycling magazine’s Top 10 favorite multi-day rides nationwide; • Attained “Competent Communicator” status from Toastmasters International; • Served as newsletter editor for the Michigan Chapter of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy and the League of Michigan Bicyclists. In recognition of his innovative contributions to Michigan’s trailways and greenways, Storm was presented the Pioneer in Statewide Leadership Award by the Michigan Chapter of the RTC, and negotiating the complicated acquisition of can depend on. Every now and then, also recognized as a “Pillar of RTC” by its railroad right-of-ways for use as public trails. we’ll have a little hiccup, where a younger national offi ce. “I can’t think of a better person whose and less-experienced person might get Storm has conveyed that he plans to passion for trailways has been a constant for bummed. Not Roger. He knows the hiccup retire in 2022, when he turns 70. That the better part of 30 years,” says Paul Yauk, will be resolved. And he doesn’t take ‘no’ concerns no small number of people who state trail coordinator for the Michigan for an answer.” wonder how his shoes might be fi lled. DNR’s Parks and Recreation Division. Not that Storm is infallible. Indeed, Yauk doesn’t mince words: “We’re in As much as anyone, Yauk understands he never saw something called Meniere’s trouble.” the complexities in changing a railway into a disease coming. A rare disorder of the inner Krupiarz laughs haltingly: “I don’t know public linear trail, and how Storm plays a ear that strikes about 200,000 annually, it if there’s another person who knows enough vital role: “He’s our go-to guy who works can cause vertigo and tinnitus. In Storm’s about the railroad corridors. Replacing him with the DNR to acquire trails. He knows case, it temporarily rendered him nearly will be diffi cult.” how to fi nd the money, working with parks immobile. It still affects him on occasion, Storm acknowledges that in the formative and forestry divisions to secure grants. which can be scary for someone who enjoys years especially of creating trails, tempers Then there’s the whole process of acquiring biking, hiking, kayaking and more — often fl ared within more than one community. railways, making applications to the Michigan alongside his wife Sue. Ironically, Sue was “There was a lot of vocal opposition,” he Natural Resources Trust Fund, then working struck with the same disease several years says, citing instances where people in rural with the Michigan Department of Transpor- prior to her husband contracting it.