Kory Hartman is SevereStudios' CEO, video broker, and senior Severe Weather Specialist.

First of all, Kory's real name is Kelly... "Kory Hartman" was a hold-over from when he was a radio broadcaster. They all use fake names, ya know?

Kory started his broadcast career at WIKB-FM in his home town of Iron River, Michigan. There's not much severe weather in the Upper Peninsula, but Kory spent summers on a farm near Garretson, South Dakota (just outside Sioux Falls). While visiting SD, Kory quickly became fascinated by severe storms and tornadoes and the media's coverage of outbreaks.

Kory moved to South Dakota in 1997, and worked for a couple years at KJAM Radio in Madison, SD. Kory was on the air giving weather reports on May 30, 1998, the night of the massive F4 Spencer, SD tornado which wiped most of the town off the map. Kory later requested a tape from a storm chaser that was in the area. When it arrived in his mailbox, it included a documented storm "chase" all the way from Nebraska to the Spencer area. In the background of the tape, he could hear the chasers listening to him read warnings on the radio!

To experience the devastation caused by a violent tornado, Kory volunteered to help in Spencer, and broadcast the cleanup efforts live. It was an experience he will never forget. Kory immediately knew he needed to learn how to spot and chase storms, to help protect the public, and attended his first NWS spotter training course the following spring. He made severe weather coverage the number one priority at every radio station for which he worked.

In 2004, Kory became one of the first storm chasers to broadcast live video back to his local TV station. Once the technology was perfected, Kory helped form SevereStudios.com in 2007 and began streaming live tornado video for free to a mass audience via the Internet.

On a storm chase June 11, 2008, Kory was hit by the Little Sioux, IA tornado. While trying to get away from a dangerous situation, Kory made a wrong turn and drove directly into the path of a rain-wrapped wedge tornado. During the event, Kory's dash cam streamed the encounter live to WOWT-TV in Omaha, NE, thus Kory also became the first person in history to stream live video from inside a tornado.

Kory has worked in the media industry for 16 years and is also a computer technician for the US Government. Kory consults radio and television stations with programming and technical issues, and enjoys being one of the go-to storm chasers for KSFY-TV in Sioux Falls, SD.

Kory is married to a very understanding wife, and has two sons, ages 6 and 3.