Walter Storm was the eighth and youngest child in a family of west Texas settlers. His early childhood memories included Pancho Villa's startling attack on Juarez, Mexico in 1911. As a young boy, Walter broke horses that the U.S. cavalry rode in World War I. In his teens, he was a baseball catcher with the Texas Oklahoma League's Tulsa Oilers. After a first business endeavor trapping Texas lobo wolves, Walter's spirit of adventure led him to New York City, where he attended New York University and started a business manufacturing ashcan carts.

After a post-college stint in the Texas oil fields, Walter Storm sought opportunity in southern California, hoping to escape the blight of the Depression in Texas. In 1932, twenty-eight year old Walter Storm founded Western Brass Works in Los Angeles with an investment of $350. Western Brass grew to be one of the largest brass foundries in the western U.S and was a leading supplier of brass war products during World War II. Western Brass Works eventually evolved into today's diversified firm, Storm Industries, Inc.

Walter Storm was a tall, lean man and an avid outdoorsman. A member of the Adventurer's Club, he hunted and fished around the world, including three months spent in the African bush. His boyhood love of horses never left him, and he was a devoted supporter of his four daughters' equestrian achievements.

Walter Storm was a man of tremendous business vision and a strong work ethic; a classic first-generation entrepreneur. He took joy in developing business opportunities in diverse industries. While his core business remained the manufacture of brass parts, he later successfully diversified into electronics, air valves, tractor parts, diesel engine parts, real estate development, and restaurants. His company pioneered and developed irrigation and water products, sharing design techniques and setting standards for other industry leaders to follow.

Walter Storm was both an optimist and a trailblazer. During World War II he supplied brass shell casings to the military. He reinvested his war earnings into California real estate. When it made sense to go into the restaurant business, he invested in the El Paso Cantina, an early prototype of the now popular Tex-Mex restaurant chains. Later in his life, Walter Storm was dedicated to helping a new generation of young entrepreneurs. He oversaw pipe mill projects globally and was instrumental in promoting pipe manufacture as a means of basic economic development around the world. Walter Storm is survived by his wife, four daughters, and eleven grandchildren.