An ordinary day at the office is anything but ordinary for Jared Stoll . Life as a sky dive instructor can certainly have its ups and downs . For instance , his office is a hangar he shares with three airplanes , a pilot named Owen Brown and another tandem instructor Daniel Harmon . Now and then – from the tiny , but “ real ” office attached to the hangar – the competent Melissa , who keeps this place running , pops in to inform the crew that two tandem jumps are scheduled for the morning . That is if this bitter south wind will relent before their clients arrive .
Watching an unsettled sky from the hangar door , there is a consensus gathering from these expert flyers that today might not be the best day for jumping from an airplane .
“ It all depends on what ’ s going on up there ,” says Stoll as he motions aloft .
Ask him what he does for a living and he jokes about binding himself to someone who pays him to throw them out of a plane at 10,500 feet and in a nutshell that just about describes it . But the lead tandem instructor for Dallas Skydive Center – located on the grounds of the Caddo Mills Municipal Airport – isn ’ t flippant about safety . With an eye on the gusting wind and the weather graphs in front of him , he says , “ I make all my safety decisions on the ground .” Up there , it ’ s too late .”
Bitten by the aviation bug early in life , Stoll started pilot training in his 20s but soon discovered he preferred leaping out of the planes instead . “ For a Kansas kid who was always jumping off of things – trees , ramps , cliffs – it was everything I was looking for ,” says Stoll . Twenty-five hundred jumps and multiple certifications later , Stoll admits that sharing this thrill and giving clients “ the memory of a lifetime ” is one of the best parts of his career .
“ Most people come here to celebrate something . A considerable chunk of the demographics are 18 year olds on their birthdays . It ’ s the age of consent . They want to do something they ’ ll never forget .” When today ’ s clients arrive , a fa-
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