GRANADA — The Granada-Huntley-East Chain School District will have a new superintendent next school year. Doug Storbeck will be starting on July 1.

Storbeck will be coming from his current position as principal at St. James Public School. He will be replacing Granada’s current superintendent, Mandy Fletcer, who accepted a superintendent position at Blue Earth Area Schools.

Storbeck is a graduate of Blue Earth Area Schools and currently lives in Blue Earth with his family.

Following his high school graduation, he went to Gustavus and got his accounting degree. He then went on to do public accounting for a number of years before he decided that it wasn’t the profession he wanted to do.

“I went into education because I felt like it was a much more family-oriented occupation,” Storbeck explained.

Storbeck then went onto Minnesota State University- Mankato to get his degree in math education. For his first teaching job, he taught 7th and 8th grade math at Blue Earth Schools.

“I then moved to the high school in Blue Earth and taught mainly 11th grade advanced algebra.”

All the while he was teaching, he was working on getting his masters in educational leadership from MSU.

Soon after that, Storbeck got his principal’s license in Dec. 2013.

“I kind of knew that was the path that I wanted to go into when I went into education. Eventually I wanted to combine my accounting background and my business background with an education background,” Storbeck explained.

In summer 2014, he took his first principal position at St. James Northside Elementary School.

His position was cut after a year but, the following year, the high school principal resigned and after some shuffling, he took a position as principal at the elementary school, where he has been at since.

Over the last year, Storbeck has been working on his superintendent’s license, which he will obtain in June.

“The position at GHEC became available when Mrs. Fletcher left to go to Blue Earth and I thought it would be a good opportunity for me. I knew there were some positive things going on in Granada and I want to see if I can help keep it going in a positive direction,” Storbeck said.

Storbeck said that he plans to observe and collaborate with staff that is already there in order to get to know what areas they’re doing well in and see if there’s any areas that need some work.

St. James has about 1,050 students, which is over three times as big as Granada, but Storbeck said the number of students isn’t an issue.

“I’m going to be learning how to do the role as a superintendent. I know there’s a strong staff at Granada, the school board is very supportive and the community is very supportive,” Storbeck said.

Storbeck and his wife, Melissa, have three children who all attend the Blue Earth Area School District.

Gavin will be in 11th grade, Rylan will be in 8th grade and Katelyn will be in 6th grade.

“They’re all in a lot of activities so it’s a busy time,” Storbeck said.

One of the things Storbeck is looking forward to in his new job is the fact that it’s more closer to his home now than his current job.

“I will cut at least an hour total from my commute every day. It will be nice to have that time back in my day,” Storbeck admitted.