The pace set by the U.S. Senate’s most surprising self-made staffer is hard to match.
With a stride that can feel like a sprint, Corey Norman has been the heartbeat of Sen. John Curtis’ operations since he entered public office in 2009.
First as Curtis’ deputy mayor in Provo, then as his chief of staff in the House, Norman, sporting his signature bold blazers, is now powering Curtis’ project of becoming one of the Senate’s newest and most independent players.
The aptest description Norman can think of to describe his place in Curtis’ office is “trying to build a car while you’re going 90 miles an hour down the freeway.”
But his role as Curtis’ right-hand man was nearly unimaginable three decades ago when he found himself parked 9 miles up Diamond Fork Canyon in Utah County, living out of his rusty 1982 Chevy S-10 pickup with nothing but $100 in his pocket.
“It was a pretty wild time,” Norman said.
The ride would only get wilder as Norman later discovered: Waiting tables at Los Hermanos in Provo until he could afford an apartment, which he snuck into three days before his lease began because he was tired of living in a tent.
Working full time at the restaurant while interning 20 hours a week at former Rep. Chris Cannon’s Utah office. First attending Utah Valley University, then the University of Utah, while helping his new wife care for their newborn baby.
And forging a path to become one of the youngest congressional district directors in the country, working with Cannon on thorny issues like expanding legal pathways for immigration and increasing state control of public lands.
Norman’s focus on problem solving over partisan messaging caught the attention of then-mayoral-candidate Curtis and eventually earned his trust to such a degree that the senator now relies on Norman to “finish his sentences.”
“I can’t always be there to speak to a constituent, I can’t always be there to deal with a staff issue, and I just always felt aligned with Corey,” Curtis said. “That’s been enhanced by 15 years of working together and him knowing me just so well.”
As the senator’s appointed “surrogate,” Norman has come to represent the responsiveness of Curtis’ team — ranked No. 1 in the nation — as well as its ability to advance legislation — three out of the 20 bills passed this year by Congress originated with Curtis.
But Norman’s secret, according to those who have followed his trajectory, is a single-minded emphasis on scoring wins for the senator while shunning the spotlight. If you don’t care who gets the credit, it turns out, you can move that much quicker.
From Fort Worth to federal wins
Norman was propelled along this unlikely path to Washington, D.C., by a work ethic he gained at a young age, largely out of necessity.
At 6 or 7, Norman became the man of the house when his dad left his mom — a nurse, with three boys in Fort Worth, Texas, who remarried about a decade later.
When Norman returned from serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York City, he was met with a dose of tough love from his mother.
“When the baby bird gets old enough to fly away from the tree,” she said, “the mama bird kicks the baby bird out, and the baby bird flies away or falls on the ground.”
Norman’s first attempt at flying landed him miles above Mapleton, in a grove of trees, about 50 yards from Diamond Fork river — “close enough ... for a dip but far enough ... to be alone.”
But besides a few quick detours, like this brush with homelessness and his brief stint as a squatter in his apartment-to-be, Norman quickly found his footing.
In 1999, Norman took a position as an unpaid intern in Cannon’s 3rd Congressional District office. Within a few months it transitioned to a full-time job, traveling the state with Cannon, fielding questions from voters and businesses.
While he initially dreamed of returning to Texas to coach football, Norman soon realized the rewarding nature of public service as he helped Cannon’s constituents solve problems that required federal attention.
When Cannon lost his 2008 primary challenge against Jason Chaffetz, who pushed for a harder line on immigration policy, Norman was left without a job and without a clear future in politics.
But Norman’s step back from the national scene turned into ”a stepping stone" when the marketing company he was at helped a new client: Action Target, a Provo-based gun range manufacturer, where Curtis was a part owner.
Around the same time, Curtis launched a bid for Provo mayor. Despite their limited interactions, Norman felt strongly that the city, and the country, needed the “measured” approach Curtis brought to politics, and began volunteering on his campaign.
“He’s very pragmatic about the way that he wants to go about solving problems,” Norman said of Curtis. “And that’s sort of my ethos also; that’s kind of how I define the world.”
Curtis recognized the shared vision and offered Norman a job as his deputy mayor after his victory. The two quickly moved to cut the city’s budget, increase regular flights to Provo Airport and build a recreation center that could pay for itself.
As Curtis’ deputy, Norman was tasked with communicating these accomplishments to residents using what was then the emerging community platform of social media.
For one video post, Norman had Curtis bike around the city talking about everything he was working on. When Curtis got to the rec center, Norman convinced him to dive into the pool wearing a full suit and swim a lap.
“Corey was instrumental in how to get our message out,” Curtis said. “When he’s at his best is when he’s in his creative mode.”
By the end of Curtis’ second term, the mayor enjoyed an approval rating of more than 90%, and was declared the nation’s “top elected official on social media” by the Government Social Media group.
This was “the best job” Norman ever had, he admits. But when Chaffetz resigned partway through 2017, Norman jumped at the opportunity to help his boss win the same district that had brought him to politics in the first place.
‘They’re the same person’
In the crowded race to replace Chaffetz at the Utah Republican Party convention, Curtis received just 9% on the first ballot. But after gathering signatures, Curtis won handily in the GOP primary.
Less than a year later, Norman was responsible for hiring Adrielle Herring to run the freshman lawmaker’s first reelection effort. Curtis, who had never met Herring before, balked when she committed to get 60% of delegate support. But Norman stood by her.
Curtis ultimately secured 59.8% of the convention vote. It was the confidence Norman showed in her, and in all other employees as chief of staff, that made the win possible, and that gave Curtis’ office one of the lowest turnover rates in the House of Representatives, Herring said.
“He is fiercely loyal to the people around him,” Herring said. “He is absolutely John’s equal in terms of leading the team to great success.”
Despite the stress of compiling a congressional office mid-term, and, now, nearly a decade later, transitioning to the Senate amid the chaos of President Donald Trump’s “one big beautiful bill,” Norman has continued to find “fun” ways to advertise Curtis’ actions as one of the most effective lawmakers in Congress, Herring said.
One of Curtis’ most creative ads was Norman’s idea: a mockumentary that explained how Curtis “gets so much done” by interviewing a handful of Curtis clones working in the office together. Curtis’ campaign slogan “Gets things done for Utah” was also Norman’s idea, according to Herring.
Adam Gardiner, the co-founder of Utah’s Aerospace and Defense Association and former state director for Sen. Mitt Romney, said Norman’s accessibility and sociability are all but unparalleled in Utah politics, but it’s his unity with Curtis that makes him so valuable as a chief of staff.
“They’re the same person,” Gardiner said. “If Corey says something’s going to happen, it’s because he knows Sen. Curtis will feel the same way.”
That doesn’t mean Norman is a rubber stamp, according to Kirk Jowers, the CEO of dōTERRA and former director of the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics, who said chief of staff is the most critical position for any elected official.
Jowers considers Norman one of the two “most impressive” chiefs of staff he has ever met because of how aligned he is with the senator and how he brings additional foresight to the senator’s office, including pushback when needed.
“Alignment doesn’t mean a yes-man,” Jowers said. “The worst thing a leader can have is someone who won’t tell them when they’re maybe not living up to their values.”
The puzzle of how Norman rose from restaurant waiter to Curtis’ No. 2 isn’t all that puzzling upon closer review, according to the senator.
It’s not the speed that characterizes his work schedule; it’s the character he brings to work that leaves no doubt in the mind of his colleagues that they are focused on the same goal.
“That’s the answer, is that there is trust,” Curtis said. “And it goes both ways.”
