Senator Jake Garn, born on October 12, 1932, in Richfield, Utah, is a former insurance executive, U.S. Navy and Utah Air National Guard pilot, and retired Colonel with over 10,000 flight hours. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business and finance from the University of Utah and served as Mayor of Salt Lake City before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1974, where he later won re-election in 1980 with a record-setting 74% of the vote. In the Senate, he chaired the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and held key roles on the Appropriations Committee. Garn made history as the first member of Congress to fly in space, serving as a payload specialist on NASA’s STS-51D mission aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1985, during which he orbited Earth 108 times and logged over 167 hours in space. He is married with seven children and one grandchild. Courtesy of NASA.