[1][full citation needed] Tory was raised by his maternal grandmother, Virginia Martin née Krause on her small ranch in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains in Amador County.

When he found a case of 80 year old dynamite in the back of the barn, he used a pen knife to cut open the sticks and extract the explosives which became propellant for his homemade solid rocket motors.

[3] During his college career, Bruno was an astronomer’s assistant at the Lick Observatory where he focused on collecting spectra from distant galaxies using the Coude telescope in order to measure their rotation.

[1][full citation needed] Upon graduation from Cal Poly, he returned to Lockheed as a structures designer working primarily on the Trident I and II missiles.

[1][full citation needed] Eventually, Bruno joined the advanced programs team where he worked on new rocket technologies, filing patents,[7] trade secrets, and invention disclosures.