My grandparents, Joe and Dorothy (Dee) Demmer moved to Coon Rapids in the early 1950s, right around the time that Coon Rapids officially incorporated.  They came to Coon Rapids for the same reasons that a lot of members of "The Greatest Generation" came: they wanted an affordable place to call their own and to raise their growing family.

They worked hard (for a while, Grandma worked a full time job while Grandpa worked two) to provide for their seven kids, and to try to give them the best possible opportunities to find their own American Dreams.

My dad, Mike Demmer, grew up in Coon Rapids.  Dad graduated from Coon Rapids High School and worked several area jobs – including a paper route, working as a stock boy at the Red Owl and a job at the old drive in theater – in order to become the first member of his family to attend college.   He started at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and graduated from St Cloud State University.  In between, he served in the US Army during the Vietnam War.

Dad and Mom settled down in Buffalo, Minnesota where they raised my brother and me.  My mom was an elementary school teacher and my dad worked in senior housing.  My dad also served on the Buffalo City Council for eight years.  The importance of allowing people to age with dignity in their home community, the value of education, and the importance of public service are among the many things that my parents taught me.

After graduating from Buffalo High School, I attended college at Iowa State University to become a computer engineer.  While I was in college, my grandma Dee was implanted with a pacemaker.  Seeing my grandma benefit from her pacemaker steered me toward the medical device field.  Minnesota's strong medical device industry gave me the opportunity to come back to my home state. 

As my wife and I were getting our start in the working world, my grandma was getting ready to sell the house and move into assisted living.  We decided that Coon Rapids was the right place for us, so we bought the house from Grandma.  We've lived in Coon Rapids for almost 13 years since that decision.

We have 2 kids (the 4th generation of Coon Rapids Demmers!) who attend Adams Elementary School and Faith Lutheran Church.  As a family with young children, we are equally interested in the short term and long term plans for the City of Coon Rapids. I want to help shape those plans so that all of the generations of people who live here, from my Grandparents' generation to the young families at Adams and the generations beyond, can live their dreams in Coon Rapids.