About Mr. Herm

I grew up in Pulaski, Wisconsin, a town of about 3,500 people just outside of Green Bay.  Pulaski is home to "Pulaski Polka Days," one of the largest festivals dedicated to Polish people in the United States.  It's also home to my alma mater, Pulaski High School.  When I graduated in 2002, the student population was about 1,100 (700 fewer students than BMHS) and 99 percent of them were white.  So as a child, I was not exposed to nearly the amount of diversity that the fortunate students of Beloit are.

I went to college at UW-Madison, where I majored in History and Political Science.  I was busy with classes while I was there, but I was even busier as a member of the UW Marching Band.  If you're a Badger fan, you know that's the band that marches on the field at football games and blasts people's ears out at basketball and hockey games at the Kohl Center.  Going to UW-Madison and having the opportunity to be in the band was something I will always cherish.  I got a great education.  Plus, because I was in the band, I was able to perform for 80,000 screaming fans every week during the fall, see every home Badger football, basketball, and hockey game FOR FREE for five years, travel to Florida (3 times), San Antonio, and Nashville FOR FREE, and do more Lambeau leaps than most Packers do in their careers when we performed every year at Lambeau Field.

   
(Me as a member of the band at the 2002 Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, TX.
Yes my hair is bleached blonde.  That was cool back then.)

(Lambeau Leap - that's me on the left, coming down)
 

While I was in high school and college, I worked at a ton of different jobs before finally landing my dream job as a Social Studies Teacher at Memorial.  Some of the jobs I've worked in my life include...

• Student technology assistant for my high school
• Hardee's (I had the best drive-thru times out of all my co-workers)
• Woodman's (started out pushing carts in the parking lot and got promoted to stocking shelves)
• Driving a forklift at a paper mill... on the night shift
• Building fences
• Driving a forklift at a junk mail factory... that's right, a junk mail factory
• Madison Rec. League adult softball umpire
• Working for the Badgers - I delivered mail to all the athletic coaches.  I even got to drive a golf cart around Camp Randall Stadium!
• Selling appliances at Sears
• Banker
• Substitute teacher for six different school districts

All-in-all, I've enjoyed my life so far.  It's been pretty exciting and I've had a lot of great experiences.  But nothing tops my life right now.  I'm engaged to my high school sweetheart, Brittany, who is my favorite person in the world.  We're getting married in June, then spending a week at Disney World for our honeymoon.  She works at Beloit Memorial Hospital in the lab.  If you ever have to give blood or pee in a cup, she's one of the people who runs it through fancy machines or looks at it under a microscope to find out what's wrong.  And, I have the best job in the world: teaching history, the most fascinating subject in school, to the great students in PKN.

(Brittany and I back in college)
 

When I'm not teaching, I enjoy spending time with Brittany, watching the Badgers and Packers, finding new ways to incorporate computers and technology into my lessons, and going home to Pulaski to visit my family.