Brandon Remmer Coleman

I taught high school for two years after leaving college. I loved teaching kids – but I needed to find a way that I could support my family more financially, as my wife and I had our first child on the way. I found my way to a financial planning career in the summer of 2016, and we’ve grown into a thriving organization since then. Some days I look around and can’t believe all the good that has come from this decision.

As our business grew and started to transition from a one-man show to a flourishing business, I spent more time thinking about my Opa and his story.

He was off the boat from Germany at nineteen years old. His story was the quintessential American dream. He married my Grandma Judy in 1964, and together they started a business that ended up making and selling cell phone moldings to Motorola in the eighties.

By 1990, they had a multi-million dollar business and their dreams had come true. They had taken a major risk, and it had paid off for them and their family and their employees. Heiko meant so much to his employees – he worked hard for himself and his family, but also for them and their families.

In 1991, Heiko and Judy had achieved another dream – they bought a cabin together on a private lake in Wisconsin, about an hour away from their home in Illinois. They had the boat, the private beach – the whole thing.

Soon after buying the house, Heiko was driving a van full of furniture up to the new summer home when a 16-year-old fell asleep at the wheel and hit him head on – he passed away later that day.

It’s still heartbreaking to think about – someone who meant so much to so many people gone in one instant. But Heiko had planned for this – even the worst – and my grandma has lived comfortably since then because of the financial planning she and Heiko had worked on together. The business survived and continued to thrive because of the planning he had done.

Judy was able to keep the summer home – and I’ve spent 30 summers there since then. It’s now one of my kids’ favorite places in the world – and none of this happens without the work they did together. That’s a difference made for generations.