written by: Cliff Buchan, editor, "The Forest Lake Times"
"I've been with the Forest Lake Times for 28 years and served as the paper's editor for the past 15 years. I've known Jim throughout my years here and really enjoyed doing this type of historical piece for him." - CB

There is no getting around the fact. Jim Hermes is a peddler. He was born a peddler and he'll die one. And that's just the way he wants it.

Now in his 63rd year, Hermes makes no bones about his profession. He sells real estate for Re/Max Associates Plus in Shoreview and in an old-fashioned way, Hermes still sees himself as a peddler.

But in this new century, Hermes has taken the descriptive term to new heights. If peddler means someone who goes door-to-door selling goods, that's Hermes' job today. But in the year 2000, Hermes travels on the World Wide Web as a high-tech salesman, using the computer much the same way a peddler of many years ago would use horses and a wagon to navigate the countryside.

It's a sign of the changing times, but a sign Hermes has embraced in a real estate career that he has been part of for 50 years and actively involved with for over 40 years. "Our audience today is world wide," Jim said recently, looking back on his career in the Forest Lake area. "We're not Forest Lake real estate people exclusively. We're international."

The advent of the computer is one of many changes to encompass this man's life in the real estate world. While he affectionately looks at his career in terms of a salesman and a peddler, Hermes is a consumate professional who takes pride in offering real estate services with the skill of a professional who relies on the technology available to him. But he does so without sacrificing the old-fashioned personal service on which he built his real estate reputation in Forest Lake.

In the big picture of Hermes' life, he is far more than a peddler. In a historical sense, Hermes is a pioneer, a trailblazer, one who dared climb high mountains and go places most real estate agents would not.

As Jim Hermes looks back on more than 40 years of work in the real estate field, he is amazed by the changes he's seen. It's been a journey of success, soul-searching, the realization things can go wrong and a willingness to dig down deep from within when times were tough.

It's been a journey of highs and lows, but a journey of success.

His early influence

Real estate wasn't the chosen profession for Jim Hermes, but it was a line of work he seemed cut out for in his early years. And there was the influence of his father to push him in that direction.

Eleanor and Henry Hermes in Tacoma, Washington, at the time of their marriage.

Born November 16, 1936, in Tacoma, Washington, Jim Hermes was a boy of 8 when his parents, Henry and Eleanor moved their family of five kids to Forest Lake from California. For Jim's father, it was a return to his roots in Minnesota. Henry Hermes grew up around Browerville in central Minnesota, but moved west with his family in the 1920s to build a new life. During the depression years, Henry's father owned a lumberyard in Browerville but the changing economy forced the family to go west.

The youngest of five children in his family, Henry spent most of his adult years on the West Coast working in the lumber business. The family lived in Tacoma, and also in the California cities of San Jose and Oakland where Henry was employed in arms plants. During the war years he worked in the plants and was on the road selling whatever he could find to peddle.

The climate of Washington - often wet, damp and rainy - was never to Henry's liking. But Eleanor Hermes, who was born in Winnipeg and moved to Victoria on Vancouver Island when she was 2, was OK with the climate. When Henry's uncle, Adalord LaVoi agreed to help bring the family to Minnesota, Eleanor made the move kicking and dragging her heals. But being the good wife, she made the best of the move and the many years of enduring the awful cold of Minnesota..

A friend of Adalord's had a cabin for rent in what is today the Skoglund Park area of Forest Lake and it was there that Henry and Eleanor moved their family in 1945.

It was like a dream for the kids, Jim recalls. The family had little, but in the mid-1940s, no one really expected a lot. Forest Lake quickly became home for Jim and his brothers and sisters: Ted, 67; Patricia Cowing, 65; David, 61; Maryanne, 55; and Mike, 53. Mike is the only family member who was born in Minnesota. The family remained in the cabin for eight months before moving to a larger home better suited for the large Hermes family.

"One of my first memories is my dad taking me to the bay to fish with a cane pole," Jim said, thinking back on the simpler times of the 1940s.

For his father, just 35 at the time of the move to Forest Lake, life in Minnesota meant new opportunities. In his early years here he worked for the late Clinton Hallberg selling cars in St. Paul. He also jockeyed cars in Forest Lake and started a printing shop in the family garage at the new Hermes home on Ideal Avenue on Second Lake of the Forest Lake Chain.

Jim thinks back fondly on the decade of the 1940s. The family purchased the home from the J.B. Weiser Lumber people in Forest Lake for $2600.

 

The Hermes & Hilton second office building was at 643 S. Lake St. (Highway 61) in Forest Lake. Lakes Gas is now headquartered in the building.

Five years after putting down roots in Forest Lake, Henry teamed with Judd Hilton to start a new real estate company, Hermes & Hilton Real Estate. That was 1950. Hilton had owned a real estate office in the Midway District of St. Paul and had a strong belief the farming and resort rich Forest Lake area would be a good place to set up shop. The Hilton Company was an old second-generation company started by Judd's father.

"He saw a need in the community," Jim said of his father's decision to start a company here. "There wasn't another company in town."

As a teenager in Forest Lake, Jim found his father's printing business a welcome part-time job and a way to earn spending money. Hanging around his father was probably more influential than Jim realized at the time, however.

Jim Hermes graduated from Forest Lake High School in 1955 and quickly found out a high school education was not enough. A few years later he started school at the University of Minnesota, taking night classes. Jim never graduated but found much value in the self- improvement he gained from college.

In 1957, relying largely on the experience gained in his father's print shop, he was hired by 3M working in the company print shop. He remained with 3M for seven years and earned a promotion to night supervisor before deciding to leave the company.

He didn't have far to turn for his next full-time job. In 1957, the same year he went to work for 3M, Jim took the advice of his father and sent in the paper work, $10 and the state mailed out a real estate license.

From left to right in front of the original Hermes Realty Office: Henry Hermes, long-time Washington County Commissioner Idor Peterson, and long-time business owner Clinton Hallberg of Hallberg Pontiac Buick in Forest Lake. The three men were coffee pals who met at the old Wagner's Hamburger Shop in Forest Lake.

Jim dabbled part-time with real estate, but left the real selling to his father and his group of pals who used the real estate office for a card and cigar club as much as a real estate office. As a young man, Jim recalls his father and associates sitting around the office, cigars on fire. It was a cloud of blue smoke with a dog at your feet. My how times have changed, Jim says.

"If things got quiet in the office, they'd play cards," Jim said.

When Jim became dissatisfied with 3M and his long-range prospects there, he began to look more seriously at real estate. And he remembers the simple but effective bit of wisdom his father whispered to him one day: "You might as well sell," Henry said. "You'll make a good living."

About the same time Jim's father was giving the advice, Lee LaBore, a good friend said: "If you don't quit that job tomorrow I will come in to your building and give you a swift kick in the rear end."

"What could I do, so I quit," Jim said.

As a 40-year-plus veteran of the real estate field today, Jim can only marvel at how business was done in the 1950s and 1960s.

"We sold farms," he said thinking back to the old days and how they differ from today. "He (Henry) sold 160-acre farms like we sell homes today. In those days a 160-acre farm sold for $25,000." Many of the farms from 40 years ago have been carved up into subdivisions today where homes have been built.

While the farm business could be good at times, other times weren't so good. "The winter months were bad," Jim said. "People didn't come up to Forest Lake in the winter. This was resort country. The people that did come, came to buy cabins and buy farms."

 

Kline Johnson, a local attorney (left) would join Henry Hermes (center) and Idor Pederson (right) for coffee at Wagner's.

Forty years ago, clients were left on their own to find parcels to buy. In many cases potential buyers went from one real estate company to the next real estate company checking to see what may be for sale. "Each office was on its own," Jim said. "There was no multiple listing service here at that time." Some of the small towns up north still work this way.

There were no listing contracts in those days and often times a handshake was all a real estate agent had to show and sell a home or piece of property. Jim recalls one story where an agent with his father's company took a client to Lino Lakes to look at farm property for sale. The client liked the farm and the two wrote out a purchase agreement on the back of the agent's car, presented the offer to the owners and they accepted it, never saying the property was not for sale. Hours later after returning to Forest Lake the agent was shocked to learn he had showed the wrong farm to the client.

"We called this the wrong way sale after that," Jim said. "Can you imagine the puzzlement of those farm owners in the Lino Lakes area as this all unfolded? There were a lot of mistakes made in those days but sellers and buyers all took it in stride and I may add there were never any lawsuits."

Growing up in Forest Lake, Jim and his brothers and sisters had the luxury of good parents but little in the way of material things. "We were poor," he said. "We didn't have anything extra." Even when times were difficult, Jim recalls his father taking a share of the commission money he earned on a home sale to help a family buy groceries because they were in need.

Henry Hermes in front of the original Hermes & Hilton office in Forest Lake.

"He (Henry) could see they didn't have much. He gave when he didn't have much of his own."

There was a subtle lesson from father to son with such incidents and they were lessons Jim Hermes took to heart. "Give even when you don't have much, not just when things are in excess," Jim said, thinking back on the lesson.

It was a lesson he would never forget through good times and difficult times. They were lessons of character, honesty and generosity

Full-time Commitment

The decision to leave 3M set in motion Jim's desire to make real estate his chosen profession. It didn't happen immediately, however.

He played with real estate for the first five years. It wasn't until 1964 when took his Broker's exam and earned his Broker's license that he first really appreciated what the business entailed. "You realize how little you know," he said. "I wasn't prepared for that."

A realization that he needed to work harder in the business was reinforced by two major events in his life, the death of his father and his marriage to Nancy, both in 1966.

From 1955 until 1962, his life was comfortable with a job at 3M and real estate work as a part-time occupation. Joining the company full-time in 1962 brought some changes but in retrospect, Hermes believes he still did not take the work as seriously as he should.

 

Henry and Eleanor Hermes at their home on Forest Lake which Henry purchased from J.B. Weiser Lumber Co. We finally had a place to grow old roots.

When his father died suddenly on February 6th of 1966, the younger Hermes was thrust into the management job. Stark reality hit Jim Hermes quickly.

"I wasn't motivated," he said. "When my dad was gone, I had to get serious about the business." The death of Henry Hermes came at a key time for the business, too. The company had just built a new office and was preparing to move from its old office. The old office today is the home base of Lakes Gas in Forest Lake on Highway 61 south.

For Jim Hermes, it was time to make decisions. "We weren't cutting the mustard," he said. "If we were going to survive, we had to move to the modern world."

On another personal front, the low tide of his father's death was reversed on the positive side with the August 6th, 1966 marriage to Nancy Swanson of New Brighton. Nancy's parents had built a home in Scandia in 1964.

In the 34 years that have followed the marriage, Jim looks at Nancy as his closest friend, confidant and business partner. She has been his rock and guiding light, he says.

Time for change

As he launched a business career as the head of Hermes Realty, Jim quickly recognized the need to make changes. He had hired his mother on as a secretary and her help was vitally important in the early years, he said.

The new Hermes office next to Town & Country Bowling Lanes at 1407 South Lake St. Henry never lived to see it completed.

Times were changing in the real estate world in the late 1960s. Forest Lake was part of the St. Croix Valley Board of Realtors based in Stillwater. Jim became active with the St. Croix Valley Board and quietly explored ways for real estate companies in the Forest Lake and Stillwater areas to become part of the much larger St. Paul Board of Realtors.

In 1968, Hermes was the mastermind behind a petition drive to get the Stillwater association to join the St. Paul association. As he became more skilled at running a company, Hermes recognized the value of the merger. Companies gain access to the multiple listing service and numerous education opportunities for those serious about learning their trade. And the merger opened ties to the Minnesota Association of Realtors and the National Association of Realtors.

But the change didn't happen without some hard feelings and resentment from traditionalists who did not want to surrender the old ways.

"Some of the old boys in Stillwater never talked to me again," he said, thinking back to the 1968 merger. "I broke up the good-old-boys club."

As Hermes Realty became more progressive, Jim could see he was making the right moves, moves that would strengthen the company for the long haul. And it was a signal to those selling real estate they would have to make changes, too.

"You didn't have to be motivated," he said, thinking back on the old ways. "I could see we were losing business. We had to change.

"I decided I had to run it as a business. There was no more fun and games. The easy life was over, but that's when I started to have fun. And there was a real gain to learning the business in new ways. If I was going to do real estate, I was going to be the best."

 

The 1st office as it looks today.

Through all the new ways and changes in the business, Eleanor Hermes remain a part of the business. It was something he had learned from his parents as a boy. "You take care of your mom," Jim said. "You do it because you want to." She remained with the business for 10 years before retiring. She spent her retirement years in Forest Lake before passing away on April 13, 1993.

The move to join the St. Paul Area Board of Realtors was a major exterior move for Hermes Realty. There were also internal changes taking place.

The decade of the 60s also saw the first women join the operation with the hiring of Sharon Palas and Peggy Cary who became skilled at their work. In the early years he also built a staff that included the likes of Dick Mueller, Bob Elmstrom, Peter Schumacher, Doug Tennis, Ty Jeans, Bill Jeans, Rick Arvig, Dennis Postma, Bob Walz and Mike Hermes.

Many have remained in real estate throughout their careers and some launched companies of their own.

Hermes used his ties with the St. Paul group to interact with many of the top metro companies. There were no contacts with companies and agents beyond the metro prior to the merger. He gained knowledge and good ideas, and used the ideas to develop concepts of his own, some of which became trend setters in their own right.

He launched the concept of weekly office meetings and set up office policies and procedures. He used every opportunity he could to meet with successful real estate people in other areas.

"I realized these people had a lot to show and were willing to show it," he said. "Every time you would visit a big Realtor, you'd learn a little more."

In 1978 he became president of the St. Paul Area Board of Realtors. He had come far as the leader of a small company in Forest Lake. And 10 years earlier the St. Paul association was like a foreign country. Now he was the leader of the association.

"I was able to see the big picture," he said. "I was breaking new ground. You knew it was something that had to happen and you did it.

"I was never afraid to do something new or take a chance. I was a risk taker. Some of the things we were doing were brand new."

More changes, another move

As the 1960s were winding down, Hermes felt the time was right for the changes he was making.

The second office as it looked shortly after Hermes Realty moves out. The building was used for a number of years by Howard Sargeant of Lakes Gas until the new Lakes Gas building was constructed on the land of the first and second Hermes offices.

The company was in a position to grow, he believed. A month after his father's death in February of 1966, the office moved to its second home, a new office at 1407 S. Lake Street on Highway 61 next door to Town 'N Country Lanes. It was a bittersweet move as Jim regretted the fact his father never lived to see the completion of the new facility.

His contacts with top-flight companies and Brokers continued to stimulate innovative ideas in Forest Lake.

In the new facility, Hermes continued to build his sales staff slowly and make internal changes. He added a full-time closing department and underwrote the cost as a necessary part of the business.

As a means to promote his business, gain exposure for property listings and recognize sales achievements, he started his own newspaper, The Hermes Times. The newspaper was published in partnership with Sell Publishing Company in Forest Lake and delivered throughout the area served by Sell Publishing and its two main publications, the St. Croix Valley Peach and Forest Lake Times.

Sales agents were recognized in the promotional piece. As another means of honoring agents, the company conducted annual awards banquets. The practices were good for business and made sales agents feel good about their accomplishments, he says.

"I was a little ahead of my time in some of the things I did," he said. "I wanted to be the best. I was seeing what other people were doing nationally. They were doing innovative things like I was. I wanted to bring these ideas home to Forest Lake."

It was a time of growth and changing job responsibilities for Jim Hermes.

 

Our sign at the new Hermes Real Estate office at 1407 South Lake Street. It was high tech for that period of time.

From the late 1960s to the late 1970s, the company embarked on a remarkable period of growth. From the original office in Forest Lake, Hermes expanded to other communities with the help of a new franchise on a national basis, Gallery of Homes. From 1975 to 1979, Hermes Realty expanded with offices in Lindstrom, White Bear Lake and Marine on St. Croix.

"It took me away from selling and more into full-time managerial duties," he said, recalling the expansion moves and the responsibilities that came with the change."

Joining Gallery of Homes seemed a perfect match, as did the Lindstrom office, he says. "I was the first one in Minnesota to join the franchise and the first one to leave," he said. "It was a wonderful franchise. The Chisago Lakes area was a wonderful area and complemented what we were doing."

Taking the bad with the good

As the decade of the 1980s opened, Jim Hermes was to experience the best of times and the worst of times. The expansion moves of the late 1970s had given the company a ranking as one of the top companies in the area. Hermes was serving his traditional market in the Forest Lake and Chisago Lakes areas, but also breaking new ground by moving into the north metro area with the White Bear Lake office.

 

Our first sign as we went from Hermes & Hilton to the new Hermes Real Estate in 1964.

"The 70s were good times," he said, thinking back. "There was growth, change and revolution. The world was getting smaller."

But there were dark clouds on the horizon, too.

The aggressive and ambitious growth by the company came at a time when the national economy went sour. Interest rates for home loans skyrocketed, climbing to 18-19 percent for home loans. Gasoline prices were also high, adding more problems for the home selling industry on the fringe of the metro area.

"We had to beg borrowers to come here," Jim said. "Some sellers were paying 10 points in addition to the real estate fees and the buyer's paying 14-18 percent interest for loans."

For the everyday citizen, it was a deceptive picture for Hermes Realty, he recalls. "It looked good from the outside," Jim said. With four real estate offices and a solid staff of sales agents, the outward appearance was positive.

On the inside, Hermes was taking a financial beating. "We managed to hang on in the early 1980s," he said.

But reality was taking hold. By 1980, the office in Marine had been closed and in 1982, the White Bear Lake office had closed. Soon after Jim would sell the Lindstrom office to one of the agents.. The Hermes Realty headquarters in Forest Lake would survive until 1985.

"It was a time filled with pride for me," he said. "I was a few years too soon."

To survive, he was forced to rely on savy and ability. Buildings in White Bear Lake and Lindstrom were sold and the assets helped keep the company afloat. "When you start selling your equity, it's the beginning of the end," Jim said. "The hand writing was on the wall."

In 1985, after two more bad years, Hermes realized the time had arrived. The office in Forest Lake was closed. "It was tough," he said. "We made just enough to keep the doors open. But I was losing heart; it was hard.

"It was just a tough time. I was too far in debt."

 

The old car was a "Henry J." and looking back I see it was prophetic.

In early 1985, he turned the key and locked the doors on the Forest Lake office. Still facing debt, he continued to liquidate assets to pay off creditors. Jim and Nancy's dream home on the St. Croix River in Scandia was sold and the Forest Lake office also went on the market.

"Everybody got 100 percent of what they were owed," he said.

Like the trying times of 1966 when he was forced to make important career decisions, Jim Hermes faced equally important decisions two decades later. They became life experiences which made him stronger, he believes.

"When business turns sour, life has a way of changing," Jim said. "We were in Fat City and life was good. All of a sudden it was taken away."

The times had been good and then became bad, he recalled. But there were no sour grapes from Jim Hermes.

"I don't look back with regrets," he said, thinking back on the heydays of the Hermes Realty Empire. "Hard times make you smarter. You have to look at what you learn from it."

Putting pride aside, Jim examined career options and concluded real estate was still where he wanted to be. As 1985 opened he was still in the business, now as a sales associate with Burnet Realty in White Bear Lake.

It was a time for Jim Hermes to start over - once again.

A reality check

In 1985, Jim Hermes faced a career reality check. From his status as company owner, Broker, and past president of the St. Paul Board of Realtors, Jim Hermes now found himself in the bull pen, a common office area where agents had a desk, but no privacy. And they were agents who were hungry for sales. As 1985 continued, he found himself pondering the past.

Seeing his business in Forest Lake go sour hurt. He calls it the low point of his life.

"I could hear all the back-biting," he said. "Forest Lake is a small town."

He considered quitting real estate and there was reason to consider such a move, he said. "It would have been easy to quit," he said. Faced by $200,000 in company debt, he was humbled to new lows by the financial crisis.

"We sold practically everything we had," he said. "After a few months you realize you have to do it yourself."

Digging deep inside, he was able to put the adversity aside.

"I'm not one to dwell on past failures," he said. "I've never been one to cry. It doesn't do anything for you. It would have been easy to blame other people.

In some sense, Jim says he saw himself as a victim of a changing market and the expansion moves that in hindsight came too early. But he took consolation that many other top-flight companies were experieincing the same.

"I wasn't the only one this was happening to," he said. "It was a bad market."

As he moved on with Burnet and saw his career jump-started, Hermes looked back on his bad times as a positive. He had survived and that was what really counted, he said.

"I'm a much better person today," he said. "I've seen both sides of the storm. I've been a giver and I was a receiver."

Throughout the difficult times, Hermes said he never strayed from the positive lifestyles instilled in him by his parents. Being a good steward remained important. "I took great joy in that," Hermes said.

As his business turned bad and his patience was tested, he remained devoted to his faith in God and looked within for strength. "You go deeper within yourself during times of stress," he said. "I grew a lot as a person."

Starting over again

As he returned to a life of sales with Burnet Realty, he accepted his new role with energy.

 

This photo was the centerpiece of an ad in the St. Croix Valley Peach and was entitled: "In a Class by Himself." This type of advertising made Jim stand out and was the marketing of the future. It got him on the fast track to a very successful business again.

Back in direct sales work for the first time in many years, Hermes found he had to start over. He was at the bottom of the learning curve.

"I could see I wasn't current anymore," he said. "I had to learn all over again. That was a real scary time in my life."

But like earlier years when he pledged to be the best, he carried the same energy and goals into his new line of work. He had never shied from hard work and now was a time to work harder than ever, he believed. There were many 16-hour days in the early years with Burnet Realty.

"I did it all without any help," he said.

He was about to rise from the ashes. By 1984 his income had dipped to $15,000 a year. With his hard work attitude, he saw a change.

In his role with Burnet, he was collecting 10 to 15 property listings a month and answering 60-90 calls a day. Long days in the White Bear Lake office were followed by several hours of work at home in the evening.

In his first year with Burnet in White Bear Lake, his confidence surged. In 1985, he recorded 110 listings and made 70 sales, ranking him the number one lister in a company of 1800 agents and in the top 50 in sales for the entire company. Not bad, he thought, for someone who was looking up from the bottom one year earlier.

"I was able to feed my family again," he said. "I was thrilled to know I could do it again. It was fun."

It was a great time of satisfaction. He had been knocked down, but he was far from out.

"For the first time in my life I was happy to be back in sales, to be a peddler," Jim said. "You are a peddler who knows what he is doing."

Jim Hermes today

Over the past 15 years, Jim Hermes has not turned his back on innovative ideas and the desire to try new things. And these are the reasons for his continued success, he believes.

His career with Burnet Realty continued for 12 years. In 1997, unhappy with operational procedures at Burnet, Jim made another career move that he is convinced helped him.

Three years ago he joined the RE/MAX Associates Plus team based in Shoreview. Jim works from the family home in Scandia. Nancy Hermes, who has been licensed for four years, works from the Shoreview office. Having been in the business for so many years, Jim's selling and listing market is wide. He works in Washington, Chisago, Anoka and Ramsey counties, but has a fond tie to Forest Lake where he got his start. RE/MAX has also given him a bigger view of the market since they have almost 60,000 agents worldwide. What a referral base for Jim Hermes who is truly international now.

 

The Hermes root beet stand with car hops in Forest Lake was started by Henry Hermes to keep his kids working during the summer months from 1952-1955.

Over the past decade, he has continued as a trendsetter, trying new ideas that turned the heads of many agents. He was among the first agents to use photography extensively in his printed advertising. And many of his ads were humor-filled pieces that drew readers to the agents, rather than the company or specific listings for sale.

It was a daring move, not unlike many of his trend setting efforts with Hermes Realty.

"I had to change my advertising," he said. "It was absolutely new ground. Some of the other agents didn't like it. I was breaking the mold. I love breaking the mold."

Today, Jim Hermes is sold on a practice of building his business through the computer and electronic networking. He was one of the first agents in Forest Lake to launch his own web site and believes it is one of the best moves he has made.

"For the first year I couldn't see the benefit of having an e-mail address or Internet site," he said. "Today, I wouldn't be without them."

In 1999 he found 25 percent of his income coming from the web site. In 2000 about 50 percent of his income is being generated by the World Wide Web. What a change from the old days, Jim says.

The computer has opened new doors and new worlds for Jim. Through the computer he has instant access to real estate people all over the world. And the links open the doors to sales opportunities and new concepts and techniques that he is utilizing here.

As he looks back on 40 plus years of real estate sales and 50 years for the Hermes family in real estate, he believes he has been a trend setter by establishing programs and ideas many real estate companies continue to use today. And he believes his innovative work with computers is a way of doing business that will be essential in this new century.

"My file drawer is my computer today," Jim Hermes says.

In a career marked by changes and challenges, he believes his biggest assets have been his ability to adjust to change, embrace new ways and deal with adversity. As the use of computers advanced, Jim says he was able to adjust to the changes and accept the new concepts.

Like many of the concepts he has embraced over the years, using computers in his line of work makes complete sense. He has had the ability to accept new concepts and ideas which come to him much the same as "a light bulb coming on," he says. Technology has been a challenge but it has given Jim a new excitement about this wonderful business. He is more excited about being a Realtor now then he ever has been.

Yes, it's been a wonderful trip and Jim hopes it will continue for many more years.

The Hermes File

Jim and Nancy today with the story not finished yet.

OUR CHILDREN

Sarah Hermes Bye and husband Ron are the parents of 3 boys, Alexander 7, Jack 4 1/2, and Victor 1. Ron works at a company called Black Hawk doing sales to large companies selling computer print bands and supplies all over the country.

Wade Hermes is now married to Teresa Crane and is also a Realtor in our family business. Teresa is also licensed and is now our 5th Realtor in the family. Wade and Teresa live in Minneapolis and are expecting their first child this November.

Joe Hermes is single and also a Realtor living in White Bear Lake. Joe is Victor's god father and will soon be the god father of Wade and Teresa's new baby.

John Hermes is single and our youngest. He is working for Standard Register, a nationwide company and now living in Portland Oregon with a roommate and life long friend from Forest Lake, Mark L'Allier, who's dad is one of Jim's closest friends.

JIM'S BROTHERS AND SISTERS

Oldest brother Ted Hermes, 67, lives in Forest Lake and is retired.

Sister Pat Cowing, 65, lives in Roseville and has four grown children.

Brother David Hermes, 61, lives in Palm Desert, California, and is semi retired.

Sister Marianne, 55, and husband Peter Machaiek live in Winthrop, Minnesota. She
is a bookkeeper and office secretary at a seed company there. Her husband
is a life long special education teacher for GFW.

Brother Mike, 53, and his wife Pat live in Scandia. He is a real estate agent for Century 21 Johnson & Associates in Forest Lake.