I am a gratefully, blessed husband and father of two. I’m a life-long learner who aspires to help others and live out God’s plan for me. I enjoy spending time with family, football, traveling and outdoor adventuring (hiking, kayaking, biking).
Derek Kempker
I was born in a small town in southwest Michigan to two very young parents. I was the second born, with a brother who is a year and half older than me. My parents were both just 17 years old when my brother was born. From what I was told my parents struggled very much financially to support two young children during this time. My father took night classes to get his high school diploma. Given the struggle my parents endure in the first couple years of my life with raising two of us at such a young age, I have nothing but respect for them doing what they could to provide for us.
It was Father’s Day of 1985. Outside playing at my grandparents (my mother’s side), would prove to be a day we would forever mourn. On this day, my older brother, of just 3 years old at the time, was tragically struck by a vehicle, causing injuries that would soon after take his life. For me, this has led to a life where to this day, I still wonder how much different my life would have been growing up, even now, with my older brother. (Can’t wait to see you again big brother!). Frankly, although I live with a lot of “what ifs” because of this, my heart goes out to my parents. As a parent now myself, I could not imagine losing my first born at the age of three to a tragic accident. My father witnessed this, on of all days, Father’s Day. Truly just one hardest and saddest things a family could have to overcome.
When I was five years old we moved into mobile home park, little did I know this would be one of the best, most-memorable childhood experiences of my life. Here I met my best friend Greg, which to this day, over 35 years later, we are still close friends that talk weekly and often get together for backpacking trips and for our families to spend time together. This point in time was when I felt I had the best group of friends, several of us, always together. Riding bikes, playing sports, playing marbles, building forts in the woods, sledding and snowmobiling in the winter, just always having fun. Ah, the good ‘ole days, without worries except for what is the next fun thing we are going to do.
From the early years of elementary school, I became very active in sports. Football and baseball, primarily, but I did play basketball and wrestled for a couple years between elementary and middle school. I would go on to play football and baseball into high school.
From the time between the middle of 4th grade and the middle of my sophomore year in high school, my parents and us (my sister at this point had been born, 7 years younger than me) would move, a lot. The run down, without getting into the weeds, is that we moved to: Racine, WI – Medina, OH – Garland, TX – Johnson City, TN – Greenwood, IN – Allen, TX. Yes, that is correct….we moved to 6 different places in less than 7 years. As a child this was tough, as soon as I made new friends it was like we were packing up again. For me, I feel like I got to a point where it became difficult for me to get close to people because every time I would get close to people I was moving and it made the goodbyes more difficult. The reason we moved so much is because my dad’s skills were in high demand and him and my mother, after coming from very little, were trying to provide the best life possible for my sister and me. Now when I look back at this, it wasn’t all bad. I got to meet a lot of people, see different places and cultures within the country and experience some things many other kids don’t growing up.
I would eventually graduate high school in Allen, Texas. If you love football, like I do, you can totally appreciate the love for the sport in the south. In high school, it is year around training and practice, with a spring game like college. And the stadiums there compared to many other places I lived, are insane
While I was growing up there were some ups and downs for my parents. I won’t get into many details but I do believe the loss of my brother really hit hard and continue to hurt my parents throughout the years of their marriage. Just after I graduated high school my parents did end their marriage and got divorced. It was a very saddening time for me personally because all my life I had seen them together. However, at this point also, it was very obvious, though the tried hard to re-ignite the spark, neither of them was happy anymore and they just could not reconnect. Upon seeing and experiencing the difficulty that comes from a divorce, I swore to myself that when I did get to the point of marriage, I would take it very seriously because I did not want to ever experience that situation again, especially being the parents in the situation.
Not long after my parents go divorces, in the fall of 2002, my father and I packed up our stuff and moved back to Michigan. After jumping all over the U.S. for years, we were heading back to where it all began. Honestly, I was pretty happy about this move. I was going back to some stability, knowing that’s where my extended family resides and many of the friends I had when I was younger were still there and we could reconnect.
My first night back in Michigan is when I formally met my wife. She had been friends with my cousin for years prior to us meeting. It was crazy, we eventually figured out that we went to elementary school together and even rode the same bus. Talk about a small world. We immediately hit it off and once we did, we never looked back. We first dated for fours years and then eventually got married in 2006. I am so grateful for my wife, she is a true blessing and has been the true definition of a soulmate.
Much like my parents and hers, my wife and I had our children at what many consider a young age. And we struggled too. I had not went to college and had not pursued any venture to provide a stable financial situation for us. Honestly, I was still living like I was right out of high school, just having fun with no real ambitions for a successful life. But when your wife says the words “I’m pregnant”, for a man who believes in taking responsibility and being a real man, it lit a fire under me to get myself together, focused and ambitious. First I got what I would call my first real job (the wife had a reliable job and honestly she had a better work ethic than I did at the time). Combined we were able to get out of dad’s place and got our first apartment, not much but it was ours and we were starting a family. In a short time, we would then get our first home and first family pet and we were rolling.
Today I am a blessed and proud father of our first born, our amazing daughter, as well as our amazing son.
Although at this point, we had reliable jobs and a decent roof over our head but honestly for me, the job I was doing was not something I wanted to do forever, honestly, it was getting to the point I really didn’t want to do it at all anymore. But I didn’t want to just make lateral moves, so I made an investment in myself and started college. I had been working 3rd shift for almost 5 years at that point which allowed for us to save money on day care. I would spend almost 3 more years going to college full time and still working 3rd shift before finally I would get a breakthrough and was able to land an entry level position related to what I was studying in college. From there, I would finish my Bachelor Degree in about 5 ½ years total, all while having a family and completing the majority of the degree while working 3rd shift and getting about 3-4 hours of sleep per day. It was rough, but so worth it! It literally put our lives in a much position from the perspective of stability and financially. The effort and discipline produced a life changing results.
One thing that had always lingered with me was the thought of starting a business. In 2016, that became a reality. My father, co-founder and business partner, and I came up with an idea for newly designed hand tool that would prove to provide some additional safety benefit, but also because of the design, it proved to solve a common problem, that being the burned on stains that are extremely stubborn on glass and ceramic cooktops. Although similar tools exist, the design changes we came up with proved to be more effective at cleaning cooktops. Werxrite was born, and over 7 years later we are still operational and selling this reliable tool.
My wife was raised in a strong Christian family. Growing up, my family had a Christian foundation and belief. We sometimes attended church, if we did it was usually for Easter and Christmas. Being with my wife I noticed how she is just so grounded. She finds the good in places and in ways I just so often failed to see. When things get rough, she always seems steadfast, like no matter what she would not let this world, nor the evil in it get the best of her. Eventually I realized that it was her faith that was providing her something I was just not able to establish for myself. So, I dug in! I really wanted to get on her “level” (so to speak) with my own faith. It has definitely taken me to a place in my life where I feel like I am more fulfilled, grateful and have an elevated feeling of purpose. From that time forward I am glad that I have found my faith and give thanks and praise to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
At a certain point in life, many, like myself, start to look more at the concept of purpose. The first half of life it seems much like the focus is on building. Building a family, building business, building wealth, etc. But then you get to a new point in life, like Bob Buford would reference in his book “Half Time”. It’s almost like a recalibration, but from here the focus for the second half of life is more purpose, impact and further growth, with a focus more on significance rather than substance. See in your younger years you are looking at getting the stuff, the house, the car so on and so forth, but then strangely, for me and maybe not everyone but certainly many others, you start to think about what am I going to leave, what am I going to give to others before I leave this place and hopefully move on to the holy promised land.
I am a life-long learner and believe that no matter where we are in life, you can always improve and grow. I want to live out my purpose and going forward in life I want to help inspire others and provide them whatever information and experience I can to help them along their journey through life. But not just to scrape by in life, rather to excel and to continue to grow and improve every single day.
