ED BREMER 1952 - 2020

 

On December 22, 2020, Ed Bremer died peacefully at home in Everett with his loving wife Lucia by his side.

If you're a long-time KSER listener, I probably don't have to tell you much about Ed Bremer.

Ed was hired by the Jack Straw Foundation in October of 1990, several months before KSER went on the air.  

He was hired to be the brand new station's Public Affairs Director.  But he became so much more than that.  He was instrumental in developing and producing programming in our early years when the KSER studios were in High-Point Plaza, a strip mall on highway 99 in Lynnwood.

Later, after the KSER Foundation was formed to take over the station operations from the Jack Straw Foundation, Ed worked tirelessly to oversee the move to downtown Everett and our development as a community owned broadcast facility.

For years, there was only one employee at KSER: Ed Bremer.  I'm not sure the station would have survived without his tireless work, enthusiasm and incredible dedication to our community.

I had the great honor of working with Ed for 8 years.  "With" being the key word.  On the org-chart Ed reported to me.  But who Ed really reported to was you, our listeners and our communities. 

He had an incredible and unending passion to serve our listeners.  He worked tirelessly with volunteers, especially new volunteers, to train them on how any citizen with an important, but often, unrecognized point of view could end up on the radio. He mentored  volunteers from the League of Women Voters, the Communities of Color Coalition, Amnesty International and other organizations - groups whose voices were often locked out of commercial broadcasting.

Ed was the conduit working with Pacifica to bring Amy Goodman and Democracy Now to KSER.  He paved the way for Thom Hartmann to be added to our lineup.

 Day after day, year after year, Ed was here editing programs, producing shows, interviewing guests, running the control board for volunteer hosts, answering the phones during pledge drives, solving technical problems, drinking way too much coffee, and on at least one occasion I witnessed Ed standing on the top of a step ladder in a driving snow storm, in the dark at 4:30 in the morning, using a broom duct-taped to an extension pole to knock the snow off of our satellite dish so that we could broadcast Amy Goodman at 5 a.m.

Dedication.

Until Ed's cancer diagnosis in December of 2019, I had never seen him call in sick or come in late or leave early.  I almost had to order him to take vacation time.

One of the things Ed was most excited about was early planning for a 2021 30th anniversary event for KSER.   We'll still celebrate our 30th. Ed would insist.  But we'll also make it a combination: 30 years for KSER and a celebration of Ed Bremer and the incredible, heroic contributions he made to keep KSER on the air.

You can also expect details soon on a special on-air tribute to Ed Bremer

2020 has been a challenging year for all of us.  I know many of you are exhausted by the impact of the pandemic, some of you have lost loved ones to Covid.

But I wanted you to know about Ed's passing.  And I hope you'll join me in offering condolences and thanks to Ed's wife Lucia who shared her husband with KSER for three decades and to Ed's five brothers and their families back in Ed's home state of Illinois and in Michigan.

I hope you’ll join all of us here in mourning the passing of Ed Bremer, but also in your continued loyalty to one of his great passions and accomplishments: KSER.

Rest in peace, Ed.  You did good and legendary work.  

As a precaution, we're cancelling our pledge drive.

We’ve decided to cancel the ‘normal’ KSER Spring Membership Campaign.

Given the concerns of the novel coronavirus we feel it’s in the best interests of our staff and hard-working volunteers to make this decision now.

While the Spring pledge drive is the most important fundraising campaign of the year for KSER, the health and safety of our on-air volunteers and those who volunteer to answer phones is even more important.

If you’ve ever helped out during a KSER pledge drive, you know we operate in a relatively confined area.  Having dozens of volunteers sharing phones, workspace, computers, microphones, headphones and food & drink for two weeks is just an unnecessary risk right now.

So we won’t be asking volunteers to come in to answer phones. In fact we’re not even going to ask our listeners to call and make pledges.  Instead, to sustain our operation and to be able to continue to serve the communities of the North Puget Sound, we would like to ask you to consider making a donation online at KSER.org.

Public radio stations - especially independent community-owned stations like KSER and KXIR - depend on donations from listeners to stay on the air.

And now, more than ever, independent voices are vital.  You've read and heard the stories about consolidation in the media landscape.  Local, community-owned media is no longer all that common.

We want to make sure KSER is here for future generations.  We can only do that with your help.