HUNTER KOCH

Hunter Koch doesn’t back down from a fight. As a product of blue-collar, union-made, Saginaw County, Hunter chose to settle down in Saginaw Township because of the opportunity it would give to his future family. Now, he is back in the fight to build a stronger and more resilient community that will win the future and make Saginaw Township the talent hub of a rising Great Lakes Bay Region.

After graduating from high school in 2014 at the age of 18, Hunter was elected to the Board of Education for the St. Charles Community School District for a four-year term, including serving as Board President for the last 18 months. As a trusted advocate for public education, Hunter helped renew trust in district leadership and oversaw a fiscal turnaround that protected student outcomes. Hunter also oversaw the implementation of bond funds in the construction of a new community-forward facility and legislated to shield students and staff from discrimination at school separately and in advance of state-level legislation.

Hunter completed his Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Political Science with a minor in Geography, from Saginaw Valley State University in 2018. During these undergraduate years, he earned the Michigan Academy’s Ronald O. Kapp Award for Michigan’s top undergraduate research on one project while simultaneously working on a separate project that identified opportunities to improve local response times to cardiac emergencies. Despite what this unlocked, Hunter vowed to avoid the ticket to being a political insider and turn down the connections that would reshape his public policy perspectives. Hunter is proud to be an independent and critical thinker who does not come from a political dynasty or hierarchy.

As a testament to how the paths of young people change, Hunter decided to leave electoral politics at the end of his board term in 2018 and to refocus on being a leader in higher education. Hunter completed a Master of Arts in Public Administration, specializing in Student Affairs (Higher Education Leadership) from Saginaw Valley State University in 2021. During this program, Hunter’s research took an abrupt turn toward focusing on how our K-12 and higher education system needed to recognize and handle the education deficit that students faced before, during, and following the COVID-19 shutdowns. Hunter knows that those deficits still exist, both in what can and especially in what cannot be measured.

In 2019, Hunter was elected as Student Body President at SVSU, where he spearheaded initiatives that were directly aimed at improving student outcomes, including the eventual partnership that made compulsory hygiene products universally available across campus. Hunter also saved and resurrected the Battle of the Valleys fundraising competition, which raised over $100,000 for local non-profits in the Great Lakes Bay Region during four years of Hunter’s involvement. In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down campus, Hunter stood up to shield thousands of students from being immediately kicked off campus, some with nowhere to go, as was happening at other institutions.

Upon completing his education, Hunter took the experience as a graduate assistant at SVSU into a role at a statewide non-profit. Hunter and his wife, Danielle, shortly after settled down in Saginaw Township with the hope of starting and raising a family in the near future.

In the almost four years as a resident in Saginaw Township, Hunter saw three failed bond millage attempts by the school district and decided it was time to investigate further. He quickly learned that the failed bond votes were not a one-off, but rather the symptom of a greater problem. Hunter is ready to be the change that we want to see in the world.