March/April 2014
Doug Kramer gives much of the credit for his success—in life, in his career, and in ISRI—to his family. With their support and many years of work as an ReMA volunteer leader behind him, he’s poised to become the association’s next chair.
By Kent Kiser
Doug Kramer recalls what his father, Stanley, told him when he first became active in ISRI. The elder Kramer was a devout supporter of ReMA and one of its predecessor associations, the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel. Although Stanley served in numerous volunteer leadership posts in both associations, he was never a national officer in either one. When Doug became the third generation to join the family scrap company, Kramer Metals (Los Angeles), and he started participating in ISRI, Stanley had high hopes for him. “My dad said he believed I could go further than he ever could in the association,” Doug says.
The realization of that dream came down to one day in April 2008. After serving many years in ReMA West Coast Chapter and national committee and board positions, Doug was vying for the national ReMA secretary/treasurer post against other longtime volunteer leaders Manny Bodner of Bodner Metal & Iron Corp. (Houston), Ben Harvey of E.L. Harvey & Sons (Westborough, Mass.), and Mark Lewon of Utah Metal Works (Salt Lake City). Association leaders had asked Kramer to run for secretary/treasurer twice before, but he’d declined because the timing wasn’t right. Now the timing felt right, but his fate lay in the hands of the assembled ReMA board members.
In the end, when the votes were tallied, Kramer had won. “I just couldn’t believe it,” he says. As secretary/treasurer, his good fortune included serving with two of his best friends and fellow Southern Californians: ReMA Chair George Adams of SA Recycling (Anaheim, Calif.) and Chair-Elect John Sacco of Sierra Recycling & Demolition (Bakersfield, Calif.). His election also put him on the path to ultimately become ReMA chair. This April, Stanley’s vision for his son will be fully realized when Doug takes that position, capping his more than 28 years of association involvement.
Born to Scrap
Doug Kramer proudly admits to following his father’s example in his association service as well as in his choice of career. Doug seems to have been destined to scrap. Born in East Los Angeles in 1964, Kramer grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs of Monterey Park and Whittier. His father’s work at Kramer Metals exposed Doug to recycling at an early age, and he took to it immediately. As a boy, he says, he would flatten his Matchbox cars with a hammer and load them into his toy dump truck. When he was about 6 years old, he started going to work with his dad whenever possible, sleeping in his clothes so his father would have no reason to leave him home in the morning. In those days, his paternal grandfather and uncle also worked in the family business, so he benefited from their recycling wisdom as well. “There wasn’t anything about the scrapyard I didn’t love—the way it smelled, the sounds, the sights, the people,” he says. “I understood it, and it didn’t scare me.”
In addition to his passion for scrap, the young Kramer enjoyed playing football, basketball, baseball, and golf. At La Serna High School in Whittier, he threw shot put and discus on the track team. His interest in organized sports faded, however, when he discovered skiing at about age 14. He’d spend as much time as possible at the Snow Summit ski resort in Big Bear Lake, about two hours from Los Angeles, staying at his family’s condo there. “I loved it so much that I eventually started working up there,” teaching skiing on weekends and holidays through his high school and college years, he says.
As a student, Kramer says he “did very well in subjects that interested me,” though he didn’t enjoy school as much as he appreciated certain teachers. In junior high school, for example, he had an English teacher who taught him “the power of words—they’re the most powerful tool in your toolbox,” he says. “The ability to write and have other people understand you—that’s a great thing.” That lesson inspired him to write for his high school newspaper. He also points to the principal of his high school, who mentored Doug on what it means to be a leader. “I learned it has nothing to do with bossing people around or owning things.” Instead, he says, it’s about following your own standards and standing up for what’s right, whether it’s popular or not.
When he attended Whittier College—where he earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and labor sociology in 1986—a political science professor who served as his mentor helped him refine his leadership philosophy, he says. “I recently told that professor—Dr. Fred Bergerson—that I share with him all of my leadership accomplishments and accolades because he helped shape my leadership style,” he says.
For Kramer’s parents, “education wasn’t a narrowly defined word,” Doug says. “It wasn’t limited to classroom learning.” They made sure his childhood included trips to museums, libraries, live theater, botanical gardens, and more. His mother, in particular, was dedicated to exposing Kramer and his two younger brothers, Lewis and Gabriel, to music, literature, culture, and art. She also had them learn to play the piano.
Kramer’s education also included working in the family scrapyard and attending ISIS conventions with his father from an early age, he says. Those events not only introduced him to different cities and parts of the country, they also showed him “how to get along with people and how to be respectful. I was meeting and interacting with men who were larger than life to me because they were people my father respected. I watched them, and I learned about style, dignity, honor, how to be a gentleman, and how to carry myself.”
A Tradition of Association Service
After finishing college in 1986, Kramer joined the family scrap business full time. His first assignment was soliciting industrial accounts. “I really couldn’t wait to get in and start working,” he says. At the same time, he immersed himself in ISRI, following in his father’s tradition of association service. Stanley’s leadership résumé included serving as president of the Southwestern Chapter in both ISIS and ISRI, chair of the chapter presidents committee, vice chair of the convention committee, and member of the finance, legislative, and insurance committees. “He always has been an active and vocal supporter of the trade association,” Doug says, “so my involvement in ReMA was almost mandatory. He thought it was important for me to participate and give back.”
In the Southwestern Chapter (now part of ISRI’s West Coast Chapter), Doug learned about hot topics in the industry at the time, such as Superfund and PCBs. For the chapter, however, the most pressing issue was California’s proposed bottle bill. The Southwestern Chapter leaders decided to request money from ReMA to lobby against the bill because they thought it could have national implications. They selected Kramer to present their request to ISRI’s finance committee, then chaired by Noah Liff of Steiner-Liff Iron & Metal Co. (Nashville, Tenn.)—an imposing figure who “scared the hell out of me,” Doug says. While waiting to speak at the finance committee meeting, he got cold feet, he recalls, and he didn’t think he could present the request. Stanley reassured him, however, and said he’d be right there to support him. Doug made his request and secured the funding, despite Liff’s grilling. “That was the first of many experiences working alongside my father at ISRI, and I liked it,” he says.
Kramer’s first ReMA position outside the chapter came when he served on ISRI’s state committee in the mid-1990s. After that, he filled numerous other leadership roles over the years, including chair of the chapter presidents committee, vice chair of the government affairs committee, member of the ReMA national board of directors, chair of the radiation task force, member of the audit committee, and vice chair of the operations committee. With that record of ReMA service, it’s no surprise Kramer made the short list of candidates for national office. He considers his victory in the four-way secretary/treasurer race a highlight of his career. “It’s incredibly powerful to have your peers—and some of your father’s peers—give you the nod and have the confidence that you’ll represent them well. It’s a great honor and responsibility.”
Doing a Good Job
Now, after serving two-year stints as secretary/treasurer, vice chair, and chair-elect, Kramer is poised to assume the greatest association role of his career: ReMA chair. Being a national officer is “a lot of work,” requiring significant time away from home and office, but the paybacks are worth it, he says. Aside from the rewarding challenge of the leadership position itself, he has most enjoyed “the ability to make meaningful change” and participating in the deliberations of the executive committee. “The average member has no idea of the high level of care and professionalism that ISRI’s leadership team brings to its work,” he says. “There’s true concern for the best interests of every member, irrespective of its size and dues level.” Similarly, Kramer says he has enjoyed working closely with ISRI’s staff, which has made him “uniquely aware” of their talents and dedication to the industry.
Looking ahead to his two-year term as chair, Kramer acknowledges that some recent big-picture issues will remain top priorities, including materials theft, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed changes to the definition of solid waste, and the impending reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act. Growing ISRI’s membership will be another focus, he says, “because it [speaks] to the long-term sustainability of the association.” He also wants ReMA to embark on a long-term strategic planning process. “I think we need to see what we really look like and who we want to be,” he says. “ISRI is a business that requires a lot of self-examination in terms of which direction is and isn’t right.” Part of his approach, he says, will be asking “why?” until “we get down to the kernel, to that spot where there’s no longer a reason to ask ‘why?’ because we’ve found the answer, and then we know what to attack.” Kramer is well-versed in such endeavors, having served on two previous strategic planning committees for ISRI. “We need to look at where we are today, where we want to be in five years, and how we get there,” he says. “I don’t think we understand that now. We’re so busy fighting fires.”
One fire that continues to rage is the world’s perception of the recycling industry’s safety performance and the misunderstanding about the great efforts the industry is making on this critical problem. Kramer’s top priority as chair will be to improve the industry’s focus on safety, which he says will show a steady improvement in the statistics. “I don’t think we’re an unsafe industry, but we are heavy industry, and we need to be aware of our unique hazards and meet those challenges head on,” he says. In his view, the industry’s safety challenges stem, in part, from a skewed psychology of safety. “There’s a psychological component to dealing head on with this issue,” he says. “No one wants to believe that the operation they manage or built from the ground up is unsafe.” Recyclers who don’t make safety a top priority are kidding themselves if they believe that their operations are safe just because they haven’t had an accident or fatality, Kramer says. “We, as the members of the largest scrap recycling trade association in the world, must rethink how we look at safety,” he asserts. He doesn’t accept the easy explanation that recyclers simply don’t want to spend the money to make their operations safer. “I defy you to show me one recycling company owner or manager who would post banners that say, ‘Production First, Safety Second,’” he says. “We can’t escape the fact that workers’ compensation and health-care costs continue to drive operating costs higher and higher, and the best way to mitigate those costs is by running a safe operation.” Safety, in fact, pays for itself. “A single injury can impact your earnings for years,” Kramer notes. Going forward, ReMA should “recognize those who are doing it right and learn from them,” he says. “We also need to identify those who are doing it wrong, then reach out in a different way to help them do it better.” Kramer sums up the issue this way: “If safety really is our No. 1 core value, then we have to make safety part of every conversation.” How committed is he to improving the industry’s safety record in his term as chair? “Even if I’m a complete failure at everything else, if I can get us to be safer, then I’ll be satisfied,” he says.
In addition to those big-picture goals, Kramer has other plans to “change things up a bit,” he says, including tweaks to the leadership structure of ISRI’s committees. “I’m going to try some new things in terms of chairmanships, vice chairmanships, and co-chairmanships,” he explains. He also plans to review with the ReMA staff various resources and publications the association provides to see how they might better meet member needs. “Anything and everything is on the table for me,” he says. “I don’t have any sacred cows. I want to shake things up and try some new things.” One “new thing” that will happen during Kramer’s administration is ISRI’s first annual convention outside the United States—its 2015 event in Vancouver, British Columbia. Though holding the convention there wasn’t his idea, he says he’s excited to see how the experiment will work.
Kramer also uses that word—excited—to describe his feelings about becoming ReMA chair, which will happen with the election April 10, during ISRI’s 2014 convention in Las Vegas. “I feel good,” he says. “I’m ready.” Reflecting on his ReMA success to this point, he gives much of the credit to his family, beginning with his parents. “I could not and would not be in this position were it not for them,” he says. He gives special thanks to his father, who has postponed his retirement to manage the family business while Doug fulfills his ReMA chair duties. “If you don’t think that’s love and commitment, then you don’t understand what love and commitment are,” Doug says. He also is quick to thank his wife, Jill, for her support throughout his service as a national officer. Not only has she cared for their two sons, Noah and Jonah, during his many trips away from home, but she also has accompanied him to numerous ReMA functions. “This is a position that asks a lot of a family, and I appreciate Jill participating in all of it,” he says.
Although Kramer is grateful he’s becoming chair when ReMA is in a strong financial position, he has his sights set even higher. “I’d like to end my term with a healthier, safer association, with at least the beginnings of a plan for its long-term sustainability,” he says. When people reflect on his term as chair after the fact, what would he like them to think? He pauses, then says, “I’d like them to say, ‘He did a good job. We had faith in the right guy. We entrusted something important to him, and he didn’t let us down.’”
Kent Kiser is publisher of Scrap.
A Kramer Crash Course
Born: Oct. 29, 1964, in East Los Angeles, Calif.
Education: Graduated in 1986 from Whittier College (Whittier, Calif.) with a bachelor’s degree in political science and labor sociology.
Family: Married Jill Weinstein in 2000; two sons, Noah (12) and Jonah (10).
Community Involvement: Active in Temple Ramat Zion (Northridge, Calif.), serving on its board and education committee. Active in the Whittier College Alumni Association and former Poet Council member. Involved in the American Diabetes Association because his brother Gabriel has Type I diabetes. (ADA’s Father’s Day Council of Los Angeles presented Kramer with its 2013 Father of the Year award, recognizing him as an exemplary role model, businessman, and community leader.)
My greatest personal achievements are… Noah and Jonah.
I’m passionate about… almost everything.
In my free time, I like to… do pretty much anything with my family, such as skiing, golfing, sailing, and shooting with my boys. Jill doesn’t do any of that stuff, except skiing, so I have to make time for her favorite sport—shopping. I’d like her to try golf one day.
I’d like to improve my… follow-through on things I don’t like doing, I’m not good at doing, or I’m not particularly interested in. At work I’ve relied on my dad to do a lot of those things, but they’re important, and I have to do better.
A perfect day for me includes… going to work early Friday morning, leaving at about noon, and having a long lunch with Jill at the beach, then picking up the kids from school and hanging out with everybody until about 8 p.m. Then, I’d have a few buddies over to the house for a cigar and a drink by the fire pit. I’m still waiting for that day, and I need a fire pit.
If I didn’t work in the scrap industry, I’d probably be… buying, restoring, and selling muscle and vintage sports cars.
When my term as ReMA chair is over… I have no intention of abandoning ISRI. I don’t think I’d like another governance position because new leaders have to lead, but I still will attend meetings, participate, and be an active member of this association.
Doug Kramer gives much of the credit for his success—in life, in his career, and in ISRI—to his family. With their support and many years of work as an ReMA volunteer leader behind him, he’s poised to become the association’s next chair.