In memoriam: Stanley Kramer

Stanley Kramer, chairman and CEO of Los Angeles-based Kramer Metals Inc., has died at the age of 86, having spent his last days at ISRI2024, the convention and exposition hosted by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, which changed its name to the Recycled Materials Association the final day of the event.

Stanley, who continued to work at Kramer Metals six days per week, spent that time with his son, Doug, president of Kramer Metals, and his grandson, Jonah. According to the family, they were “very good days, very happy” days that Stanley spent surrounded by old friends and learning what was coming in the industry. 

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Photo courtesy of Martijn Reintjes of Recycling International 

Doug says his father meant “absolutely everything to him,” adding, “I am what I am and where I am because of him. He was central to my life and my family’s life, and he will be so greatly missed.” 

He says that while Stanley ensured his three sons never wanted for anything and had the tools they needed to succeed, he saw the depth of his father’s love in his relationships with his grandchildren when he would walk them around the block in his arms until they fell asleep.

“If you want to know who my father really was, the answers are not to be found in his success in the scrap metal recycling industry nor as a successful entrepreneur nor in the things or wealth he amassed,” Doug says. “It is in a successful marriage of 61 years. It is the success of my brothers and me and it is to be found in the love and admiration of his six grandchildren.

“That is how I wish for my dad to be remembered.”

Stanley was born in 1937 in the old Los Angeles Jewish neighborhood of Boyle Heights, one of 10 children who lived in a one-bedroom house where his parents leased a room to a border to help pay the bills, according to his eulogy.

His parents, Moshe and Rina, had come from Latvia, through Ohio, settling in LA, where Moshe made a living by buying old scrap metal and selling it.

By the time Stanley was a teenager, his father became ill with emphysema, and Stanley and his brother, Howard, quit high school to work in the family business.

The two brothers built the business their father had started from the ground up, first buying a truck and then a piece of land for a scrapyard. 

Stanley took a break from the business in 1955 when he joined the Navy, using that time to get his high school diploma.

He was a big-hearted man, without making much noise about it, having purchased Thanksgiving turkeys and all the trimmings for his 20 employees early in his career, his family says.

Stanley was close with his grandchildren and proud that he could provide for them and their parents. He made sure his kids and his grandkids graduated college debt-free, but he made sure they knew their boundaries, how hard his life had been, what it took to scrape by and the family’s struggles, so they appreciated what they got.

As a dad, Stanley instilled a strong sense of loyalty, fairness and confidence in his sons. He enjoyed gathering the whole family together at his house, believing it was shameful that people waited until a wedding or a funeral before they congregated together.

Professionally, Stanley became an important figure in the scrap metal industry, serving on and chairing committees for ISRI and one of its predecessor organizations the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel. He was a chapter president and he earned the ISRI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.