The Kramers and the photo

My first ISRI show was in 2014 in Las Vegas when Doug Kramer of Los Angeles-based Kramer Metals was inaugurated as the new ISRI chair. The Kramer family, three generations strong, were in Vegas to witness the ceremony.

Nice and open people, hard workers who built the family scrap business from scratch, they were happy to talk with a journalist from the Netherlands who at that time was as green as grass about their industry. We stood together in the convention hall and Doug asked me to take a picture of his family, which I did.

Ten years on – after many conference chats and interviews with Doug and a visit to Kramer Metals’ facility in Los Angeles – I’m back in Vegas for ISRI 2024 (I should now say ReMA 2024). During the opening event, Doug, his father Stanley (who’s second generation in the Kramer Metals family business) and son Jonah passed our booth.

We say hi and I suggest another photo. Three Kramer generations in one nice shot. Spotlighting a family business, always good stuff for the magazine. Less than 40 hours later, a ReMA official comes to our booth asking for the photo I took of the Kramers.

He tells me that Stanley unexpectedly passed away the night before on his way back home from Vegas. I’m shocked. But at the same time, I’m so happy I took the new picture. And so is Doug. ‘Unbelievable that you took that photo,’ he writes in an email a couple of days after the convention. ‘I am forever grateful for that.’

He also writes: ‘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. 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.’

The photo of Stanley, Doug and Jonah Kramer is published in the ReMA 2024 Convention & Expo report (pages 16-25).

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