 The Man Who Followed His Guided Missiles
Joseph "Jerry" Kramer is the 2004 Guam Business Executive of the Year
Fate took Joseph "Jerry” Kramer, chief executive officer of Pacific International Inc., to Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands are the better for his business acumen and philanthropy.
Kramer’s entrepreneurial spirit evidenced itself early in life. He worked part time from age 11 after school and during summer vacations—his first job was cleaning fish in a fish market—but that tendency was paralleled by a sophisticated intellect. At Milton High School, in Milton, Mass., he was president of the chemistry club, and a member of the radio club. A yearbook entry notes, “Jerry, the electronics fan…builds electronic systems in his spare time, and invents gadgets of all sorts.”
Kramer went on to college, continuing to work part time for a couple of electronics companies as he had done through high school. He says, “During my second year of college, my part time job was paying more than most graduate engineers were earning. I quit college, and worked fulltime, while going to school at nights.”
Working as an environmental test technician for research and development testing of missile-guidance system components, he says, “I had no idea where these systems were used, but by coincidence, when I left Boston and wound up in Los Angeles [working for Douglas Aircraft], I discovered the systems were used on the Nike Zeus missile scheduled for testing on Kwajalein—and that led to my entry into the Marshall Islands.”
 With a zest for travel, Kramer applied to work at the Army test facility. “I was instantly accepted,” he says. “That Nike Zeus was my baby, and off I went.”
Arriving in October 1961, he worked on the electronic integration of the guidance system of the missile, and later the arming.
In Kwajalein, Kramer also signed up for University of Hawaii extension courses, and the 20-year old began to get to know his Marshallese classmates. “It was fascinating,” he says. “To go from Boston to a tropical climate, and meet people of a totally different culture and background.”
The young man soon realized the affinity he felt for the Marshall Islands, and the people. Kramer says, “I tend to be very trusting up front, and very open, and I think the Pacific way emulates that attitude—there were not a lot of hidden agendas with the local people.” He says time has changed some of the values in the Marshall Islands. “We have some astute college graduates that have picked up on how to put things forward, and what not to say.” But still, he says, “There’s a real closeness of family that I enjoy.”
Kramer went to work for Amata Kabua, chairman of the Marshall Islands Import Export Company in 1963, and, eventually, in partnership, bought a coastal freighter from him, and began to ship goods to the Marshall Islands from Guam, and sell copra to the agents for Atkins Kroll. “I started doing business with Ken Jones [president of Jones & Guerrero Co.]—he was a big rice magnate in Guam at the time—and Bob Jones [Robert H. Jones, now president and chief executive officer of Triple J Enterprises Inc.].” Kramer got to know many of the fellow founders of Mi cronesia and their families, traveling to Guam, the headquarters of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and taking a seat on the Copra Stabilization Board—the first of many board appointments he accepted through the years.
When the U.S. Air Force stopped medical service in the Marshall Islands, Kramer found the ship’s route was often interrupted when it responded to humanitarian calls for medical evacuation. “Sometimes they would pay for it, and sometimes they wouldn’t pay for it,” he says. “But I couldn’t say no.” The routes by sea meant patients faced a long journey with an uncertain ending. “I decided an airplane was the only way to go, and we had to do it.”
He formed Lagoon Aviation in Majuro with a single-engine float-plane to perform emergency medical service and evacuations from the outer islands of the Marshalls, and to provide limited air service. He says, “That’s when the government realized that what we did was to fly an absolute urgent service.” The realization led ultimately to the government-owned Air Marshall Islands. Kramer is a member of the board.
The first float-plane, which would see successors, was also involved in a near-fatal crash.
Kramer says, “In September 1969 I was on a flight with the American pilot who was my partner, and a Marshallese, Battery Jorilong. The plane crashed, and sank in the ocean over 100 miles from the nearest island. Guam Sea Air Rescue, the Honolulu division of the Coast Guard, and the Army at Kwajalein dispatched aircraft to search for the plane.
 “We had been able to say on the radio we were going down, I found out later the same day our ship had gone on the reef—it wasn’t a very good day. The first night there was a big white shape underneath the raft. We threw the shark repellent overboard, and it disappeared.” The three men were fading, when on the third day a ship appeared on the horizon. Kramer says, as the least weak of the three, and with a surge of adrenalin, he paddled to it for several hours. “We got close enough for a guy on the bow to see us down there.”
Kramer says he will never forget the event. “This was a turning point in my life, in my sense of values and beliefs. At the time, my son, David, was 7 months old. I did enough praying to cover myself for the rest of my life, but I think it just wasn’t my time.”
Kramer continued to develop his group from then on.
He is founder and board member of Toblar Copra Processing Plant Inc., chairman of the board of Pacific Waffle-Crete International of Hays, Kansas, chairman of the board of Pacific International (Guam) Inc., and Pacific International (Saipan) Inc., and a member of Kramer Corp. Saipan. His companies have worked on many development projects for the Marshall Islands.
“We absorbed sophisticated construction technology, got the equipment, got Marshallese trained, and were able to keep those kind of jobs like paving and building in the Marshall Islands, and employ Marshallese to do it, rather than the constant changing of expat companies. We now have local technicians and craftsman who have those skills. We have a lot of capacity and capability in the Marshall Islands that a lot of other areas in the Pacific don’t have.” Pacific International has been able to undertake projects in Guam, Saipan, and American Samoa.
In 2003 Kramer arranged the purchase of Servco and Camacho interests in the Majuro Shopping Center, and purchased and shipped to Majuro the fish freezer from Tinian Harbor. The Majuro Shopping Center is owned by Kabua and Kramer Corp., and Triple J now manages the supermarket in the center. Further expansion moves include the purchase of the former Shimizu, holdings of 279 acres in Saipan at Laulau Bay, Saipan in 2002; and purchase of Nimitz Towers in Guam in 2002.
 Jacqueline S. Losongco, administrative assistant, for Pacific International, has worked for Kramer since 2002. “He’s a great person to work with. If he assigns me something to do, he tells me to deal with it how I want to deal with it.” She says Kramer takes a caring interest in his employees. “I’ve become very fond of him. He’s like a father to me.”
As his businesses developed, before Kramer became a leading, if not the leading executive in the Marshall Islands, his desire for the positive future and development of the country also preoccupied him. Kabua and Kramer remained close, and together with a small group of others would spend hours talking about the future of the Marshall Islands, and its coming independence. “He had a thing called a kitchen cabinet,” Kramer says. “We were his private advisory board.” Kabua would become president in 1979, and the country gained independence in 1986, in free association with the United States. Kramer says, “President and Iroij Amata Kabua taught me the lesson that there is a responsibility with power.”
The sense of responsibility has led Kramer to serve on numerous government and statutory boards over the years, including, the Majuro Cooperative School, of which he was founder; the Marshall Islands Nutrition & Children’s Council; the Majuro Chamber of Commerce, of which he is a several-time past president; the Marshall Islands Manpower Advisory Board, of which he is a past chairman, the U.S. Federal Job Training Partnership Act program, of which he is a past chairman; and the Marshall Islands Tax Code Drafting Committee.
The Pacific International group is a strong supporter of the National Olympic Committee, and a number of teams, a variety of church and non-governmental activities for youth, and of the Boy Scouts program. Kramer was appointed executive board member of the Aloha Council of the Boy Scouts of America in 2004. He was inducted into Strathmore’s Who’s Who in February, and accepted an invitation to speak at the Los Angeles business conference sponsored by the U.S. Department of Interior in September.
Bob Jones says, “Jerry Kramer has many strengths. He is focused on whatever current project he is tackling, whether it’s business development, construction, or the Marshall Islands Chamber of Commerce stance against taxation, waste, etc.
“I would sum up Jerry as a business institution—made from scratch—in the communities of Micronesia, with a huge heart for his family members, and strong support for charitable and civic organizations.”
The Pacific International group continues to expand. Most recently, Kramer and Pacific International in 2004 purchased the controlling ownership in the former Outrigger Marshall Islands resort, now the Marshall Islands Resort Hotel, again serving the intertwined future of Pacific International and the Marshall Islands. Kramer says, “The move was precipitated by Outrigger giving notice to the government, who owned the hotel, that they would relinquish their management agreement, due to breaches of this agreement by the government. The hotel had lost money every year since inception, and was budgeted to lose money this year. We have turned it around financially, and for the first time it will earn a small profit this year.”
Pacific International in 2004 also purchased the New Century Hotel in Guam in March; became the general service agent in the Marshall Islands for Air Nauru; and secured the agency in the Marshall Islands for Aon and Century Insurance Co.
The company owns commercial and residential properties in Majuro that include the embassies and residences of the United States, Japan, and the Republic of China, and 90 apartments. Pacific International also partners with the Rongelap Atoll government in a 19-cabin live-aboard dive boat.
 Kramer and his wife, Merced Nelson “Mercy” Kramer, first met in 1964 when she visited from Saipan, and saw her uncle, John Iaman, chief of medical services, in whose house Kramer lived. She says of Kramer, “He has been a really good husband to me.” Mercy Kramer says Kramer has not changed over the years. “He is interested in everyone—he will talk to everybody—and he is always doing something.”
Along the way, Kramer and Mercy Kramer raised a family, whose members are already carrying out his vision of progress and development throughout Micronesia. Their children are David, 35; Kenneth, 34; Deborah, 31; Daniel, 28; Michelle, 26; Melissa, 24; and Lorraine, 19. Kramer’s three sons have direct responsibility for a variety of group operations.
Always interested in construction, David Kramer was allowed by his father to fulfill his curiosity as a boy, and watch and work with company construction workers. With similarities to his father’s beginnings, David Kramer was in school in Seattle, Wash., when a construction business he had begun with friends became so successful he left college. “When my father found out,” David Kramer says, “he said, ‘Why don’t you come back home? I need help here.”
David Kramer says, “Everything I know, I learned from my father—he’s taught me so much. He’s patient with us, and tells us how to approach things. He’s tremendously resourceful—usually, whatever it is, he’s had that experience.
“When things get tough, he’ll say, ‘Sit back, take a couple of Buds, count to 10, and re-evaluate the situation.”
David Kramer says the family is a close one, and he and his brothers and his father make time for each other. “We all live within a mile of each other. On weekdays, we try to have lunch together, and talk about our overall operations.” David oversees construction operations; Kenneth’s area of management includes the machine shop, welding operations, and the equipment pool; Daniel is responsible for a variety of transportation divisions, and also liaises with the government. “My father has given us that opportunity,” David Kramer says.
Despite the heights to which life has taken him, Kramer sums up his underlying philosophy and his blessings quite simply. His guiding principles, he says, are, “Believe in what you are doing, or only do what you believe in. Maintain personal integrity, and look for that quality in the people you do business with. My marriage and the raising of our children is my most important personal accomplishment. In this regard, I can’t imagine being any more blessed or successful.”
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