Felix Kramer (born April 29, 1949) is an entrepreneur, strategist and writer. After a succession of jobs and projects in the nonprofit sector and an early internet startup, he gained attention after 2002 as the founder of the
California Cars Initiative
CalCars (also known as The California Cars Initiative) was a charitable, non-profit organization founded in 2002 to promote plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) as a key to addressing oil dependence and global warming both nationally and ...
, promoting mass production of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Since 2009, he has written broadly on climate change awareness and solutions, and collaborated on or co-founded climate-related projects.
Biography
Education and early career
Kramer grew up in the
New York metropolitan area
The New York metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the Tri-State area, is the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass, at , and one of the list of most populous metropolitan areas, most populous urban agg ...
. He received his bachelor's degree in American Studies from
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
in January 1971. At college and after, he was active in
anti-Vietnam war
Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War (before) or anti-Vietnam War movement (present) began with demonstrations in 1965 against the escalating role of the United States in the Vietnam War and grew into a broad social move ...
and
draft resistance
Draft evasion is any successful attempt to elude a government-imposed obligation to serve in the military forces of one's nation. Sometimes draft evasion involves refusing to comply with the military draft laws of one's nation. Illegal draft ev ...
activities,. He worked as a Congressional aide and a writer/editor and director for several environmental organizations, including the New York event of the national
Sun Day event in 1978 and the NYC Energy Task Force, known for its wind and solar installations on low-income buildings.
Personal computer and early internet-era activity
With the arrival of
WYSIWIG
In computing, WYSIWYG ( ), an acronym for What You See Is What You Get, is a system in which editing software allows content to be edited in a form that resembles its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product, such as a printed d ...
computers and software and laser printing, he co-founded the New York Macintosh User Group's DTP Special Interest Group. In 1984 he started Kramer Communications, one of New York City's first start-to-finish
desktop publishing
Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online c ...
(DTP) companies; he sold the company in 1997.
Kramer became involved in fax broadcasting and then with business development, usability and online marketing and promotion for a series of early online startups. In 1997, as he relocated to the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
, Kramer founded eConstructors.com, an online marketplace for the web design and development industry, featuring "WhoBuiltIt," the first online reverse directory for websites. He built the company with a small international staff, raised
angel funding
An angel investor (also known as a business angel, informal investor, angel funder, private investor, or seed investor) is an individual who provides capital for a business or businesses start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or owners ...
and remained as CEO until it was bought in early 2001.
Plug-in car advocacy
In 2001, interrupted by surgery for an
acoustic neuroma
A vestibular schwannoma (VS), also called acoustic neuroma, is a benign tumor that develops on the vestibulocochlear nerve that passes from the inner ear to the brain. The tumor originates when Schwann cells that form the insulating myelin sheath o ...
, Kramer moved his focus from high-tech back to his earlier environmental concerns. He approached
Amory Lovins
Amory Bloch Lovins (born November 13, 1947) is an American writer, physicist, and former chairman/chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has written on energy policy and related areas for four decades, and served on the US Nationa ...
of the
Rocky Mountain Institute
RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute) is an organization in the United States co-founded by Amory Lovins dedicated to research, publication, consulting, and lecturing in the field of sustainability, with a focus on profitable innovations for energy an ...
(RMI), and entered into discussions with RMI-spinoff
HyperCar to advance its concept of a fully optimized, 99 mile/gallon, fuel-cell-powered SUV. He proposed a pre-purchase "demand-pull" model for financing the company. This evolved into what became the
California Cars Initiative
CalCars (also known as The California Cars Initiative) was a charitable, non-profit organization founded in 2002 to promote plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) as a key to addressing oil dependence and global warming both nationally and ...
, which led the successful campaign for commercialization of
plug-in hybrid electric vehicle
A plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) is a hybrid electric vehicle whose battery pack can be recharged by plugging a charging cable into an external electric power source, in addition to internally by its on-board internal combustion engine ...
s.
In 2006, with a conversion by one of the independent conversion companies, Kramer became the "world's first non-technical consumer owner" of a PHEV. He flew that vehicle to Washington DC in May 2006 for the first public viewing of a PHEV on
Capitol Hill
Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the ...
. Within four years, many of the major automakers began to offer some type of plug-in hybrid or all-electric vehicle, beginning with the
Chevrolet Volt
The Chevrolet Volt is a plug-in hybrid manufactured by General Motors, also marketed in rebadged variants as the Holden Volt in Australia and New Zealand and the Buick Velite 5 in China, and with a different fascia as the Vauxhall Ampera in t ...
.
Author and New York Times columnist
Thomas Friedman
Thomas Loren Friedman (; born July 20, 1953) is an American political commentator and author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for ''The New York Times''. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global tr ...
acknowledges Kramer's role in promoting the idea of plug-in hybrid vehicles, calling him someone "who has made plug-in electric cars not only his passion but an imminent reality."
Climate change activities
His activities and writing about
global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
emerged from his work on plug-in cars as he focused on powering
electric vehicle
An electric vehicle (EV) is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. It can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or it can be powered autonomously by a battery (sometimes cha ...
s by
renewable energy
Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
. He began including the issue in testimony and articles in 2004. After 2009, Kramer focused on writing and organizing about climate change awareness and solutions, working with groups such as
350.org, Environmental Entrepreneurs—E2.org, the
Citizens' Climate Lobby
Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL) is an international grassroots environmental group that trains and supports volunteers to build relationships with their elected representatives in order to influence climate policy. The CCL is a registered 501(c)( ...
and the
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...
, and advising and investing in cleantech and clean energy companies.
In 2014, he started Beyond Cassandra, a "mini-think thank" for projects, ideas, campaigns, and initiatives
about climate change.
In mid-2016, he cofounded The ClimateCongress Wikipedia Project, a
501(c)3
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...
project to assemble on an independent wiki what candidates and incumbents in the House and Senate say and do about climate change. The project, with volunteers, a core team, and crowdsourcers, aims to identify a subset of information to move eventually to Wikipedia. It expects to evolve into ClimatePolitics, expanding to state, regional and local officeholders and appointees.
In late 2016, he founded Climate.MBA, a project to promote Emergency Climate Teach-Ins at business schools.
Publications and public presentations
Using knowledge gained in the DTP business and his early editorial experience, Kramer co-authored (with Maggie Lovaas) an early book on electronic publishing as a business in 1990 & 1991. The book, ''Desktop Publishing Success: How to Start and Run a Desktop Publishing Business'', sold 25,000 copies in seven reprintings and was widely reviewed, including acclaim as "the Bible of the DTP Biz" by ''Publish'' Magazine's editor-in-chief.
Much of his writing on plug-in cars was distributed via the CalCars Yahoo! news-group news-letter, copies of which are archived on CalCars' website.
On climate change and clean energy, he has authored or co-authored with renewable energy experts and advocates including
Dan Kammen, Gil Friend, and
Hunter Lovins
L. Hunter Lovins ( née Sheldon, born February 26, 1950 in Middlebury, Vermont) is an American environmentalist, author, sustainable development proponent, co-founder of Rocky Mountain Institute, and president of the nonprofit organization Natura ...
, op-ed pieces for the Huffington Post, the San Jose Mercury-News, Salon, Grist, Alternet, The Guardian and the Houston Chronicle.
Kramer has spoken extensively at energy and policy events in the U.S. and internationally.
Personal life
Kramer is married to
Rochelle Lefkowitz Rochelle Lefkowitz is president and founder of Pro-Media Communications, a bicoastal public interest public relations firm.
Education
She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Cornell University in Latin American studies and a master of arts degree ...
, president and founder of Pro-Media Communications, and they have an adult son.
References
External links
California Cars InitiativePlug-in Hybrids: The Cars that Will Recharge America by Sherry Boschert, featuring a chapter on Kramer
BeyondCassandraClimateMBAClimate Congress Wikipedia Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kramer, Felix
1949 births
Living people
Cornell University alumni