Felix Kramer
| Felix Kramer | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 29, 1949 |
| Residence | Berkeley, California |
| Other names | Lawrence Felix Kramer |
| Education | Cornell University |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, advocate, and writer |
| Known for | Founding CalCars.org, promoting plug-in vehicles |
| Spouse(s) | Rochelle Lefkowitz |
| Website | http://www.beyondcassandra.org |
Felix Kramer 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, 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.
Kramer grew up in the New York metropolitan area. He received his bachelor's degree in American Studies from Cornell University in January 1971. At college and after, he was active in anti-Vietnam war and draft resistance 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.
With the arrival of WYSIWIG 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 (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, 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 and remained as CEO until it was bought in early 2001.
In 2001, interrupted by surgery for an acoustic neuroma, Kramer moved his focus from high-tech back to his earlier environmental concerns. He approached Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute (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, which led the successful campaign for commercialization of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
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