On top of his game

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Mar 20, 2005 | by BILL RADFORD THE GAZETTE

Sandy Kraemer is perhaps the ultimate multitasker, a modern-day Renaissance man with a touch of Forrest Gump.

He's a man at ease in wildly diverse arenas, including creating toys in his basement workshop and discussing energy policy with Nobel laureates in the nation's capital. He's an attorney and an author of books on estate planning and renewable energy. He headed the charge to open the North Slope of Pikes Peak to the public. He's the founder of the Colorado Springsbased Intergeneration Foundation and a former University of Colorado regent.

And, like the fictional Forrest Gump, he's had encounters with history in the making. He was in Germany when the Berlin Wall fell and in Washington when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

His son calls him "multidimensional." A friend calls him "an old- school idealist."

He calls himself a futurist.

"I've just been driven," the 67-year-old Kraemer says, "by trying to make a difference, both for our generation and future generations."

It's generational issues that most consume him these days. It's a mission of bridging generations, of uniting the wisdom of the old and the enthusiasm of the young. The problems of growing budget deficits and dwindling oil supplies. The question of what type of world future generations will inherit.

He's talking with officials at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs about starting an institute there on intergenerational research, programs and policies. UCCS is already home to the Kraemer Family Library, named after the Kraemers and friends donated a parcel of land, valued at $2.2 million, for the university to sell in 1995.

As an estate-planning attorney, Kraemer became fascinated with how generations transfer not just wealth, but values and knowledge. The library's motto reflects his passion: "Knowledge is the greatest gift to future generations."

NOWHERE NEAR RETIREMENT

Kraemer was born in Chicago, but Colorado Springs has been home most of his life. His parents divorced when he was young; at age 8, he moved with his mother and his two older sisters to the Springs area.

His mother, Ruth, had no friends here, no family, no job. But she was eager to start a new life, he says. She worked in office staff positions, then became a real-estate broker.

"I never felt that I was at a disadvantage from having only one parent," Kraemer says. "I was never angry and just felt that my mother did the best she could for us and I had better do the best I could for the family as well."

Kraemer saw education as the key to his future and worked to excel in school. After graduating from Stanford University in 1959 with an engineering degree, he started on a path to medical school. But after almost passing out while viewing an autopsy, "I decided I was not destined to be a doctor." At the last minute, he applied to law school.

He graduated from the University of Colorado with his law degree in 1963. He practiced law in Denver for a year, then returned to Colorado Springs.

"Over my legal career, I've done everything: criminal law, family law, bankruptcies, real estate, business."

He developed an interest in the law pertaining to renewable energy. His eye, as always, was on the future. In the late 1970s, he wrote a book, "Solar Law, Present and Future With Proposed Forms." That and presentations on the subject earned him an invitation to serve on the U.S. energy secretary's advisory board. He was on the panel from 1989 to 1992.

"For three years, we talked about energy at the highest levels," he says. He left concluding there would be no breakthroughs in energy technology, only refinements of existing technology.

In his book, he predicted the United States will run out of commercially priced oil by 2020. "That statement remains on target," he says.

His futurist tendencies eventually guided him to focus his practice on estate planning. He wrote "The 60 Minute Estate Planner," a wellreceived guide to estate issues, as "a statement about the future and how people plan for it."

As for his own future, Kraemer says he has no plan to retire. The highlight of his legal career -- at least so far -- was serving as chairman of a human-rights panel at a 1997 World Jurist Association conference in Doha, Qatar.

The association is an international organization of judges, lawyers and law professors dedicated to establishing and maintaining world peace through the rule of law. The human-rights panel was the most active of the conference, with debate continuing long after the session ended. There were different nations, different faiths, different races -- all clamoring to make their positions heard.

"It was just mesmerizing."

ON THE SIDE OF UNDERDOGS

Much of Sandy Kraemer's life has been about removing fences. Fences between the generations. Fences between the races.

In August 1963, he traveled to the nation's capital to join Martin Luther King's march on Washington, D.C.

"You never know at the time when history is occurring," says Kraemer, who was about 100 feet from King when he delivered his memorable speech.