Michael Kramer has worked almost all his life.

        He got his first full-time job at 13, in an auto-parts warehouse managed by a friend's father. He earned $3.50 an hour that summer. “I was rich!” he says.

Michael Kramer sits in his home office. (Dick Swaim photo) | ZOOM |

        He worked through high school. Busing tables. Pumping gas. While in college — which he didn't finish — he toiled in an automotive body shop.

        By age 22 he was his own boss. For years he operated hair salons. Then he started a construction business.

        He can appreciate money because he knows what it's like not to have it. His father died of leukemia before he was born, and there were some lean years while he and his mother lived with his grandparents.

        He is 46 now, an amiable fellow with graying hair combed straight back. At home in Villa Hills, he appears relaxed in jeans, athletic shoes and a golf shirt. You wouldn't know to look at him that after years of hard work, Michael Kramer was nearly done in.

        After leaving Northern Kentucky University in the mid-'70s, he followed a friend's suggestion to enroll in cosmetology school. He bought his first hair salon in 1978. He worked hard and bought a second one.

        For 17 years he immersed himself in the hair business. He might have stayed and been comfortable. But when it became apparent his income had peaked, he decided to try something else.

        Even before he sold his salons in 1995, he had dabbled in home repair. He soon saw the potential in commercial work and carved a niche for himself in painting and construction.

        The business grew to the point that Michael could no longer supervise every job. He took on a partner, who bought half the business. About that time, Michael's company was hired for its largest job ever, in Frankfort.

        It was supposed to be a three-month job. But three months passed, and it wasn't done. Then four months. Then five.

        “It turned into an absolute debacle,” Michael says. “There were screaming matches on the job every day.”

        Workers weren't being paid. To meet payroll, Michael took out a second mortgage on his house. He sank further into debt because of equipment he'd leased. In the meantime, his Northern Kentucky jobs were losing money because he wasn't around to supervise.

        Michael would leave home at 6 in the morning, return at 8 p.m., then do paperwork until midnight.

        “I would literally go into my bed and shake myself to sleep. I knew I was going to have a nervous breakdown. I was just trying to postpone it until I got this (Frankfort) job done.”

        Then Michael's partner bailed out.

        The Frankfort job finally was completed after six months, but the damage had been done. Michael was behind on house payments, material payments, equipment payments. Most of his employees were gone. He was more than $100,000 in debt.

        He stopped answering his phone. “Every time it was somebody wanting money. I talked to some financial people. You can imagine what they told me: File bankruptcy.”

        He lights a cigarette in his small home office.

        “I decided I wasn't going to belly-up on anybody. I had made these obligations, and I was going to pay for them. I wasn't real sure how.”

        He released his few remaining employees, and for three months took on small jobs he could do himself. Nights he devoted to studying the stock market.

        When he felt he knew enough, he withdrew $30,000 from an IRA. He told himself this was his last chance. Then, “I started trading stocks like crazy.”

        He also wrote or called everyone he owed. He told them: Work with me, and I'll try to pay you. Slap on late charges, and you'll fall to the bottom of my list.

        “I said, "If you want to give me a break and take 80 cents on the dollar, I'll pay you off first.' ” He pauses. “Nobody fell for that one.”

        From morning to night, he sat at his computer, making contacts, researching, trading stocks.

        “I gambled,” he says. “I knew I had to.”

        Six months ago, he says, he paid off his last debt.

        “That was, without a doubt, the proudest moment of my life,” Michael says. He's sitting in front of the three computer screens where he has spent countless hours closely monitoring trades.

        More good news: Two years ago he married Kelly Mattingly, a computer programmer he met through the Internet. She knew about his debts and stood by him as he dug himself out.

        Now that a new year has begun, what will Michael Kramer do next? What he's always done, of course.

        “I want to get a job,” he says. “I want to get back in the work force.”

Something more in the cards
Builder started over from the ground up
Married with children
On the Fridge
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