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The Tampa Bay area could lose another corporate headquarters as a result of the death this week of Kreisler Manufacturing Corp.'s chief executive, Edward Stern.
Kreisler is one of several public companies that have had headquarters in the Tampa Bay area because it's where top executives wanted to live even though the company's primary business was elsewhere.
Some, such as Kaydon Corp., have come and gone, while others, such as Ablest Inc. and Anchor Glass Container Corp., have come and stayed.
Stern, 74, owned 52 percent of Kreisler, a St. Petersburg company that once made leather watchbands in Pinellas County, but now makes aircraft engine parts at a plant in Elmwood Park, N.J. His grandfather was a company co-founder in 1914 and he began working there in 1948, becoming president in 1972.
Started as a jewelry manufacturer, Kreisler made a variety of products before settling on components for aircraft engines and industrial gas turbines. The watchband business, which became known as Crest Leather Manufacturing, moved to St. Petersburg from Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1952, and later to Clearwater. Kreisler also made jewelry, writing instruments and lighters in St. Petersburg, but ultimately all of those businesses lost out to foreign competition.
When Kreisler shut down its Pinellas manufacturing in 1979, Stern decided to keep the corporate headquarters in St. Petersburg.
"I didn't think there was any need to move the headquarters," he once told a Times reporter.
Over the years the headquarters has been a low-key operation, employing only two or three people, including Stern. The company occupies 1,000 square feet of space at 5960 Central Ave., leased on a month-to-month basis.
Most of the functions typically found at a corporate headquarters are handled in New Jersey, where Kreisler employs about 120 people. The St. Petersburg office traditionally has been the site for the annual shareholders' meeting.
The company has not said what will become of the headquarters, and top officials were not available Thursday. Services were held Thursday in Palm Harbor for Stern, who died Tuesday.
"His commitment and the sheer force of his personality will sincerely be missed, but long remembered," the company said in a statement announcing Stern's death. The company said its directors will meet soon to implement a succession plan.
Stern held the titles of chairman, president, chief executive officer, chief financial officer, secretary and director. The company's second- and third-largest shareholders are two of his sons, Edward and Michael Stern, who each own 3.2 percent of the shares. They both work for the company in New Jersey and earned equal salaries of $97,850 last fiscal year. Edward, 43, is vice president of administration, and Michael, 37, vice president of operations.
The company's other top executive is Wallace Kelly, executive vice president and chief operations officer.
Kreisler's leaders face the challenge of trying to restore the company to profitability. Sales fell more than 30 percent last fiscal year, to $12.5-million, hurt by the downturn in the airline industry. The company lost $665,402 last fiscal year and $734,252 during the first nine months of the current year.
Stern agreed to sell the company for $25.5-million in 1999, but the deal fell apart because of a dispute over how much had to be set aside to clean up a contaminated property in New Jersey.
The company's stock is very thinly traded. Shares rose 52 cents to close at $7.52 Thursday.
- Helen Huntley can be reached at huntley@sptimes.com or 727 893-8230.