Kramer finds demand for custom extruders

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By Bruce Geiselman

Bill Kramer, president of US Extruders, has more than 50 years’ experience in the plastics and rubber extrusion industries, having the distinction of founding two U.S.-based machinery manufacturing companies. 

Most recently, in 2017, he and six other former American Kuhne employees launched US Extruders, based in Westerly, R.I.  

The industry veteran’s career began in 1970 when he became an apprentice at Davis-Standard. He attended night school and eventually became the chief engineer and technical director at Davis-Standard for 15 years before co-founding American Kuhne, where he was president from 1997 until 2015.  

In establishing US Extruders, Kramer said he saw an opportunity to supply extruders with customized configuration, he told Plastics Machinery & Manufacturing in 2019. The company’s focus is on single-screw, highly engineered, customized extruders delivered in the shortest time possible. 

Kramer has presented numerous papers and published various articles on extrusion subjects. He co-authored the extrusion chapter in the SPI Plastics Engineering Handbook for the Society of the Plastics Industry (now known as the Plastics Industry Association) and wrote the chapter on single-screw extruders for the Extruder Technician’s Toolbox for the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE), according to biographical information on the US Extruders website. He served on SPE’s extrusion board from 1993 through 2004, serving as chairman in 2003.