Jerry Rapport

Interment will be on July 14th at Loma Vista Cemetery in Fullerton, CA for the immediate family.

Jerry Rapport was born on January 28th, 1928 in Uhrichsville, Ohio to Abraham and Katie Rapport. He attended Uhrichsville High School where he excelled in basketball and track graduating in 1945 Jerry scored the winning basket in the “big game” against New Philadelphia High School. This was the first time Uhrichsville triumphed over their arch rival, New Philly with Jerry’s name making it in the local paper. This was something he was very proud of as the legend of that victory lasted over 30 years. Jerry’s yearbook quote “A smart man who says little” typifies a man who, despite having a shy streak, became a very successful businessman later in life.

After High School, Jerry joined the US Army and was stationed in the south. This was the peaceful time between WWII and the Korean war. These years were very important to Jerry as he learned what it meant to be a minority in the south. Having grown up in a small town personally experiencing prejudice towards Jewish families, he saw similarities with blacks he was stationed with while he was in the US Army. This had a profound effect on Jerry’s open attitude towards all people no matter what race a person was.

With the GI Bill in hand, Jerry traveled to Southern California to live with his brother Lester with the hopes to attend UCLA and play football. We all thought basketball was his first love, but only later in life did he talk his dream of playing football at UCLA. On the trip out to California, he was driving an older 1940’s car with bad brakes and in the middle of a snowstorm, the car slid off the road, flipped over and needed repairs. After a four day wait for the money to be sent to him for a bus ticket, he continued undaunted arriving in California with no scrapes but a good story to tell and only a few cents in his pocket.

Attending UCLA did not work out so Jerry decided to use his GI Bill to go to Sawyers Business College in Downtown LA. He studied bookkeeping and those studies were the foundation of his success in business. 

During these days at Sawyers, Jerry met Agnes Lorraine O'Reilly at a party in Downtown LA. It was love at first sight and 3 months later they were married. Borrowing $100 from a friend, Jerry proposed and drove to Las Vegas to tie the knot.

In the intervening years, all of Jerry’s family relocated to Southern California. Jerry was the breadwinner in his family and he always shared his success in business whenever his brothers or sisters needed help.

Agnes was from South Dakota with an Irish and Norwegian descent and Jerry, with a Polish and Russian ancestry. They began their family of three children a little over a year after getting married. Judy Marie Rapport was their first child born in August of 1955 Mike came less than a year later in 1956 and Tom arrived in 1960.

With a new family to support, Jerry secured a job with Elixir Industries, a startup paint company in Gardena, CA. Jerry was the 2nd employee of the company and would later become President of Elixir leading them to a listing on the N.Y. Stock exchange. In between that time Jerry left Elixir to start two companies, Mobile Trim and Travel Trim. Both were later acquired by Elixir. At Travel Trim he invented the exit dome that is now required on all recreational vehicles as an emergency exit which he held the patent on. He was quite inventive and was always bringing home new ideas to test, many times in the oven of the family home.

After retiring from Elixir, Jerry started Bonanza Aluminum in 1974. Bonanza was a small extrusion company. Jerry enlisted the help of Bill Hunter and Ed Hudon, who learned the extrusion business at International Aluminum. At that time, there were few independent extruders in the market. The trio combined their experience and exploited the fact that “service” was not a part of the extrusion business. Their corporate extruder competition were driven out of the residential window market by the Trio. It was service, service and more service that drove them to success. They expanded from a small operation in Anaheim to a larger operation in Fontana with a paint line and foundry and 2 new presses over a 6 year time frame.

After 10 years driving from Laguna Niguel to Bonanza in Fontana, the retirement bug struck again. Jerry sold Bonanza to the Pritzker Group out of Chicago. Bill and Ed later went on to start Sierra Aluminum.

Jerry again became dissatisfied with retirement and soon opened Frontier Aluminum with modest intentions but his customers would not let him stay small. Jerry was very successful at Frontier until his final retirement.

Jerry was preceded in death by his wife, Agnes of 50 years in 2008. Although Agnes had a terminal lung illness, her death was very hard on Jerry. He visited her grave up until his death, even though he was in a wheelchair and had recovered from cancer.

Jerry is survived by his children Judy, Mike and Tom, his grandchildren, Kyle, Evan, Scott, Kayla and Edric Rapport, sons and daughter of Mike, Ian and Garrett Rapport, sons of Tom, and Alex Lamana, son of Judy. Jerry is also survived by 2 great grandchildren, Fox and Wilder, sons of Kyle Rapport. Jerry was the last surviving sibling of his family that totaled 3 brothers and 3 sisters.