In son's memory, a businessman helps others

At 78, Jordan Berman has navigated through life quite comfortably, professionally speaking, rising from office boy at a North Philadelphia auto-parts distributor to president of the company.

Since his retirement 22 years ago, the Blue Bell resident has been an entrepreneurial "dabbler," the last seven years with his grandchildren in a range of pursuits, including auto parts, illustrated art, construction, health food, and fashion T-shirts.

"I've been a very lucky guy my whole life. Everything has gone my way," he said last week, before adding a solemn "except."

"Except, I got this one jolt," he said. "I lost my son."

That son was Richard Berman, who died in January 2011 of leukemia at 54. He was chairman and CEO of Dorman Products, an auto-parts distribution company in Colmar that he founded in 1978 and grew with brother Steven into what is now a publicly traded enterprise.

Richard Berman was also a husband, a father, and a generous man, inclined, for instance, to buy a plane ticket for a complete stranger in need, his father said.

"He just had an incredibly good heart and wanted to be of help," said Jordan Berman, a private man who only agreed to an interview about his own recent act of generosity because it honors his late son.

Berman has pledged $150,000 for a new small-business loan fund available to anyone in the region and is willing to contribute more.

"If it's successful, I would like to live out my life supporting it," he said.

The R & B Business Loan Fund at Congregation Beth Or is offering interest-free loans of up to $15,000 to start-ups and expanding businesses.

Congregation Beth Or was the Maple Glen synagogue to which Richard Berman belonged and actively supported, said Steven Stone, a past president of its board who praised Jordan Berman's tribute to his son.

"It's one of the tenets of Judaism that man is on earth to help perfect the process of creation," Stone said. "Doing these kinds of things certainly fulfills that philosophical underpinning."

As prescribed by Berman, applicants for the business loans do not have to be Jewish. They do have to have two willing creditworthy cosigners to help ensure that the loans will be repaid so more businesses can be helped.

The R & B fund represents a new type of offering for its administrator, the Hebrew Free Loan Society of Greater Philadelphia, or HFL, which has been providing interest-free personal loans of up to $7,500 to Jews in Philadelphia, its suburbs, and South Jersey for 30 years. Nearly $3 million in loans have been issued for such needs as educational expenses, rent, and utility bills, with a general payback period of two to three years.

Their interest-free element draws upon Jewish law prohibiting Jews from charging one another interest. Exodus 22:24 reads: "If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, do not act toward them as a creditor; exact no interest from them."

There are more than three dozen Hebrew Free Loan societies in the United States, first created to help immigrants get a business footing, said Tamar Granor, of Elkins Park. The software developer and her husband, Marshal Granor, a lawyer who also runs a condominium and homeowner management company, are copresidents of this region's HFL.

With the R & B fund, details of which are at www.hebrewfreeloanphila.org/BusinessLoans.htm, "we hope to become one of the go-to organizations for entrepreneurs in the Philadelphia area," Tamar Granor said. So far about $75,000 in loans have been issued or committed, Marshal Granor said.

While $15,000 is not likely to be the only financial help a small business might need, it is intended to help close some gaps, said Jonathan Harmon, a licensed social worker that HFL hired last year as executive director to help publicize the business loans.

"People are typically astonished at the no-interest rate," Harmon said.

HFL's first meeting with Jordan Berman about his business-loan idea "was one of those goose-bump experiences," Marshal Granor said. "All he wanted to do is help people . . . with no recognition."

Among the beneficiaries: Flying NightBear Games, a fledgling enterprise by the McEntire family of Elkins Park and a friend that has developed Beyonder, a "low-heroic pen-and-paper role-playing game," according to the website www.fnbgames.com.

More than $20,000 raised through a Kickstarter campaign in 2013 is funding printing of the artistic book that explains the game's story and rules. Needed next was financing to pay for marketing.

"Appropriately enough, I would call it a godsend," Simon McEntire said of the $15,000 R & B loan Flying NightBear received in May. "Trying to get money in this economy is like trying to get blood from a stone. So having this resource is just amazing."

As is Jordan Berman's helping hand at a time of personal suffering, said McEntire, 30, who does not know him.

Berman gives all the credit to Richard:

"What I'm trying to do is be a surrogate. I'm trying to do what he would have liked to have done."

215-854-2466 @dmastrull