Roslyn Harbor Mayor Gerson Strassberg was recently profiled in Esquire magazine. The brief article hailed him for holding up "The Plastic Badge of Courage." The mayor is president of The Angler's Roslyn Group, a company located in Flushing and one that is believed to be the only pocket-protector manufacturer left in America. The product is the plastic case that fits in the front pocket of your shirt, designed to hold ink pens that might otherwise run and ruin your clothes.

The Esquire piece noted that such protectors became popular once the ballpoint pen was introduced to the public in the years following World War II. Such pens themselves were highly popular, according to the article, "crowds stood in line at department stores to buy them," but they also had a bad habit of leaking.

And so, innovative engineers such as Mr. Strassberg helped to develop a pocket protector for such pens. Mr. Strassberg himself invented the pocket protector. Engineers of his day were aided by the new technique of high-powered radio frequency weldings. The welding of plastic products were helped along by this new way of manufacturing. The article also states that marketing ideas also had a great deal to do with the product's popularity. Companies could order a batch of the protectors with the name of their company printed on them.

The article also notes that the product has gone through some tough times since its peak years of the 1960s. The article claims the protector's "association with geekdom" is the reason, but Mr. Strassberg blames the rise of high technology and the loss of such "old-fashioned manufacturing operations" to, among other places, the Asian continent.

Mr. Strassberg makes his contempt for various computer industries clear in the article. "I worry," he told the Esquire interviewer, "because what built this country was Yankee ingenuity. Now the computer industry has just about taken things over."

More specifically, manufacturing jobs "on the level of common products have all but disappeared in the U.S." Much of this is due, he said, to wages other countries pay their workers. In China, for instance, a manufacturing worker gets paid 40 cents an hour with no benefits. In Mexico, it is 80 cents to one dollar, also with little benefits. American companies, which have to pay at least seven or eight dollars an hour with benefits, cannot compete with such wages. Mr. Strassberg said he survives by finding "niche products" and by producing products that still have a measure of protectionism on them.

Mayor of Roslyn Harbor since 1988, Mr. Strassberg has resided with his family in Roslyn since 1970. Two years later, he was first elected to the board of trustees. A native of the Bronx, Mr. Strassberg is also a graduate of City College of New York, where he earned a degree in electrical engineering. His immediate experience was in the design and development of the before-mentioned high power radio frequency machinery (those similar to radio and television transmitters) for the production of vinyl plastic consumer products, such as auto seat cover materials and inflatable toys. His work as a development engineer for such companies as Radio Receptor Corp. and Induction Heating Corp. involved design and implementation of radio frequency machinery for processes and products such as plywood drying, foundry core drying, furniture gluing, x-ray drying, and a production of a myriad of consumer products.

In 1958, Mr. Strassberg joined Angler's, a company on 162nd St. in Flushing, Queens. Angler's occupied a 1,500-sq. ft. building and produced about ten products, some of which are still produced today, including ring binder products, book covers, and "Cuff-ette" sleeve protectors. Upon the retirement of the company's founder in 1970, Mr. Strassberg purchased the company and assumed his present title as president.

During 1978 and 1979, Angler's expanded its facility by constructing and occupying its present 80,000 sq. ft. complex. Angler's currently employs about 125 mostly local people. The company's new buildings were awarded the Queens County Chamber of Commerce first prize "For Excellence in Design and Civic Value" in both 1978 and 1979. In addition to serving as mayor of Roslyn Harbor and president of Angler's, Mr. Strassberg has served as a member of the Bank of New York Advisory Board and as a member of the Board of Trustees of New York Hospital Queens.