In the beginning, Jack Carl traded at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange just for his own pleasure, learning from a fellow produce merchant and calling in trades from the South Water Market where he was a produce distributor.
Mr. Carl’s interest in trading grew in the 1970s when he sold the produce company and decided to go into business with Steve Sukenik, the young man who had been answering his calls at the Merc for many years. Together they formed the clearinghouse Jack Carl Associates.
“Jack was a wonderful person,” Sukenik said. “He let a young man take the bulls by the horn and build a company. He was my adviser but became much more than that as time went on. He was a mentor, a great friend. He gave a young man a chance and then stood back with the quiet confidence of a great leader.”
Mr. Carl, 92, died on Saturday, Dec. 3, in Highland Park Hospital after a heart attack Friday.
“At first, the company consisted of me accumulating traders on the floor of the Mercantile who were trading for their own pleasure, but clearing the business for us,” Sukenik said.
Later, when the commissions that clearing houses received from customers were deregulated and could be negotiated instead of being set by the exchanges, Sukenik and Mr. Carl expanded into the discount end of the futures business. The company grew to more than 100 employees and 300 client traders.
In the mid-1980s, they sold the company through a merger with 312 Futures, a smaller but publicly traded firm, Sukenik said. They retained contracts with the new firm through 1988.
Mr. Carl was born in Chicago and raised by Russian immigrant parents who spoke only Yiddish. Not sure how to direct their son, his parents encouraged him to attend Crane Tech High School with a friend.
“That was a mistake because he was no good with his hands, and he only went for one year,” his son Jerrold said. “He left school and worked with his father on a horse and wagon peddling fruit.”
He later opened his produce distributorship, Jack Carl Co., at South Water, winning the Jewel Food Stores account for more than 25 years with an apple coup after the war.
“He basically got their account because in 1946 he sold them apples at fair market prices when the black market was going on after World War II,” his son said. “He sold them at ceiling price, and Jewel was the only one that had apples. He figured out ahead of time that apples would be hot, bought a bunch, put them in storage.”
Always a person with liberal leanings and a longtime member of a monthly liberal discussion group, Mr. Carl met his future wife, Yetta DeKoven, at a dance in 1936 to raise funds for the Loyalist side of the Spanish Civil War. The couple married in 1942 while he was serving stateside with the Army. They initially settled in Chicago, then moved to Highland Park.
Mr. Carl had a heart attack in 1948, prompting doctors to counsel him that he might be lucky to live another 15 years, his son said. He lived another 57. But in his middle years, he and his wife began a strict diet devoid of such things as butter and salt.
“They were pretty fanatical about their diet, which made it hard to go to restaurants,” his son said with a chuckle. “We could only go to ones that they had gone to before and knew were OK.”
Mr. Carl and his wife lived across from Ravinia Park in Highland Park and were devoted fans, often treating friends to an evening there with dinner. He still attend last summer.
Mr. Carl’s wife died six years ago. He is survived by another son, Stephen; his sister, Sara Riffkind; and six grandchildren.
A service will be held at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in Chicago Jewish Funerals Chapel, 195 N. Buffalo Grove Rd., Buffalo Grove.
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bsherlock@tribune.com
