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Milton M. Kleinberg, Longtime Owner and CEO of Senior Market Sales®
As the longtime owner and CEO of Senior Market Sales® (SMS), Milton Mendel Kleinberg led the small company to become one of the industry’s leading insurance marketing organizations. Through nearly four decades of economic and industry changes and even under new ownership, the core values that Milt instilled in SMS continue to guide and inspire employees today.
Shaped by his experience as a childhood survivor of the Holocaust and a U.S. immigrant and military veteran, Milt showed how hard work, perseverance and heart could create a business that’s respected for both ingenuity and integrity.
Born in Pabianice, Poland, on Jan. 28, 1937, Milt was only four years old when he and his family fled the Nazis. After traveling in cattle cars across frigid Russia, they were forced to work in Soviet labor camps. Young Milt endured years of hunger, the deaths of his two younger brothers, and unspeakable atrocities — all chronicled in his memoir, “Bread or Death: Memories of My Childhood During and After the Holocaust.”
After living at German Displaced Persons camps at the end of World War II, Milt immigrated to the United States at age 14, vowing to put his childhood experiences behind him. He never spoke of them until his grandchildren asked questions many decades later.
He had joined the U.S. Army and served in Korea, became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and embarked on a career in insurance, eventually starting a small Milwaukee insurance agency in 1968. As one of the first agents to sell and market Medicare Supplement since its inception in the 1960s, Milt was hired as a consultant with National Financial Dynamics (NFD), a life insurance brokerage that was adding an exclusive Medicare Supplement to its distribution. Only two years later, in 1984, he became a partner by buying out one of the existing partners at the Omaha, Nebraska, company, which had changed its name to Senior Market Sales, Inc.
Nearly a decade after that, in 1994, he became SMS’ sole owner, leading a team of 10 other employees, including his wife, Marsha, as office manager. After Milt and Marsha’s son, Hershel Kleinberg, joined the company in 1997, Hershel’s technological innovations and the addition of Jim Summers as president in 1998 drove an era of explosive growth. Focused on the company’s mission — to help independent agents leverage time, make more money and put their business in a position of distinction — the company grew into a Medicare powerhouse.
The Kleinbergs in 2020 strategically partnered with Alliant Insurance Services, one of the world’s largest insurance brokers, to ensure a path forward that would allow SMS to grow and remain true to its mission despite industry disruption. Three years after Alliant’s acquisition of SMS, Milt and Hershel retired, leaving SMS stronger, bigger and more prepared to weather the next challenges.
SMS’ story is a lasting tribute to Milt’s perseverance — the company is known for its superior ability to guide independent insurance agents through the industry’s most disruptive challenges to come out even stronger. Leading by example, he shaped a company culture that’s rooted in doing the right thing and standing by one’s word. His deep appreciation for family informed how he treated everyone — from employees and agents to agents’ clients and SMS’ partners.
Milt’s impact resonates beyond the walls of SMS. Into his 80s, he continued to tell his family’s story at schools, colleges and other events, often in collaboration with the nonprofit Institute for Holocaust Education.
He and Marsha created the Milton Mendel and Marsha Kleinberg Endowed Student Support Fund to help undergraduates and the Hall of History Maintenance, Repair, and Replacement Endowment Fund Agreement to provide funds for maintaining, repairing, replacing, and renovating the empty gallery space at The Jewish Community Center in Omaha. Their generous donation transformed the center’s empty lobby area into a permanent, educational space devoted to the history of Jewish Omaha. The hall officially opened in January 2024 as The Milton Mendel and Marsha Kleinberg Jewish Omaha Heritage Center. The endowment ensures that stories of families like Milt’s will be preserved and shared, serving not only as stark reminders of the consequences of hatred and prejudice, but also as inspiring examples of the strength of the human spirit.
Milt’s enduring legacy is his family. In addition to son Hershel and Hershel’s wife, Lisa, Milt and Marsha share a daughter, Cindy Levy, who lives in Israel with her husband, Michael, and their six children and 20 grandchildren. Milt and Marsha also live in Israel.
