By the family

May 5, 2025: Robert Ward Ganger, a corporate executive, devoted public servant, preservationist, author, and historian, died on April 25, 2025 in Gulf Stream, Florida. 

Ganger was the only son of Jean Ward Ganger and Robert Mondell Ganger, Bronxville residents for over fifty years. Ganger attended Bronxville High School, which he said was foundational to his future successes and whose teachers and fellow students he would speak of glowingly and often until his passing. He maintained devoted friendships with a number of his Bronxville friends for over 75 years.

Ganger passed peacefully in the same Gulf Stream home where his father died on the same day 33 years earlier. Known for his colorful storytelling and wit, he was the architect of one of the largest corporate mergers of the 1980s. 

He earned his BA in American Studies at Yale University ('57) and MBA at Harvard Business School ('59). He served in the U.S. Air Force Reserves 1959-65.  As a senior vice president at General Foods, Robert W. Ganger in some ways followed in his father's footsteps. He joined the company in 1959 and for decades oversaw marketing, finance, and strategy for brands like Jell-O, Maxwell House, and Kool-Aid, and new business development for acquisitions Ronzoni, Boboli, Entenmann's Bakery and others.

In 1985, as tobacco industry futures waned and companies moved to purchase the largest processed food companies, Philip Morris (now Altria) acquired General Foods. New CEO Hamish Maxwell handpicked Ganger to deliver an acquisition recommendation that would transform Philip Morris into the food industry's leader. Ganger's handwritten recommendation and plan for the acquisition of Kraft Foods was presented to the FTC and implemented by Philip Morris, leading to the 1987 purchase of Kraft, the largest non-oil corporate merger in history at that time.

Ganger's most rewarding work, according to his family, came after he left General Foods in 1991 and moved to Gulf Stream, Florida, to be with his father until his passing. There he remained, restoring to its former glory the family's historic home "Miradero" with his future wife Anneli Perlow and becoming a tireless civic leader for 30 years. He was renowned for his leadership roles in the Gulf Stream community and for preserving local history as Director of Historical Society of Palm Beach County and President of Delray Beach Historical Society. He was cofounder of Florida Coalition for Preservation, where for nearly 20 years he shepherded key legislation and staved off aggressive corporate and residential development in Palm Beach County.

Ganger was a constant presence at government meetings and instrumental in protecting a (still-standing) mobile home community by the ocean, Briny Breezes, one of the last remaining middle class beachfront communities in South Florida.

Ganger's most notable work as an author was his award-winning 2005 book, Lila Vanderbilt Webb's Miradero: Window on an Era, published by Historical Society of Palm Beach County.