Robert L. Munger Jr., Cedar Point renovator

Robert L Munger Jr. played vital roles in the comeback of Cedar Point Park nearly 30 years ago and in the continuing development of the amusement park near Sandusky.

He was executive chairman of the board and a director of Cedar Fair, the limited partnership that operates Cedar Point and its sister park, Valleyfair Park, near Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn.

Mr. Munger. 59. of Munger Waite Hill, died Monday in Lake Hospital System (Willoughby). Cancer was diagnosed 2 ½ years ago.

He had held his latest post with Cedar Point for a year. In 1975, he became president and chief executive and four years later was named chairman of the board.

Mr. Munger was born in New Haven, Conn. He received a bachelor's degree in 1950 from Yale University, where he majored in economics, sociology and psychology.

He was drafted the next year into the Army and soon was chosen to work in counter-intelligence. He was stationed in Stuttgart, Germany, for most of his two-year military service.

He settled in Cleveland in 1953 and went to work in the insurance business for a predecessor of Johnson & Higgins of Ohio Inc. He was senior vice president when he left the company in 1975 to devote full time to Cedar Point. He remained a director of Johnson & Higgins.

Mr. Munger also was a director of Standard Products Co. and had been chairman of the executive committee and a director of Park-Ohio Industries Inc.

In 1981, he told a reporter that he had been looking for an investment in 1960 that would be fun and could make money. He chose what was then a run-down amusement park.

The original Cedar Point was developed in 1878.

Mr. Munger said his business philosophy was simple - hire the best people available and use common sense.

Mr. Munger is survived by daughters, Holly Book, of Waterloo, Ont., and Marnie, of Newton, Mass.; sons, Myron W., of Delray Beach, Fla., and Jeffrey H., also of Newton, Mass.; and three grandchildren. His wife. Marguerite, died in 1962.

Memorial services will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at St. Christopher’s-by-the-River Church (Episcopal), Old Mill Rd., Gates Mills.

Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH, 25Nov1987

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R Munger (1928)