On Sunday evenings, Roger E. Stangeland’s family would gather in the kitchen to help him cook the evening meal.
The tradition helped him and his family unwind from the past week and gear up for the one ahead, when he would return to his retail career and they to their schooling or jobs.
“The hangout in our home was always in the kitchen,” said his wife, Lilah.
For Mr. Stangeland, it was a respite from his duties as he became a rising star in several retail divisions of Household Merchandising Inc. in Minnesota and Chicago, then as a group executive with Vons Grocery Co. in California, and later as chairman and chief executive officer of the Vons Cos., also in California.
The last was formed after he led a group of investors in a leveraged buyout in 1985 of Household Merchandising from its parent, Household International Inc. of Prospect Heights.
Mr. Stangeland, 74, died of heart failure Friday, Feb. 27, in a California hospital.
When he was 4 in Wauconda, he met his future wife at Sunday school. They were sweethearts in elementary school and while he attended St. John’s Military Academy in Delafield, Wis. They got married in 1950 after he graduated from the University of Illinois.
His original plan was to become a teacher, but he became a cashier at a bank. When his parents retired, he inherited the Wauconda building that housed their grocery store. An avid outdoorsman, he remodeled it into the Sportsman, a sporting goods store with a small card shop attached.
He sold the store in 1954 and worked in Chicago for a sporting goods wholesaler.
Six years later, Mr. Stangehold became a sporting goods buyer in Minnesota for Coast to Coast Stores, a hardware store chain, becoming its president in 1972. The company was later purchased by Household Merchandising.
James Tait, retired president and CEO of Household Merchandising, moved Mr. Stangeland to Chicago in 1978 to oversee seven retail divisions.
“Roger was a well-rounded, very talented and forward-thinking individual who moved up rapidly,” Tait said.
In 1982 he became a group executive at Household Merchandising, adding Vons Grocery Co. in Los Angeles to the list of divisions he oversaw. Two years later, he became that division’s chairman and CEO.
After the leveraged buyout in 1985, he became CEO of the new entity, and during his tenure it acquired other supermarket chains in California. He developed new divisions, including the upscale food shop Pavilions and the Hispanic-oriented Tianguis.
After his retirement in 1994, he remained on Vons’ board of directors until the company merged with Safeway in 1997.
During the 1990s, he was on the board of the Food Marketing Institute and the American Institute of Food and Wine.
Other survivors include his daughter, Cyndi Olsen; two sons, Brett and Brad; and four grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Friday, at Wauconda Federated Church, 300 S. Barrington Rd. A second memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, at St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy, 1101 N. Genesee St., Delafield.
