Raymond L. McGarvey ’52 was the president and CEO of Country Fair and Meadow Brook Dairy.
The McGarvey family first owned Meadow Brook Dairy. As trends shifted and home delivery of milk became a thing of the past, Meadow Brook established neighborhood food stores—that would also distribute milk—to remain competitive. McGarvey opened the first Country Fair in 1965. Today, there are more than seventy Country Fair locations throughout Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio. McGarvey also led the family’s business, Meadow Brook Dairy, when his father became ill, and helped to regionalize it. Today, Meadow Brook services the greater Erie region and parts of New York with its local processing facility and distribution centers in Syracuse, Elmira, and LeRoy, New York.
In 2004, McGarvey received the Behrend Medallion, the college’s highest honor. A past president of the Penn State Behrend Council of Fellows, he has also received the Americans for the Competitive Enterprise System’s Competitive Enterprise Award, the Newcomen Society of the United States Award, the United Way’s Alexis de Tocqueville Award, the Erie Community Foundation’s Edward C. Doll Community Service Award, the Boy Scout’s Distinguished Citizens Award, and an honorary Doctorate of Law from Gannon University. He is a past trustee and past chairman of Saint Vincent Health Center board.
McGarvey attended Penn State Behrend from 1950-51. He earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois.
He and his wife, Virginia, created the Ray and Virginia McGarvey Scholarship and the McGarvey Family Trustee Scholarship. The McGarveys also gifted their Jordan Road family homesite to the college, which allowed for the construction of the Jack Burke Research and Economic Development Center.
Ray McGarvey passed away December 19, 2009. Prior to his death, he was a member of the Mount Nittany Society, the Glenhill Society, and the Penn State Alumni Association. The McGarveys have three children, Emy Dougan, Keith McGarvey, and the late Stephen McGarvey.