Harold M. Rayden | Gimbels executive, 91

Harold M. Rayden, 91, a former vice president with Gimbels department store in Philadelphia, died of heart failure Saturday at Samaritan Hospice in Marlton.

The Brooklyn native began his career at 17 in the training program of the Macy's department-store chain. At 18, his granddaughter Hilary Berman said, he was a senior assistant fashion buyer.

During World War II, Mr. Rayden served as an Army entertainment specialist from 1943 to 1945 and, his discharge papers show, he saw combat in Italy's Po Valley, for which he earned a Bronze Star.

Mr. Rayden returned to Macy's and was a coat buyer until 1950, when he joined Pittsburgh's Boggs & Buhl department store, which closed in 1958.

He took a job at Gimbels in Philadelphia as a merchandising manager and retired as senior vice president in 1974.

Mr. Rayden later served as a counselor to small businesses and, according to the Jewish Community Voice, a newspaper in Cherry Hill, was president of its board of managers from 1995 to 1997.

Robert Messina, president of Burlington County College, said that Mr. Rayden had been on the executive board of the college foundation, a fund-raising arm of BCC, for the last five years. He was the foundation's liaison to the BCC fashion program, Messina said.

Mr. Rayden is survived by his wife, Libby; a son, Michael; a daughter, Patty Dubbin Cullinan; stepdaughters Honey Lynn Bestic and Rose Lee; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. His wife of 64 years, Lorraine, died in 2004.