Philip Baur Jr., 84, Tastykakes scion and CEO

Philip J. Baur Jr., 84, the former chairman and CEO of Tasty Baking Co., who engineered a dramatic turnaround for the company his father cofounded, died Sunday, Aug. 30, of a stroke at his vacation home in Florida.

In the 1980s, Tasty Baking and its signature line, Tastykakes, were experiencing profit declines for the first time in more than six decades. Baur took over as CEO, pursued a new advertising strategy, renegotiated contracts with delivery drivers, and suspended shareholder dividends until the company returned to health.

Mr. Baur's father, a baker from Pittsburgh, and his partner, a Boston egg salesman, founded Tasty Baking in 1914, delivering small cakes in a horse-drawn wagon in Germantown.

By the time Mr. Baur joined the company, straight out of college in 1952, it was a multimillion-dollar firm with about 1,400 employees, according to news reports.

"He took assignments in a lot of different locations. He worked with the service people, the maintenance people. He worked in the lab. I think he did a sales route for a while," said his son, Philip III. "He not only knew what was going on in most of the bakery, but knew a lot of the people as well."

After his retirement in 1987, Mr. Baur remained on the board of directors.

Mr. Baur loved to play tennis and go windsurfing, his son said. He and his wife, Barbara, also spent a lot of time traveling, including visiting their children in far-flung locations such as Papua New Guinea, Kenya, and Mali.

Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Baur graduated from William Penn Charter School in 1948 and went on to study chemistry at Haverford College, his son said.

Mr. Baur also served on the boards of numerous civic groups, including the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, the YMCA of Philadelphia, and the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. He was a lifetime member of the Union League.

An evangelical Christian, Mr. Baur was involved with the Billy Graham Crusade and the Philadelphia Leadership Prayer Breakfast.

He married Barbara Joyce Baur in 1953, after the two had met over summers in Ocean City, N.J. They raised six children in Ambler, where they remained until moving to Normandy Farm Estates in Blue Bell in 2005.

In addition to his wife and son, Mr. Baur is survived by son Paul, daughters Susan Beatty and Sandra Bixby, 17 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren. His youngest son, Andrew M., died in 2013.

Services are scheduled for 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 12, at Chelten: A Church of Hope, 1601 N. Limekiln Pike, Dresher, Pa. 19025. Burial at Whitemarsh Memorial Park will be private.

Donations may be made to the church at the address above.

610-313-8117 @JS_Parks