Warren M. Shapleigh, a retired president of Ralston Purina Co. who helped transform the onetime feed business into a major manufacturer of foods for pets and people, died Sunday (Nov. 1, 2009) at the Gatesworth senior living complex in University City.

He was 89 and a longtime resident of Ladue. He had been battling neurological disease, his family said Monday.

Mr. Shapleigh was president of Ralston Purina from 1972 to 1978. Before that, he was president of the company's consumer products group.

He joined Ralston Purina in 1961 when it was still mostly a feed business. The company began diversifying, and he announced plans to introduce a minimum of three new products a year. He was instrumental in buying Van Camp, the tuna firm that marketed the Chicken of the Sea brand.

After his retirement, Mr. Shapleigh became president of the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Foundation, one of St. Louis' most generous charitable institutions. The foundation annually disbursed millions of dollars in gifts, primarily to higher education, medical education and research and health services. It also supported cultural and civic programs.

In 2004, after giving away its last $10 million, the foundation dissolved itself and shut its doors.

"It's very simple," Mr. Shapleigh told an inteviewer then. "Our plan is to disburse all of the money" and go out of business.

After retiring from the foundation, Mr. Shapleigh continued serving on the boards of several organizations, including Washington University, the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Luke's Hospital, J.P. Morgan and the Brookings Institution.

Mr. Shapleigh was the third of four children. His father was president of the Shapleigh Hardware company downtown. Mr. Shapleigh graduated from Country Day School and Yale University, where he studied economics.

He enlisted in the Navy during World War II and served three years on a submarine chaser near New Guinea and one year as executive officer of a fleet tanker in the western Pacific.

Mr. Shapleigh and his future wife, Jane Smith, were childhood friends. He grew up in Ladue and she in lived in the Central West End.

They were married in 1945 on the island of Okinawa, where she was a Red Cross worker in an Army hospital. They enjoyed a five-day honeymoon before he returned to duty. She returned to the hospital, which later treated American and other prisoners of war who had been held in Japan.

The family will hold a memorial service at 11 a.m. Thursday at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, 110 North Warson Road, Ladue. Burial will be private.

Survivors, in addition to his wife, include two daughters, Jane Mackey of Ladue, and Christine Schmid of Boston; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Missouri Botanical Garden or the St. Louis Art Museum.