Judge David Milton Ganly

DAVID M. GANLY Our community has sustained the loss of one of its most highly respected jurists and of a valued friend and benefactor. Judge David Milton Ganly died peacefully at his Redlands home on August 4th after a courageous battle against lung cancer. Born to Melton and Ruth Ganly in Ridgewood, NJ in 1937, their son David thrived upon his early life experiences in the New York City metropolitan area. David was graduated from Yale University in 1959 after having attended the Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts. At Yale, David took up residence at prestigious Pierson College. He rowed varsity eights for all four years, and he immersed himself in his architecture major, which would later prove to be a sustaining lifetime avocation of his. Having enrolled in Army ROTC at Yale, David was commissioned upon graduation as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. After completing his Airborne Training at Ft. Benning, GA and gaining credentialed status as a Staff Officer at the U.S. Army Intelligence School in Fort Holabird, MD., the young Lt. Ganly was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division. In 1962, he was deployed to Vietnam where he was assigned to a Special Forces unit as an Intelligence Officer. While on duty as a MAAG Advisor in the Viet Cong stronghold of Qaung Ngai province, Lt. Ganly was wounded by enemy sniper fire during an ambush, for which he was awarded the Purple Heart. Lt. Ganly recovered to complete his tour of duty in Vietnam having been promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant and ultimately to Captain. Upon exiting the service in 1963, David returned to New York City where he married and began raising a family. While in New York, he worked for IBM for a number of years. Ultimately bored by Big Blue, David continued to work in computer technology during his employment with the New York Herald Tribune. At 40yrs of age, he answered the call of that infamous Jealous Mistress that is the Law and migrated to North Carolina with his wife and three children in tow…“Go South, young man, Go South?” In 1980 at the age of 43 years, David received his JD from the North Carolina Central University School of Law in Durham, NC. He was admitted to the North Carolina Bar and became the founder of the highly successful Asheville litigation firm of Ganly & Ramer. The energetic young 54 year old attorney decided to turn the focus of his career to the judiciary, and in 1991 he accepted an appointment to the Federal bench as an Administrative Law Judge. David’s duty assignment to the Social Security Administration brought him West to San Bernardino where he wisely decided to take up residence in nearby Redlands and to marry his loving wife….what’s her name? David distinguished himself without equivocation during his more than 20 years of public service in the local community not just as a “judge” but as a person of fairness, of immense integrity, and of caring. David earned and greatly enjoyed the unrequited respect, admiration, and…most of all… friendship of the fellow jurists with whom he shared the bench. Judge Ganly is survived by his loving wife, Norene Green, and his sister and brother-in-law, Dorothy and Craig Miller of Walnut Creek. He is also survived by his daughter, Samantha Hicks of Asheville, NC; his sons, Winston of La Quinta and Maxwell of Knoxville, TN; by his step-children Amie and James Hofmann of Aliso Viejo and Brenden and Jill Green of Redlands; by his grandchildren and step-grandchildren Erik and Lauren Hicks, Sophia Ganly, Keller, Katie and Sawyer Hofmann, and Abbey and Jake Green.

Judge David Milton Ganly

November 15, 1937 - August 4, 2012