Frederick Drew Mercaldo

Frederick Drew “Fred” Mercaldo, age 83, of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, passed away on June 23, 2026. Born in Philadelphia, he was the son of the late Vincent Mercaldo and Mary Mercaldo (née Montgomery, later DeMaria).

He was the beloved husband of Virginia “Ginger” Mercaldo (née Robins); loving father of Scott Mercaldo and Tracy Davenport; adoring grandfather of Rocco and Spike Davenport and Emmet and George Mercaldo; and caring brother of Vincent Mercaldo, Joan Nuss, and Bernadette Holmes.

Fred’s hardscrabble beginnings set the stage for a remarkable life that would take him from Philadelphia to the United Kingdom, then on to Detroit, before he and Ginger eventually retired to the Jersey Shore.

Fred’s potential was first recognized while working at Sadtler Instruments in the early 1960s. On weekends, he served with the U.S. Navy Reserve, patrolling the Atlantic and harassing Soviet spy trawlers and submarines. His weapon, as he would later delight in telling his children and grandchildren, was the P2V Neptune—the first aircraft shot down during the Korean War. It was during this time that he met the great love of his life, Ginger, whom he affectionately called “Witch” because of her long black hair. It was a match that would last the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, the Soviets caught a lucky break. Fred was laid low by a punctured lung, the result of long hours spent flying in unpressurized aircraft. Despite the best efforts of his doctors, it happened again, and in 1967 the Navy was forced to retire this once-great asset to the nation’s defense.

Freed from military service, Fred devoted his talents to his family and to business. He married Ginger in 1969. Scott arrived in 1973, followed by Tracy in 1974. Having established himself in the field of applied spectroscopy, Fred founded his own business, which was acquired by the Foxboro Company in the late 1970s. Soon afterward, he was sent to Europe, leaving Ginger and the children behind in Drexel Hill.

Months would pass between visits. Questions arose in the Men's Grill at Llanerch Country Club regarding his whereabouts. At school functions and neighborhood barbecues, others questioned whether the mysterious bearded man occasionally seen beside Ginger was, in fact, the real Fred. On one brief visit home in 1981, he announced that the family should pack their bags—they were moving to England.

After two years in the bucolic countryside of Northamptonshire, the family settled in coastal Sussex. Even then, they saw little of Fred. His work for Foxboro took him on extended assignments throughout the Middle East and behind the Iron Curtain. When he did make it home for the occasional weekend, he often arrived with enigmatic colleagues who spent the weekend at the family home. Over an Underberg, conversations with them often drifted to subjects as varied as life in pre-revolutionary Iran, train accidents in the Soviet Union, or the finer points of field-stripping an M-16 with Mossad.

In 1990, Fred traveled to Kuwait on business. Having left for northern Saudi Arabia the night before the Iraqi invasion, he spent two weeks in hiding with a friendly sheikh before being evacuated by the British. The following year, after a lengthy battle with an exotic eye disease, Fred decided to pursue a new direction. He purchased a robotics company, relocated it to Detroit, and founded Questech, which became a leader in vocational education for high schools. Ginger joined him in Detroit from Brighton in 1997. Several years later, following a chance encounter in his favorite bar, Fred founded Millennium Screw Machine, a supplier of precision parts to the automotive industry.

By 2005, both Scott and Tracy were married, and in time they blessed Fred and Ginger with four grandsons. With the family spread across two continents and mindful of the passing years, Fred and Ginger purchased a home in Margate, New Jersey, where their children and grandchildren could spend summers together under one roof. Fred enjoyed his customary martinis on the deck with his friends Lloyd and Ray and joined them on fishing trips to the offshore canyons.

Fred managed to sell both Millennium Screw Machine and his Michigan condominium just as the world shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. He then turned his attention to the stock market, simultaneously frustrating and astonishing family and friends with his appetite for risk and his uncanny stock picking. Fred and Ginger also delighted in taking several voyages aboard the Queen Mary 2. As Fred’s health declined, the ship allowed him to continue traveling comfortably to England to spend time with Tracy and her family.

Fred was a devoted grandfather who loved discussing aircraft and his Navy service with Emmet, hearing about George’s progress on the guitar, and bonding over an ice cream at the New Inn with Rocco and Spike. He will be deeply missed by all who knew and loved him.