David M. Ganly (1937-2013)

Born Ridgewood, NJ in 1937, and graduated from Yale University in 1959. David was commissioned upon graduation as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and 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 and was awarded the Purple Heart and promoted Captain. Upon exiting the service in 1963, David returned to New York City where he married and worked for IBM and then the New York Herald Tribune. He returned to law school in his 40's and graduated from N.C. Central Law School and began practicing law in Asheville where he founded the firm of Ganly & Ramer in 1982. After a very successful practice focusing on Social Security Disability David took an appointment to become an Administrative Law Judge for Social Security in Palm Springs, California in 1989 where he spent the next 20 years on the bench deciding Social Security Disability claims until his death in 2013.