Gerendasy, CBS captioning engineer, dies

Stanley Gerendasy, 82, an electrical engineer who worked for CBS-TV and was part of a team of advisers who helped start Israel's first television network in the late 1960s, died of cardiac arrest March 5 at his home in Bethesda.

Mr. Gerendasy spent much of his early career at CBS in New York, where he was chief engineer for the network's many programs, including "The Ed Sullivan Show." He was part of the team of advisers CBS sent to Israel in 1968 to start the Israel Broadcasting Authority and subsequently was hired as its deputy director of engineering and operations.

After returning to the United States in the early 1970s, he worked in a series of jobs involving bringing educational cable TV to disabled viewers and research and development of closed captioning for the hearing impaired. From 1978 to 1987, he worked for CBS from Washington on captioning work.

In retirement, Mr. Gerendasy and his brother grew gourmet mushrooms and spent several years marketing them to local restaurants under the company name Potomac Woodland Mushrooms.

Stanley Joseph Gerendasy was born in the Bronx, N.Y., to Jewish immigrants from Hungary. He served in the Navy during World War II and attended the University of Missouri on the GI Bill, graduating in 1949 with honors in electrical engineering.

Survivors include his wife, Janet Warshauer Gerendasy of Bethesda; two children, Carrie Gerendasy of Berkeley, Calif., and Dan Gerendasy of Gaithersburg; and a grandson.