BATON ROUGE - According to the Business Report Gary Mockler, the former head of Mockler Beverage died early Friday morning.

In 1987, the St. Louis native partnered up with Budweiser and took ownership of the $20 million wholesale distributorship for the Baton Rouge market, buying out Anheuser-Busch’s 85% stake in the company. He renamed the company to what we know now as Mockler Beverage.

Mockler was very active in the Baton Rouge community serving on several boards of area nonprofits which included Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center Charity Golf Classic, Capital Area United Way and Keep America Beautiful.

He was named Business Report’s Businessman of the Year in 1997 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2008.