Joseph Neubauer

The Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore will soon get a taste of Philadelphia. Aramark, the Center City-based operator of food and souvenir operations at a num ber of national and state parks nationwide, said yesterday that it will buy TW Recreational Services Inc. for $130 million. The deal will give Aramark new operations at more than 20 parks in 10 states, including Yellowstone National Park, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion Canyon National Park and Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

It's bigger than ballpark hot dogs, bigger than college cafeterias, bigger even than feeding 10,000 Olympic athletes: ARA Services wants to be the world's full-line service company. With a name change to Aramark, a new logo and an international advertising campaign - all to hit in October - the Philadelphia firm will sell itself around the world as a one-stop source for uniform rental, housekeeping services, child care, magazine and newspaper distribution, even emergency-room staffing for hospitals.

"Hey, I'm gonna go hang out with Gracie," exclaimed Joseph Neubauer as he broke away from an entourage of ARA Services Inc. executives to dart behind a food-service counter in an ARA-run cafeteria. Grace Bland, beef carver and rotisserie operator, giggled indulgently, scolded ARA's chief executive officer for getting in her way, and then posed with him for a photo. This particular byplay, on a tour of an ARA-managed corporate cafeteria, may have been just staged-for-the-media foolishness.

ARA Services Inc., the Philadelphia service conglomerate, announced yesterday the cash purchase of WearGuard Corp., a Norwell, Mass., company that sells work uniforms and clothing. ARA did not disclose the terms of the deal. WearGuard employs about 1,000 people and has annual revenue of $120 million. The company sells its work clothing through catalogues to small and medium-size businesses. WearGuard also has a clothing division for big and tall men, King Size, and a men's shoe operation, E.T. Wright.

The board of directors of the Philadelphia Orchestra Association, once the bastion of the bluest of the region's blue bloods, is a different animal these days. Gone are many of the representatives of traditional orchestra families. In their places are men and women with the kind of corporate connections that once might have produced a shudder within Philadelphia's established upper crust. Just this year, developer Ronald I. Rubin; Harvey Lamm, chairman of Subaru of America Inc.; George Ross of Goldman Sachs & Co., and Edward A. Montgomery of Mellon Bank were voted on to the board.