Variety Man

As a student at George Washington University, Frank Kiggins White switched from law to accounting because "an accountant who is lucky gets sent out on a variety of assignments and learns a lot." White got plenty of assignments. At 25, he was assistant to the president of the Union News Co.; at 30, treasurer of the Literary Guild; at 37, treasurer of Newsweek (then undergoing financial reorganization); at 38, treasurer of CBS.

He was a key man in settling the yearlong American Federation of Musicians' strike against the recordmakers; as boss of Columbia Records, Inc., he was in the midst of the battle with RCA over long-playing records. In 1949, he moved on to Mutual Broadcasting System. As president, he spruced up management, found new local sponsors, and perked up programing. By last May, when his three-year contract with Mutual (at $100,000 a year) expired, the network's billings were $3,000,000 a year bigger, and White moved over to NBC as a vice president.

Last week White, 53, got his biggest assignment. He was named president of NBC, succeeding Joseph H. McConnell, 46, who resigned, reportedly to be president of Colgate-Palmolive-Peet. White thus became the first man ever to have headed two major networks. Radiomen guessed that RCA-NBC Chairman David Sarnoff is not completely satisfied with NBC's bulky overhead and slowness to fight back against CBS competition, and hopes that White will tune NBC into a better wave length.

Other personnel changes:

P: Howard Cotterill Sheperd, 58, was named to succeed retiring Chairman William Gage Brady Jr., 65, of Manhattan's National City Bank, second biggest in the U.S. Sheperd, who started with N.C.B. in 1916 as a trainee, has been its president since 1948. His successor: James Stillman Rockefeller, 50, a grandnephew of John D. Rockefeller, who started in the comptroller's department, became executive vice president only last Seotember.

P: John Walker Barriger, 53, who pulled the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville ("Monon") Railway up from bankruptcy to prosperity, left to be vice president of the New Haven, where he will be right-hand man to President Frederic C. ("Buck") Dumaine Jr. Barriger, who poured more than $20 million into new equipment and roadbeds at the Monon, regards railroading as a "grand sport you get paid for playing."

P: John Peters Stevens Jr., 55, who has been president of J. P. Stevens & Co. since 1942, succeeded Robert Ten Broeck Stevens, his younger brother and Eisenhower's new Army Secretary, as chairman of the family-founded textile company.

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