Changes of the Week

Lieut. General (U.S.A., ret.) Albert Coady Wedemeyer, 58, was elected a vice president and director of Rheem Manufacturing Co. (shipping containers, household appliances, guided-missile components). To take the job, General Wedemeyer resigned as a vice president of Avco Manufacturing Corp. (appliances, electronics and farm equipment), a post he has held since his retirement from the Army in 1951.

Nicos Vernicos, 34, scion of an old Mediterranean shipping family, was named president of Home Lines, one of the world's biggest transatlantic passenger carriers (Italia, Atlantic, Homeric, Roma, Nassau, Homeland). Vernicos was picked and trained for the job by his shrewd bachelor godfather, Eugen Eugenides, who was boss of the line till his death last April. Vernicos was born in Sifnos, Greece, educated at the University of London, worked for Swedish State Railways and S.K.F. before joining the Home Lines.

Charles G. Stradella, 56, was elected president of General Motors Acceptance Corp., G.M.'s subsidiary for financing wholesale and retail sales ($6.7 billion in 1953). An upstate New Yorker, Stradella graduated from Yale University, studied at Fordham's law school, went to work for G.M.A.C. in 1919, climbed to vice president for overseas branch operations, later transferred to General Motors Overseas Operations Division and became head of the division's New York general staff.

Stradella succeeds John J. Schumann Jr., 64, who is G.M.A.C.'s oldest employee in point of service (since 1919).

Harry Ferguson, 69, waspish, Irish-born inventor of farm machinery who once settled a patent suit against Ford out of court for $9,250,000, resigned as board chairman and director of Massey-Harris-Ferguson, Ltd. of Toronto, Canada, which was formed only last October by the merger of Canada's Massey-Harris Co. and a group of Britain's Harry Ferguson companies. Ferguson announced that he will devote himself to "new inventions--outside the agricultural field" (reportedly a cheap "people's car"). James Duncan, 61, president of Massey-Harris-Ferguson, took over the title of board chairman.

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