Changes of the Week

PERSONNEL Changes of the Week P:William N. Deramus III, 41, resigned as president of the Chicago Great Western Railway Co. to become president of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, succeeding Donald V. Fraser, 60, who will become board chairman. Deramus, in turn, will be succeeded at Chicago Great Western by Veteran Railman E. T. Reidy, 53. Member of an old railroading family, big, brawny Bill Deramus went to work for the Wabash Railroad in St. Louis after the University of Michigan and Harvard Law School, ran a railroad in Burma for the Army during World War II, became the youngest president of any class I U.S. railroad a year after joining Chicago Great Western in 1948. He rehabilitated the shaky line, enabled the road to pay dividends on its common stock in 1953 for the first time in over a decade. In his new post Deramus faces similar financial problems: the Katy has paid no dividends since 1930. To some railroaders, Deramus' appointment hinted a Great Western-Katy merger. Though Katy officials last week denied it, a group of principal stockholders in both the Great Western and Katy reportedly have already obtained options to buy a large block of the Katy's common stock. P:Arthur M. Loew, 59, stepped out as director and chairman of Loew's Inc., largest U.S. movie producer (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) and one of the largest theater chains, but will remain as president of Loew's International, the corporation's foreign subsidiary. By quitting before the annual stockholders' meeting Feb. 28, Loew, son of Founder Marcus Loew, hoped to head off a long-brewing proxy fight (TIME, Nov. 12) with a dissident group of stockholders led by Canadian Contractor Joseph Tomlinson, Loew's largest individual stockholder (250,000 shares). To appease the Tomlinson faction, the present management, headed by President Joseph R. Vogel, agreed on a slate to be presented to the stockholders. The tentative lineup: six directors for management, six for Tomlinson's group (including Tomlinson himself), with the all-important 13th director still to be decided. P:L. E. ("Doc") Briggs, gregarious treasurer of Ford Motor Co., will retire Jan. 31 on his 65th birthday after 42 years with the company, be replaced by publicity-shy J. Edward Lundy, former member of the Princeton economics faculty who joined Ford in 1946 after a World War II stint as financial analyst for the Air Force. Doc Briggs got his nickname by starting as a first-aid man at Ford's Chicago branch assembly plant, rapidly earned a reputation as a financial wizard, traveled widely for Ford in Europe and the Middle East, returned to Dearborn in 1929 to begin his rise to the top.

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