Changes of the Week

P: George Homer Gribbin, 51, senior vice president since 1956 of Young & Rubicam, third largest U.S. ad agency (first: J. Walter Thompson, second: McCann-Erickson) with estimated 1957 billings of $230 million, was named president, succeeding Sigurd S. Larmon, 67, who remains as chairman and chief executive officer. A small-town boy, Gribbin was born in Nashville, Mich. (pop. 1,374), graduated from Stanford University ('29), put in stints as a copywriter with Detroit's J. L. Hudson department store, the May Co., Bamberger's and R. H. Macy before joining Y. & R. in 1935. He soon made his name along ad alley with his whimsical ads for Arrow shirts, Travelers Insurance and Borden's "Elsie the Cow" campaign. In 1943 he was made a copy supervisor and, after two years' service in the U.S. Army, became vice president in charge of radio-TV commercials in 1951, then director of both print and radio-TV copy in 1954. Adman Gribbin, who lives in Greenwich, Conn, and has a farm in Massachusetts, is tall (6 ft. 1 in.), quick-witted and relaxed ("My biggest problem is keeping the sheep fenced in on my farm"); he is slated to be top man when Sig Larmon, now two years over Y. & R.'s usual retirement age, steps out.

P: Frederick Harold Cook, 43, was elected president and chief executive officer of Congoleum-Nairn, second biggest U.S. manufacturer (first: Armstrong Cork) of smooth-surface floor coverings, succeeding F. J. Andre, 59, who moved up to chairman. A salesman in the floor-covering industry since his graduation from Indiana University ('36), Cook joined Congoleum-Nairn in 1955 as a vice president in charge of sales just when sales and profits were turning down (deficit for the first nine months of this year: $1,964,720 v. $107,222 for the same period in 1957). Said Cook: "My job is to build up sales and correct the profit picture."

P: Mary Gindhart Roebling, 52, was elected as a public governor of the American Stock Exchange, the first woman to reach a major exchange's top policymaking board. Widow of Siegfried Roebling (grandson of the Brooklyn Bridge builder), Mary Roebling took over her husband's job as director of the Trenton Trust Co. in 1936, became president a year later, is now both president and chairman. In her reign, the bank's assets have swelled from $17 million to more than $90 million.

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