Fulltime Storekeeper

Whenever a U.S. industrialist wants an example of ungainly management structure, he need look no farther than his own trade association, the National Association of Manufacturers. The N.A.M. represents 17.000 companies--80% of which employ fewer than 500 workers. Its policies are formulated by 21 different committees manned by no fewer than 3,000 members, and final policy decisions must win a two-thirds vote of a 170-man board of directors. To make things more difficult, the association for most of its history elected a new president each year from among its members, and obliged him to run the N.A.M. (at no salary) along with his own company. Just as he got the hang of his N.A.M. job, his year was up.

After living this way for most of its 67 years, the N.A.M. finally turned to a management consultant firm for advice. One of the consultants' major recommendations: install a fulltime hired president to bring order and continuity to the administration. The N.A.M., of course, named a committee to find the man, and in due course the committee settled on Werner P. Gullander, 54, an affable and articulate specialist in corporate finance.

Gullander (University of Minnesota, '30) started his business career as an accounting trainee at General Electric, in 22 years worked up to secretary-treasurer of one of G.E.'s big divisions. Then he put in eight years as financial vice president of Tacoma's Weyerhaeuser Co., and two years as executive vice president of troubled General Dynamics Corp. at a salary of $105,750. At the N.A.M., he will get only $100,000.

Last week, at the N.A.M.'s 67th annual meeting in Manhattan, "Gully" Gullander made his first public appearance since he took on the presidency of the association a month ago. Like previous N.A.M. presidents, he called for: 1) tax reforms, 2) less federal spending, 3) curbs on labor's "monopoly power." But he also indicated that "his specialty would not be making public statements. "I'm just one of a bunch of guys running the N.A.M.," said he. "My job, basically, will be to mind the store."

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