Revolt Against Age

Once a corporation has selected a new chief in the privacy of its boardrooms, any earlier disagreements are usually muffled in a routinely unanimous public announcement. But when the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. last week announced a successor to Chairman-President Ralph W. Burger, who resigned as president because of age, the reaction in public of A. & P.'s board was neither unanimous nor routine. Burger proposed that Vice President and Treasurer John D. Ehrgott succeed him. All 14 inside directors, officers of A. & P. or its operating divisions, voted yes. Surprisingly, six outside directors* elected to the board five years ago vigorously took exception with a clear and unmistakable no.

The minority complained that, at 67, Ehrgott, a 45-year veteran with A. & P., was hardly younger than Burger at 73. What A. & P. needed, they insisted, was younger blood. They had a point. Though A. & P. dominates its field (and is the largest merchandising firm in the U.S.), its officers' average age is over 60, and some of the wrinkles show. Last fiscal year A. & P. slipped $6,000,000 in sales and $1,500,000 in earnings, while some competing chains, notably second-place Safeway, marked up good gains. The directors' revolt against age failed to impress outgoing President Ralph Burger, who has been with A. & P. for 51 years. After all, he learned his trade and landed his job from Brothers John and George Hartford, who made A. & P. the empire it is. John lived to be 79--and died on the job; George worked to within two years of his death at 92.

* Westinghouse Electric Corp. Chairman Gwilym A. Price, Coverdale & Colpitts Partner John E. Slater, New York Life Insurance Co. Executive Vice President R. Manning Brown Jr., former RCA President John L. Burns, former Harvard Business School Dean Donald K. David and former Standard Oil (New Jersey) Vice President Jay E. Crane.

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