Report on Some Exiled Stars

A MAN may spend half his life aspiring to the executive suite, wind up commanding a billion-dollar corporation and dazzle Wall Street with his managerial wizardry. But if for some reason he should lose his job, he often finds that the stairway leading down from the room at the top can be nearly as steep as the one going up.

In the past few years, familiar names have been disappearing from the top lines of corporate reports with notable regularity. Many of the sidelined executives were cut loose after their firms suffered losses in the recent recession. They may not have been directly responsible for the trouble, but boards of directors often oust them to convince stockholders that something is being done to improve the company's prospects. Other departees simply tired of top-drawer pressure. In any case, star-quality executives who are let go rarely land new jobs commensurate in perquisites or prestige with their old ones. Often they must take a dramatic cut in pay. Some prospective employers fear that the former ruler of a corporate kingdom will resent suddenly having to take orders. Says Sheldon Hirsch, a Los Angeles executive recruiter: "The higher the level, the more difficult it is for them to find something new."

A report on some of the nation's more prominent exiled corporate chieftains and how they are doing:

P: Najeeb Halaby, 57, left Pan American World Airways last year after the company had suffered more than $100 million in losses during his 27-month leadership. "I remember calling my 17-year-old son at school and telling him that I had quit," says Halaby. "His first reaction was, 'Welcome back to civilization.' " Halaby reacquainted himself with civilization by taking three weeks off to play golf and tennis. Then he formed a $1,000,000 venture-capital company based in Hong Kong that will make investments in engineering, construction, electronics and other projects in Southeast Asia. He has other, undisclosed plans for the future. Says Halaby: "I may take a full year to make sure that what I'm going to do is both balanced and dynamic."

-- Robert Hansberger, 52, resigned from Boise Cascade last year after the company took a $200 million write-off, largely for unsuccessful recreational land ventures. Since then, Hansberger says, he has been too busy to look for another job. He puts in long hours as president of Futura Industries Corp., a $25 million-a-year metals and sporting-goods company that he had helped run for outside income while still at Boise Cascade. Hansberger's salary at his old job was $190,000; he has not even decided yet what to pay himself at Futura. "I don't miss any of the exhilaration of running a billion-dollar company," he says. "I frankly expected my life to change more than it has."

-George Keck, 60, left United Air Lines in December 1970, after the company had suffered losses of $40.7 million. He spent four months in Hawaii with his wife and grandchildren, then turned down Nixon Administration offers to become chief operating officer of the U.S. Postal Service or to take a similar post at Amtrak. Last year Keck signed on as an investment banker in Chicago with the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. He insists that his experience at United has not soured him on life at the top. "Perhaps I would get involved as a chief executive again. There is nothing like the challenge of running a company."

-- Milton Mohr, 57, quit as president of Bunker Ramo in 1970 because he could not get along with the board of directors. "I was being second-guessed, and the company started operating by rumor," Mohr recalls. He does not have that problem today. As president of Scantlin Electronics, a $9,000,000 computer software firm in Marina del Rey, Calif., he has been given a free hand to run the company as he sees fit. Scantlin's directors were openly fearful that Mohr would dislike operating a small company at a comedown salary ($50,000 a year, v. $ 135,000 at Bunker Ramo). But the new president, who is given much of the credit for turning the company around financially, has no plans to leave.

Since the recession, more and more companies simply ask a man to resign instead of administering a face-saving boot upstairs. Employers, for their part, seem more willing than ever to accept mobility among executives. "Expendability is now a way of life," says Thomas Moore, 54, who was bounced from the presidency of ABC-TV in 1968, and is now president of a General Electric entertainment subsidiary. Carter Burgess, 56, for example, left the presidencies of Trans World Airways, AMF and the National Corporation for Housing Partnerships before taking his present one with a subsidiary of American Airlines. Says Burgess: "I think the world needs a few guys who don't get locked in. I've had my share of disappointments, but you can always do something if you're willing to work."

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