Personnel

P: "Bunk!" exploded Samuel Instill few weeks ago when asked if he would resign the presidency of Affiliated Broadcasting Co., his first step over the sill of big business since his utilities empire crashed in 1932. Shortly after the first of the year, Insull friends put up $200,000 for A. B. C., gave the old utilitarian the presidency, let him pick three members of the five-man board. Profits of the chain (21 stations in the Midwest) stayed out of sight but the bottom of the original pot did not. Few weeks ago after Vice President Quisenberry shot away President Insull's control of the board, it began to look as if the old man might become a mere figurehead. Last week A. B. C. announced that the 76-year-old tycoon had resigned the presidency, remaining only as a director. In his place, not as president but as general manager, the company put Clarence Leich, part owner of two A. B. C. stations in Evansville, Ind. To a newshawk who asked reasons for his resignation, Mr. Insull snapped testily: "Sir! The company's statement stands. It speaks for itself."

P: In 1926 Charles Walton ("Chuck") Deeds, son of Chairman Edward Andrew Deeds of National Cash Register, invested $40 in Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Co. After United Aircraft & Transport took over the company in 1929 Mr. Deeds went to town on that investment to the tune of $1,600,000 (TIME, Jan. 29, 1934). Last week young Mr. Deeds resigned as President of United Aircraft Export Corp. to give all his time to United's Pratt & Whitney Division. Elected to succeed him was a hefty six-footer named Thomas Foster Hamilton.

Born in Seattle, Wash. in 1894, Tom Hamilton learned to fly at about the age most humans learn to swim. At 14 he had already built and flown gliders of his own, thereby earning his credentials as one of the earliest of "The Early Birds," a U. S. society composed of people who flew before Dec. 17, 1916.* But his most precocious exploit was the organization, at 15, of a company to make airplane propellers. Businessman and barnstormer at 21, Hamilton went to Vancouver, B. C. in 1915 to teach the Royal Air Force. While there he opened another propeller factory, later moved to Milwaukee to make propellers for U. S. planes.

In 1929 Mr. Hamilton sold his propeller business and a second company, manufacturing all-metal planes, to old United Aircraft & Transport Co. Two years later, Early Bird Hamilton was driving pleasantly around Paris in a Rolls-Royce as United's European representative. In the export business ever since, Mr. Hamilton spends his U. S. vacations in California, gets away from aviation fey coaching his 16-year-old son in motorboat racing.

* The year was selected to limit membership to Wartime aviators, the day to commemorate the 13th anniversary of the first flight by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, N. C.

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