Mechanic Makes Good

In Detroit one day in 1930, a partnership was formed between an ex-blacksmith and a mechanic. The blacksmith was Fred Fisher of the famed Fisher brothers; the mechanic was Harry Franklin Vickers, 31, who had invented a hydraulic steering device for autos. Fisher wanted to make the gadget, but he was 20 years ahead of his time; no automaker would buy it.

Instead, Vickers, Inc. sold the mechanism for trucks, buses and construction machinery. Inventor Harry Vickers cashed in on a new hydraulic safety valve for machine tools, built up a fat business making hydraulic controls for Navy guns. In 1937, when the Sperry Corp. wanted to get into the hydraulics field, it had little choice but to buy out the Vickers company since it held most of the important patents.

Fisher died in 1941; Vickers continued at Sperry as president of Vickers, Inc., and set about building one of the biggest hydraulic equipment outfits in the business. Vickers was soon bossing two other Sperry subsidiaries, was made an executive vice president of operations ten years later (1951 pay: $86,860). Last week, at 53, Harry Vickers was elected president of Sperry. He succeeds Thomas A. Morgan, retiring after 40 years.

Other executive changes last week:

P: Into the presidency of Parker Pen Co. stepped Bruce Mouat Jeffris, 56, a veteran DEGf 33 years with the company and boyhood friend of Kenneth Parker, who is moving over to chairman. A graduate of Brown University and the Navy, Jeffris has been vice president and treasurer for Parker since 1947, is expected to hold down the presidency until Kenneth Parker's son Daniel, 27, is ready to take over. Directors last week moved ex-Marine Dan Parker, the third generation in the company, up from secretary to executive vice president.

P: At Eastman Kodak Co., President Thomas J. Hargrave moved up to chairman of the board, the youngest chairman (60) in Eastman history, when Perley S. Wilcox, 77, retired. Into the presidency went Albert K. Chapman, 62, a Phi Beta Kappa from Ohio State University who joined the company after a stint with the Army in 1919. Chapman organized the company's development department, moved up through manufacturing to vice president and, in 1943, to general manager and a director of the company. P: Charles Fabian Herman Johnson Jr., 45, was elected president of Botany Mills, Inc., to succeed his father, who died last month. While still at college (Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance & Commerce), Johnson went to work as a part-time apprentice for the company, later directed the expansion of the consumer products division (neckties, hose, knitting yarns, etc.), which now accounts for more than 50% of Botany's sales.

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