Uncle Sam's Landlord

Denmark's three main exports are butter, bacon and engineers. Last week General Services Administrator Edmund F. Mansure picked one of tiny Denmark's exports to run the world's largest real-estate office: the U.S. Government's Public Building Service.

The new boss of P.B.S. is Consulting Engineer Peter Andres Strobel, 53, who had pointed his theodolite in the direction of the U.S. from the time he entered Copenhagen's Technical University. At 24, with a diploma and a Danish wife and daughter, Strobel immigrated to New York. At the 1939 New York World's Fair, Strobel, the fair's chief structural engineer, tested the amusement section's thrill-ride contraptions by taking the first spin on each. During World War II, he designed prefabricated Army barracks and portable airplane hangars. His Manhattan firm of Strobel & Salzman has a variety of edifices to its credit, including shopping centers, railroad stations, factories, hospitals, churches, and the cosmotron building at the Brookhaven National Laboratory.

As Public Buildings Commissioner, Engineer Strobel will operate nearly 6,000 Government buildings, control 118 million sq. ft. of floor space, boss the National Industrial Reserve (45 factories with 9,000 pieces of machinery) and supervise new construction (last year's total: 132 buildings).

When Strobel's name was proposed by the Republican National Committee, Ed Mansure looked up his record and, duly impressed by his professional qualifications, offered Strobel the job. "My wife thinks I'm crazy," said Strobel, who will incur a pay cut from his present $100,000 or more to $14,800, but he did not hesitate to accept. Said he: "Perhaps I can partly pay back this country for what it has done for me."

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