Changes of the Week

As a senior partner in the management consultant firm of Booz. Allen & Hamilton, John Lawrence Burns, 48. got a reputation for being able to get quickly to the heart of a corporate problem--and solve it. One of his chief clients was Radio Corp. of America, which Burns has advised for the last ten years. Last week RCA used Burns to solve a major problem: where to find a younger president with broad experience and knowledge of the corporation. The new president: Burns. He will succeed President Frank Folsom, 62, who will become chairman of the executive committee.

Consultant Burns started out in metallurgical work after leaving Northeastern University, went on for master's and doctor's degrees in metallurgy at Harvard (where he also taught), joined Manhattan's Booz. Allen in 1941. He has helped work out policy and organization programs for more than 30 of the 100 largest U.S. corporations, supervised basic reorganization programs for the U.S. Navy and the Veterans Administration.

To lure Burns away from Booz, Allen, RCA gave him a ten-year contract providing for a $150,000 salary, with in creases to $200,000 over the next five years (plus an option on RCA stock). But it was not money that drew Burns to RCA. Says he: "I am attracted by the challenge." At RCA, new President Burns will find no shortage of challenges.

As chief operating officer under Board Chairman David Sarnoff, who will remain chief executive officer, Burns will manage a vastly diversified electronics empire that has tripled its earnings since World War II, yet last year suffered a $7,500,000 drop in profits (to some $40 million), largely because of its expensive research and development in color TV. "RCA is paying a necessary price to develop color TV," says Burns. "Like all developments, there is an incubation period that costs money, then a rapid rate of growth when the product is right for the market and pays off." Burns will also have to deal with charges of monopoly against RCA: Philco last week sued RCA in an attempt to break a patent pool through which RCA collects royalties on some 12,000 patents, and both Zenith and the Government are suing to break the pool. Another of Burns's major jobs will be to develop young executive material. If Burns succeeds in meeting the challenges at RCA, he will eventually take over as chief executive.

Other personnel changes:

P:Raymond C. (for Christy) Firestone, 48, was elected president of the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., the world's second largest rubber firm (just behind Goodyear), succeeding Lee R. Jackson. 65, who moves into a newly created position as vice chairman of the board. Ray Firestone, fourth son of Company Founder Harvey S. Firestone (brother Harvey Jr. is Firestone's board chairman and chief executive officer), started with Firestone as a gas-station attendant in California after graduating from Princeton ('33).

P:Maxwell A. ("Mac") Kriendler, 48, resigned as president of Manhattan's famed Jack & Charlie's "21" restaurant to become vice president and treasurer of expanding "21" Brands Inc., liquor distributors incorporated in 1933 by Kriendler's late brother Jack and his cousin Charlie Berns, the founders of "21" restaurant. Born on the Lower East Side, husky (6 ft. 4 in., 215 Ibs.) Mac Kriendler has been part owner of "21" for 26 years, its boss and host for the last ten. (His successor: brother Robert.) His major hobby is "being convivial" (he boasts of knowing some 50,000 people by name). Other hobbies: cooking (his specialty: Guinea Hen Smitaine). collecting modern American painters ("They need the help"), serving in the Air Force Reserve (he is a lieutenant colonel).

P:Charles. W. Dow, 50, president for 11 months of Equitable Life Assurance Society, the third largest U.S. insurance company, resigned over "differences of opinion with the board on matters of organization structure." Dow joined Equitable in 1935 as a security analyst, seemed slated to take over eventually as chief executive officer, a post now held by Board Chairman Ray D. Murphy, 69.

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