Changes of the Week

CJ Geraldine Veronica ("Jerry") Stutz, 33, vice president since 1955 of I. Miller retail stores, 17-store subsidiary of General Shoe Corp., one of the world's largest shoe companies, was named president of Henri Bendel Inc., swank Manhattan specialty store with annual sales volume of about $5,000,000. She succeeds Ben Willingham, General Shoe vice president on temporary loan to Bendel, who will remain as director. Tall (5 ft. 6 in.), svelte (no Ibs.) and unmarried, Jerry Stutz was educated in Chicago's St. Scholastica convent school, won a dramatics scholarship to Mundelein College, where she switched to journalism, spent her spare time modeling for Chicago's Marshall Field & Co. After graduation she became assistant to the public-relations director of Chicago's fashion industry, in 1947 joined Glamour magazine, where she developed the accessories department and served as sportswear editor. In 1954 she moved to General Shoe's newly acquired I. Miller as fashion coordinator of the wholesale branch, next year was hired as general manager and vice president of Miller's retail operations by General Shoe Chairman W. Maxey Jarman, who was convinced that fashion rather than comfort sold women's shoes. Jerry Stutz showed such a fine eye for fashion that shoe sales rose 20%; she became one of industry's highest-paid women, at an estimated $40,000 a year.

P: Adrain Robert Fisher, 62, president of Johns-Manville Corp., largest U.S. manufacturer of asbestos and fireproofing materials (1956 sales: a record $310,390,381), was named chairman and chief executive officer to succeed Leslie M. Cassidy, who retired. After graduating from Rutgers ('16) and working for two New Jersey manufacturers, he joined Johns-Manville in 1923 as superintendent of the asphalt-roofing department in its Waukegan, Ill. plant, soon moved to the managerial side as production executive, in 1951 became president (a post he will retain). Since the end of World War 11 the company has invested more than $200 million in expansion, next year will open new plants in Oregon, California, Texas and Mississippi, partly on the strength of a 2% rise in sales so far this year.

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