Changes of the Week

P:Robert B. Riss, 31, resigned as president of Riss & Co., third largest U.S. over-the-road truck line, was replaced by his father, Richard R. Riss, 54, who founded the family-owned corporation in 1930, got out of the presidency in 1950 to turn to other pursuits (real estate, cigar business, oil leases). University of Kansas-educated Bob Riss, who once said candidly, "It's much easier to climb the ladder of success if your father owns the ladder," took over the presidency at 23, decided to withdraw after his self-made, hard-driving father began stepping back in to make more and more of the decisions; he will remain as a director and substantial stockholder. Now facing the elder Riss: a drop in Riss's business from $28 million in 1956 to an estimated $20 million this year, unfavorable publicity resulting largely from Interstate Commerce Commission charges that his company is accident-prone (TIME, Oct. 14).

P:Simon Ramo, 44, executive vice president and secretary of Ramo-Wooldridge Corp., fast-growing Los Angeles electronics firm, gave up his post to become president of a new Ramo-Wooldridge division, the Space Technology Laboratories. The new Space division replaces Ramo-Wooldridge's Guided Missile Research Division, which is technical manager to the Air Force's ballistic-missile program, is designed to call attention to Ramo-Wooldridge's other divisions and functions by broadening its role to include non-Air Force work.

P:Joseph Frederick Cullman III, 45, executive vice president of Philip Morris Inc. (Philip Morris, Marlboro, Parliament), was elected president and chief executive officer to succeed O. Parker McComas, who died of a heart attack last week at 62. "Joe Third" Cullman had been groomed by McComas since he joined Philip Morris as vice president in 1954, when it bought Benson & Hedges. Member of a wealthy tobacco family (Manhattan's Cullman Bros. Inc.) that owns some 80,000 shares (2.5%) of Philip Morris common stock, Joe Cullman graduated from Yale ('35), worked as a $15-a-week cigar-store clerk and a cigar maker in Cuba before joining Webster Tobacco Co., where he became Eastern sales manager in 1938. After four years in the Navy during World War II, he went to Columbia University with the idea of becoming a history professor, instead joined Benson & Hedges as vice president under his father, whose company controlled Benson & Hedges, helped boost sales of Parliaments from 100 million yearly in 1946 to 2.2 billion in 1954. On Cullman's recommendation, Philip Morris invested $3,000,000 in packaging equipment to put Marlboro in the flip-top box, saw Marlboro quickly flip into the top ten brands.

P:Dale E. (for Elbert) Sharp, 54, executive vice president since 1955 of Manhattan's Guaranty Trust Co., was named president and a director to succeed William L. Kleitz, who died Nov. 19. A graduate of Washburn University of Topeka (A.B., 1924) and New York University (M.B.A., 1928), Kansas-born Dale Sharp started in banking with Manhattan's old National Bank of Commerce, later absorbed by Guaranty Trust, taught economics at Bucknell University and finance at New York University before joining Guaranty Trust in 1931, was named vice president in charge of Guaranty's Midwest banking in 1942.

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