IN high school at Glen Clove, L.I., Samuel Riley Pierce Jr. wanted to be a songwriter: "It's one of those things you grow out of when you grow into others." He soon put away his unpublished scores, grew into law and government. Last week Lawyer Pierce, at 41, became the first Negro elected to the board of a major U.S. manufacturing company--U.S. Industries Inc., producer of automation equipment, with 1963 sales of $96 million. He is a partner in the Manhattan law firm that handles U.S. Industries' labor matters. A star halfback and Phi Beta Kappa student at Cornell, he later served as antitrust counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, became a campaigning Republican, and in 1959 was appointed a judge in New York City. As trim as a college athlete, Pierce still finds time to teach a law course at New York University; last January he argued a civil rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court. A day after Pierce's election, the W. T. Grant chain also named a Negro as a director: Asa Spaulding, 61, president of the Negro-owned North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Co. (TIME, Feb. 7).

FORD MOTOR Co.'s problem is to make the Mercury rise in Detroit's hotly competitive climate. Last week Henry Ford II picked a man for the job, promoting Paul Francis Lorenz, 47, from assistant general manager of the Lincoln-Mercury Division to vice president and chief of the whole division. He replaces Ben Mills, 49, one of the original Whiz Kids, who was moved up to vice president in charge of Ford Motor purchasing. A Phi Bete (Chicago, '41), Lorenz is a finance-trained protege of former Ford President Robert McNamara, was his personal assistant for three years, even wears his hair slicked back like McNamara's. "I had the rare opportunity to see at first hand an unequaled standard of management excellence," says Lorenz, himself an articulate and analytical executive. Now that his division's Comet and luxury Lincoln are running smoothly, he will concentrate on tuning up the medium-priced Mercury. Hoping to emulate the success of competing Pontiac, he wants to give Mercury a distinctive "personality," offer a wider range of models.

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