Ma's New Pa

When a shift is made in chief executives at American Telephone and Telegraph, company public relations men need do little more than change the names in official biographies. The last five of Ma Bell's chiefs came from relatively small towns, earned engineering degrees, worked for the company first as common laborers and spent decades climbing the executive rungs. Last week a 56-year-old V.M.I, engineering graduate from Greensboro, N.C., named John Dulany DeButts was appointed A.T. & T.'s new chairman. He replaces Haakon Ingolf Romnes, who reaches the mandatory retirement age of 65 in March.

DeButts inherits a corporation that is not quite as vibrant as it was five years ago when Romnes moved into the chief executive suite on Manhattan's Broadway. For the past two years, the company's per-share earnings have varied only 1-c- from the 1969 high of $4 a share, though revenues have increased 18% to $18.5 billion. DeButts, who addresses his secretary with a Southern "Ma'am," says that when he retires in 1980, he "would certainly like to have a better earnings record" to pass on to his successor.

As Romnes, who has been president as well as chairman, said recently, A.T. & T.'s $54.5 billion in assets are too much for one man to manage. The company's solution is to reorganize A.T. & T.'s headquarters organization into three groups, each headed by a senior executive. In effect, this means DeButts will have three top advisers.

Robert D. Lilley, 59, referred to inside the company as the "people" man, was named president, and he will head employee, regulatory and financial operations. William L. Lindholm, 57, who was named vice chairman, will coordinate A.T. & T.'s installation and construction activities, as well as oversee Bell Telephone Laboratories and Western Electric, the company's supply arm. Cornelius W. Owens, 58, remains executive vice president; he will head a corporate planning office.*

Tougher Job. This year A.T. & T. will invest more than $8 billion in expansion and modernization, a historic record for any U.S. firm. The spending is intended largely to improve service for A.T. & T.'s 101 million telephones. Service has become a problem in big cities like New York, Miami and Boston, where A.T. & T. has had to hire large numbers of new employees, many of them lacking adequate technical training and in some cases even high school diplomas.

A.T. & T. also faces strong competition for the first time. Small companies round the country have been permitted to sell telephones, a market once guaranteed to A.T. & T. by regulations of the states and the Federal Communications Commission. In supplying bulk-rate telephone service to corporations, one of A.T. & T.'s most lucrative businesses, the company now has competitors where it had none before. At least one company is already underselling A.T. & T.'s WATS service (Wide Area Telephone Service), which allows a big user to make unlimited calls in a specific area for a flat fee. Many other firms have applied to the FCC for operating licenses. These competitors will make DeButts' job tougher. But if he succeeds in improving A.T. & T.'s profits, he will be worth the $350,000 annual salary the company has been paying to its chairman.

*At A.T. & T.'s annual meeting in April, the company is scheduled to nominate the first woman to its 19-member board of directors: Catherine B. Cleary, 55, president of Milwaukee's First Wisconsin Trust Co.

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