PERSONNEL: Camels’ Driver

John Clarke Whitaker, 61, likes to boast that he joined R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. at the same time as another recruit: “Old Joe,” the circus camel for whom Founder Reynolds named his cigarettes. Just out of the University of North Carolina, Whitaker started as a cigarette-machine inspector in 1913, the year Camels were put on the market. He worked up through manufacturing and personnel departments to a vice-presidency in 1937. Even when he became president in 1948, he never forgot that he started out in overalls, and he kept his door wide open so that any one of his 12,000 employees could walk in and spill their troubles. He also insisted on answering his telephone calls himself, hired a company chaplain to help handle employees’ problems (TIME, June 4, 1951).

Last week, with Camels in the top spot (bettering last year’s 102 billion cigarettes), Whitaker also moved into the top spot as Reynolds’ chairman and chief executive officer, succeeding the late James A. Gray. Into Whitaker’s old job as president stepped Edward Austin Darr, 62, who as vice president in charge of sales had been Whitaker’s chief lieutenant in the job of keeping Camels loping well in front of American Tobacco’s Lucky Strikes.