After the Baked Alaska

In Manhattan’s Waldorf-Astoria, West-tinghouse Electric Corp. treated the press to cocktails, Florida pineapple, breast of chicken on Virginia ham, baked Alaska. As a savory, it brought in 1) its postwar appliance models and 2) a brand new president. Most impressive among the new products was a “laundromat” which automatically fills itself, washes clothes, rinses and drys them, empties, then cleans itself.

The new president, ruddy and reserved Gwilym Alexander Price, 50, works almost as smoothly. A poor boy in Canonsburg, Pa., he clerked in a Pittsburgh law office to earn his way through the University of Pittsburgh law school. Then he went to work in 1923 as a trust officer for the Peoples-Pittsburgh Trust Co. Steadily, quietly, he rose to the presidency in 1940.

On the way he caught the eye of Westinghouse’s aging board chairman, A. W. Robertson. Ex-Lawyer Robertson liked the hardworking, thoroughgoing look of young Bill Price. So in 1943, Robertson brought in Price as a W-E vice president, started grooming him to take over the presidency from oldster George Bucher, who last week became vice chairman of the board.

In view of Westinghouse’s three-weeks-old strike of 83% of its 90,000 employes, Price was bearish on production. Said he: the shiny new washers, irons, home freezers, etc. will not be on the market in volume till late summer or early fall.