Personalities: Jul. 24, 1964

EVER since he joined Liggett & Myers in 1934, North Carolina-born Milton E. Harrington, 55, has lived intimately with the tobacco leaf, serving as leaf buyer, leaf supervisor, manager of the leaf department and vice president for leaf operations before he was named president in April. Last week Harrington turned over the big leaf; he became L. & M.’s new chief executive, moving into a post vacated by the recent death of Chairman Zach Toms. Liggett & Myers managed to halt a five-year downward drift in sales in 1963 by introducing charcoal-filtered Lark cigarettes, but Harrington must deal with a steady decline in earnings, from $31.2 million in 1958 to $24.7 million last year. To improve business, L. & M.’s genial, slow-speaking boss, who does his part by smoking as much as three packs of cigarettes and several pipefuls of tobacco every day, may diversify into other consumer products, as several cigarettemakers have already done, will also concentrate on new marketing, advertising and sales ideas to enable his firm to “get Lots More from L & M.”

FOR years the stand-by of the Caterpillar Tractor Co., the world’s largest tractor maker, was the basic tractor—a kind of Model T. But Caterpillar has steadily diversified in recent years, now sells 140 different varieties, from a clawlike ripper that crushes rocks to a road scraper that gulps 66 tons of dirt in 42 seconds. Last week the man responsible for this transformation showed just how good it has been for Caterpillar’s business: Chairman Harmon S. Eberhard, 64, announced that first-half sales and profits were the highest in the company’s 39-year history, and that Caterpillar will probably top the $1 billion mark for the first time this year. A California-born self-taught engineer who has been with the firm since its beginning, Eberhard has doubled sales and tripled profits since he became president in 1954, recently launched a $41 million research drive. One result: Caterpillar’s next innovation will be a gas turbine tractor engine. Preparing for the future, Caterpillar this year will begin building a new headquarters in Peoria, its home town since its founding in 1925.