PERSONNEL: Changes of the Week, Sep. 27, 1954

¶Robert D. Howse, 46, who joined Waterman Pen Co., Inc. in May 1952 as executive vice president, moved up to the presidency last week. Yaleman Howse (’30) began his business career at Agfa-Ansco, later joined the Chicago management-engineering firm of Melvin J. Evans Co. In 1940 he became president of Argus, Inc., built up the company’s sales from $1,000,000 to $10 million in ten years. In two years at Waterman, he has stepped up product research, modernized the manufacturing plant and revamped the sales organization. He brought out a sapphire-point pen and last week introduced the Waterman C/F, a nib-point pen that is filled with a cartridge, like a ball point; Howse says it “will put growth back into the fountain-pen business.” Howse succeeds Frank D. Waterman, 50, a grandnephew of the founder, who becomes board chairman.

¶Alfred E. Perlman, 51, was elected to the board of the New York Central Rail road (subject to Interstate Commerce Commission approval), a job he was promised when he became Robert R. Young’s hand-picked president after Young’s historic proxy-winning fight for control of the road.

¶Ralph E. Moody, 64, became board chairman of Union Electric Co. of Missouri, a post which has been vacant since 1946. As the last remaining subsidiary of the North American Co., utility holding firm, Union Electric is scheduled to be completely on its own when the parent firm goes out of business next year. Since Moody became vice president in charge of operations in 1941, Union Electric’s assets have doubled to $500 million. In the same time, power sales have more than doubled to 6.7 billion kw-h a year. Ex-Judge James Wesley McAfee remains president of Union Electric.