Young Executive

To Roger Steffan, onetime Ohio grocery boy, came last week a vice presidency in National City Bank. Many a young bank employe has, disgruntled, alleged that banks promote by seniority, that Age outranks Ability. Yet Banker Steffan, vice president of largest U. S. Bank, is but 36. Born in an Ohio village, that since has been wiped out to make room for a dam, Mr. Steffan has progressed far from his high school days in which he originated, as a class motto, the aphorism ''Impossible is Un-American." He would perhaps now be more inclined to remark that leading away from aces is uncivilized, inasmuch as he, a member of the Knickerbocker Whist Club, ranks high among bankers who are also bridgers. As an employe of Fuller & Smith Co., Cleveland advertising agency, Mr. Steffan played many a rubber in Harry Dwight Smith's pleasant, photograph-adorned office, wrote also many a TIME advertisement.

Young as he is, Mr. Steffan has hardly created a youthful banking precedent. National City's Board Chairman Charles Mitchell was head of National City Co. at 39 and of National City Bank at 44. National City's President Gordon Sohn Rentschler was 43 when (TIME, April 8) he took office. And Robert Livingston Clarkson, now absent because of illness, became president of Chase National last year at the same age that Mr. Steffan is today.