Changes of the Week

P:Edwin H. Walker, 47, big (6 ft. 4 in.), hearty president and general manager of McKinnon Industries Ltd., General Motors' parts-manufacturing subsidiary at Saint Catharines. Ont., was made president of General Motors of Canada, Ltd., succeeding William A. Wecker, retiring at 64. Canadian-born. Walker went to work at McKinnon in 1929, climbed steadily through the ranks (inspector, foreman, superintendent, assistant to general manager) to the top of McKinnon in 1953. He arrived just in time to oversee construction of McKinnon's automated V-8 auto-engine plant. To replace Walker at McKinnon, G.M. picked another man from the ranks: Toronto-born E. Jack Barbeau. 44, who came to work in 1934 as a clerk.

P:Glen B. Miller, 62, moved up from vice president of Allied Chemical & Dye Corp., third largest U.S. chemical company in sales, to president, succeeding Fred J. Emmerich, who was made board chairman. Miller went to State University of Iowa as a chemistry student just before World War I, quit classes temporarily to work for Hercules Powder Co. in New Jersey, helping to develop a smokeless powder. Long hours of working with acid-burned hands convinced him that the front office was more to his liking. Back at college, he boned up on economics as well as chemistry, graduated in 1919 and took an administrative job with National Aniline at Buffalo. When National was merged into Allied the next year, he stayed on, came to New York in 1928 as assistant comptroller, became comptroller in 1945, vice president (1950), and director (1953).

P:Judson B. Branch, 50, senior vice president of Sears. Roebuck's Allstate Insurance Co., became president, succeeding Calvin Fentress Jr., 49, who moved up to board chairman. Born in Coldwater, Mich., where his family still operates one of Michigan's oldest retail stores, Branch was hired by Allstate for its auto-insurance operation in 1934, has stayed on ever since (except for World War II service as an Army corporal), rising to treasurer, vice president and senior vice president.

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