Changes of the Week

P: Ernest Tener Weir, 81, last steelman still running a major steel company he founded, stepped down as chairman and chief executive of National Steel Corp. because of ill health. At 15 Weir started working for a Pittsburgh wire company for $3 a week, at 30 acquired a broken-down West Virginia tin-plate mill and built it into the nation's sixth largest steel company, with 1956 assets of $675 million and $664 million of sales. In his career Weir fought the Government, unions and fellow steelmakers; his is the only sizable steel company not organized by the United Steelworkers. To succeed himself as chief executive he nominated Thomas E. Millsop, 58, his protege, a former riveter who talked Weir into giving him a selling job, three years ago became National Steel's president. For the job of chairman, soon to be named, Washington rumor suggested the name of about-to-resign Treasury Secretary George M. Humphrey (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), once chairman of National's executive committee. P: Kenneth C. Brownell, 54, moved up from president to board chairman and chief executive officer of American Smelting & Refining Co., succeeding Roger W. Straus, 65, Eisenhower Republican and founder of the National Conference of Christians and Jews. A product of Yale and Harvard Business School, Brownell has worked for American Smelting since 1927. Into his job as president moved R. Worth Vaughan, 53. P: Robert S. Oelman, 47, executive vice president of the National Cash Register Co. since 1950, was named president, succeeding Stanley C. Allyn, 65, who moved up to board chairman but remains chief executive officer. Dayton-born Oelman finished at Dartmouth summa cum laude in 1931, spent 18 months in Europe as a graduate student, came home to a $12.50-a-week N.C.R. file-clerk job, soon shifted to advertising and promotion, became Allyn's assistant in 1942, and later his globe-trotting aide in pursuit of foreign trade. Together Allyn and Oelman spend six months a year abroad boosting foreign sales (in 100 countries), which now account for 40% of the company's business. Last week Allyn reported that N.C.R. sales, which have increased from $40 million to $340 million under his regime, hit a record of $87 million in the first quarter.

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