Many executives like to boast that they spend up to 90 hours a week in their offices, but not George E. Keck, 51, the new president of United Air Lines. "I work hard," says Keck, "but I also believe in relaxing when there's time to relax." There may be less time from now on. Though peppery Pat Patterson will still pilot United from his new post as chairman, broad-shouldered, cigar-chewing George Keck will keep his eye for detail on all opera tions, travel at least 100,000 miles a year. Trained in operations and maintenance, Keck believes in as much personal contact as possible with the line's 32,000 employees. He is considered the heir to Patterson, whose association with the line, says one United official, "will end on the day he is buried." Keck is a golfer and a devoted gardener who also delights in socializing with his family. One of his two daughters, Leslie, 23, is a stewardess for, of all things, competing Delta Air Lines.

FOR a man who for years has worn a new pair of shoes every week, Walton Maxey Jarman, 59, is a surprisingly shrewd and careful shopper. As the chairman of a half-billion dollar manufacturing and retailing giant, Genesco, Inc. of Nashville, Tenn., he does most of his shopping for companies--and has bought up 46 of them since 1938. Last week, after a three-month battle, Jarman added another company to his shopping bag; for $27 million, he bought control of S. H. Kress & Co., a national chain of 342 variety stores. Genesco, which started as a shoe company and already has 1,500 outlets (including Manhattan's Bonwit Teller), nowadays is as flamboyant as its boss is unpretentious. A devout Baptist deacon, Jarman neither smokes, drinks nor cusses, often begins stockholders meetings with a prayer. He is noted for working his employees hard--and why not? How else will they ever acquire the 30 pairs of shoes that Maxey decrees every well-dressed man should have?

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