Changes of the Week

General Matthew B. Ridgway, 60, retiring Army Chief of Staff, was elected chairman of the board of trustees of Pittsburgh's Mellon Institute of Industrial Research, replacing Dr. Edward Weidlein, 67, who continues as president. Ridgeway, having thus turned down a bid to head Henry Kaiser's Argentine operations (TIME, May 2), will coordinate and direct policy of the nonprofit research organization, founded in 1913 by Banker-Industrialists Andrew and Richard B. Mellon, to work with industry in seeking "through . . . research in science . . . results that are of advantage to society."

William P. Drake, 42, became president of Philadelphia's Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Co., which produces more than 400 different chemicals, had first-half sales this year at an annual rate of more than $60 million and will soon start on a five-year expansion program. A plain-talking six-footer, Drake played football at Bowdoin College, leaving in 1934 to take a summer trainee job with the company. Drake was carefully groomed for the presidency by the man he succeeds, George B. Beitzel, 61, who will continue as a director, devote most of his time to the company's foreign operations as chairman of the wholly owned subsidiary, Pennsalt International Corp.

Chester H. Lauck, 53, the "Lum" of the radio and movie team of Lum 'n' Abner, was named an executive assistant in Houston's Continental Oil Co. Lauck, longtime cattle raiser (on his 143,000-acre Nevada ranch) and veteran of a score of radio years, was a businessman (manager of the Citizen's Finance Corp. of Mena, Ark.) before he turned to radio. Continental President L. F. McCollum said that while Lauck will have administrative duties with the company, he will also "be available as an after-dinner speaker and for other community gatherings."

Dr. Lawrence R. Hafstad, 51, first chief of the Atomic Energy Commission's reactor development division, was named head of General Motors research division, replacing Vice President Charles L. McCuen, 63, who will retire this year. With G.M. anxious to make use of atomic power, automen believe that Hafstad has been hired to devise an atomic engine.

Herman D. Ruhm Jr., 53, resigned after ten years as president of Bates Manufacturing Co., of Lewiston, Me., to become president of Burlington Industries Inc. Ruhm, who was on the losing side in the recent proxy fight for control of Bates that was won by Consolidated Textiles' Lester Martin, graduated from Yale ('23), got his first job in a Nevada mine, leaving after a year to work for Standard Oil (N.J.). He entered textiles in 1928 with Associated Dry Goods, moved to Bates in 1937, will serve as deputy to Burlington's board chairman, Spencer Love.

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