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V 31 p* With the racy Avanti, Studebaker s Sherwood Egbert hungers for big sales. money to sharpen its competitive effort in the automotive field, and Egbert believes in acquiring profitable companies to help provide ity Six addi- tions have been made since he took office. The auto maker now has a broader base, with 13 man- ufacturing divisions and a third of its income from sources other than automobiles. The chief impact of the dashing young presi- dent, however, may well be among Studebaker personnel and within the walls of the company plants at South Bend, Indiana. At the executive level he has not made any new-broom sweep-outs. On the contrary, he is capitalizing on the bank of Studebaker experience. He has become fast friends with the president he supplanted, Harold Churchill, and they work together like army mules. All the new man has asked of the old staff is that they now do a month?╟╓s work in a maximum of three hours. A Promise to Make Money Most of the Studebaker plant buildings at South Bend are old but of a certain simple state- liness. The word ?╟úwagons?╟Ñ can still be faintly discerned on a wall of one of them. Egbert is as fussy as a Dutch housewife and as color-conscious as an artist, and he is intent on transforming these properties into striking, tidy structures. The lob- bies are already glowing with modernity, and re- vamping is going on in several plant buildings. Employees voluntarily joined a plant-wide paint- up campaign, and Egbert has even got the fore- men into snappy white-and-green coats, partly so these key men can be spotted easily. This is not being accomplished by directives from the executive offices. Egbert is present in person. He is loping the aisles of the production buildings before the first shift arrives in the morn- ing, greeting workmen, who are fast becoming friends, discussing the work to be done and how to do it better and faster. ?╟úStudebaker has had presidents Who were never seen in the plant,?╟Ñ he says. ?╟úThat is shameful.?╟Ñ Not long ago an elderly shopman commented pointedly on the change. ?╟úMr. Egbert,?╟Ñ he said, ?╟úin my forty-one years here you are the first president who has ever spoken to me.?╟Ñ Egbert, who has no ulcers but recently went to the hospital to have plastic bile ducts installed, puts in a 12-hour day. I once was 10 minutes early for an appointment with him, and his comment was typical. ?╟úYou?╟╓re late,?╟Ñ he said. When he does go home in the evening, frac- turing speed limits in an Avanti, Egbert still doesn?╟╓t get away from Studebaker. He and his wife, a Minnesota blonde who looks like Kim Novak, live in a house on the company proving grounds. At this strategic spot Egbert can enter- tain, hold a conference, run out and test a car at more than 100 miles per hour or do anything except relax. If Egbert can secure a respectable piece of the market for Studebaker he will go down in busi- ness history as something of a hero. He has made one promise?╟÷that the company will make money for the full year 1962. Another prediction might be hazarded?╟÷that the company will not return to making Conestoga wagons. THE END