INDUSTRY: The Quiet Highwayman

The U.S. got a topnotch builder last week to straw-boss its 41,000-mile interstate-highway program. In Washington, Federal Highway Administrator Bertram Tallamy chose Ellis Leroy Armstrong, 44, a nondrinking, nonsmoking, noncussing Mormon who heads Utah's Road Commission, to be his "executive vice president" and the man responsible to oversee actual construction. As commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, Armstrong not only must pour the concrete, but also smooth the waters as conciliator between the states and the Government on history's biggest public works project.

Low Pressure. Armstrong learned his engineering at Utah State ('36), sharpened it as a U.S....

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