During his tenure as managing director of the Western American Bank in London, Joseph E. Baird has been, in the words of one high officer of an international corporation, "an innovator with a lot of nerve," who made some investments and loans "that a conservative banker would not have got into." He also made loans to Occidental Petroleum of Los Angeles, and he caught the sharp eye of Occidental's chairman, Armand Hammer. Still active at 75, Hammer has announced that 39-year-old Baird will become the president, chief operating officer and No. 2 man in the company.
Occidental has since last year...
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