Business: Rare Asset

As head of the Italian subsidiary of Worthington Pump International Inc., the world's largest pump company, Paolo A. Gamboni acquired an asset that continues to elude most Italian business men: he won credibility with labor. While other firms were crippled by strikes or outsize contract settlements, Worthington Italiana multiplied its sales fivefold in the past ten years. In 1970 Gamboni was also put in charge of Worthington companies in five other European countries, and last month he was elected president of Worthington Pump International itself—a subsidiary of Studebaker-Worthington Inc. —which operates in 14 countries and expects to have 1974 sales of...