Stanley Burnet Resor, 75, white-haired dean of 20th century advertising, moved from president to board chairman of J. Walter Thompson Co., the world's biggest ad agency (current billings: some $200 million). He will continue as chief executive officer. Into the presidency went Norman H. Strouse, 48, who left a Seattle Post-Intelligencer advertising job to join J.W.T. in 1929. As one of the firm's 95 vice presidents, Strouse in recent years has been in charge of the agency's Detroit office.
B. (for Benjamin) Brewster Jennings, 57, was elected Socony Mobil Oil Co. chairman, succeeding George V. Holton, 65, who retired. The grandson of John D. Rockefeller partners, Jennings started as a clerk for the old Standard Oil Co. of New York in 1920, worked up to Socony's presidency in 24 years. While remaining as the company's chief executive officer, he was succeeded as president by Albert L. Nickerson, 44, who joined the company as a service-station attendant after graduating from Harvard in 1933, has directed its far-flung foreign trade as a vice president since 1951.
Henry Garfinkle, 49, took over as president of 91-year-old American News Co. Percy D. O'Connell retired as president but will remain board chairman and consultant. Critical of sagging sales and profits (last year's net was down $2,251,155 from 1952), Garfinkle and associates spent millions to gain stock control of the company, biggest U.S. magazine distributor. Victor D. Ziminsky will stay on as president of the firm's wholly owned subsidiary, Union News Co., which runs newsstand and restaurant concessions as well as Manhattan's Rockefeller Plaza skating rink. As a boy, Garfinkle helped support his widowed mother by selling papers to Staten Island ferry passengers, built up a big independent newsstand network along the East Coast. He will try to fatten sales by reorganizing magazine distribution and reaching for new outlets along traffic-heavy superhighways.
Samuel W. Anderson, 57, resigned as assistant Secretary of Commerce for international affairs to become president of the American Watch Association, representing U.S. importers of Swiss movements. An investment banker and industrial planner, Anderson joined WPB in 1941, supervised the huge expansion of U.S. aluminum and magnesium industries. He returned to Washington in 1948 to become ECA's industrial director, later headed the World Bank's Latin American division. As assistant commerce secretary, Anderson supported President Eisenhower's tariff raise for Swiss watches last year. As watch association president, he will try to turn back the tariff clock.
Henry B. Sargent, 50, a veteran utilities executive, was named president of American & Foreign Power, Inc., replacing W. S. Robertson who becomes board chairman. After graduating from Tulane in 1927, Sargent went to Mississippi Power & Light as an engineer, stayed on to become vice president and general manager, then moved over in 1946 to Arizona Public Service where he has been serving as president. His new company, Foreign Power, a subsidiary of Electric Bond & Share, does not operate in the U.S. but provides eleven Latin American countries with their utilities.