When Railroader Arthur Samuel Genet was brought in as president of limping Greyhound Corp. three years ago, he took a look around and began to deride the company's veteran bus executives. Genet, who had done well as freight vice president of Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, growled that the sales staff of the world's biggest intercity bus line had "no thorough experience or training" and was "sitting on its hands." He charged that the advertising and publicity programs had "failed miserably."
The bluster ruffled Greyhound's top staffers. Discontent grew when Greyhound profits dipped from $13.9 million in 1956 to $13.4 million last year. When Greyhound lost more than $1,000,000 in this year's first quarter, executives publicly blamed glum weather, privately pointed to the Genet administration. Few of Genet's ideas had generated cash. He unleashed Greyhound's first broad public-relations drive, plugging the theme that bus riding can be classy and comfortable. The campaign cost millions, but, grumbled Vice President Adam P. Sledz, "it produced nothing of a tangible nature." Genet's greatest misadventure was Greyhound Rent-A-Car, Inc. Started 2½ years ago, it still rides in the red. Last week Genet, 48, resigned under pressure.
To replace him, the board of directors tapped the company's West Coast boss, Frederick W. Ackerman, 63, one of the lifelong busmen who had been passed over in favor of Genet in 1955. Ackerman knows that his toughest chore will be to put Greyhound Rent-A-Car on the road. "It has been a headache because of mistakes," says he. "We tried to do too much in too short a period without experience and competent men."
Ackerman will immediately close several of the 133 rental stations that Genet opened, many of them in small cities that cannot support them. To jack up the company, he will also promote package tours, charter service and express delivery. But his tour is limited; he must step out on his 65th birthday—in November of 1959—unless the board scraps Greyhound's mandatory retirement rule.