PERSONNEL: New Boss for T.W.A.

After President Ralph S. Damon died last January, Trans World Airlines began to lose altitude. Without his firm and skilled hand, the net profit dropped 96.9% in the first nine months to only $170,000, despite an 11% rise in operating revenue. Last week T.W.A. Owner Howard Hughes finally found the man he hopes will pull T.W.A. out of its dive: Carter Lane Burgess, 39, Assistant Secretary of Defense for manpower.

Virginia-born and educated (Virginia Military Institute, ’39), Burgess began his fast-moving career as a New York claims adjuster for the Liberty Mutual Life Insurance Co. He went into the Army in 1942 as a 2nd lieutenant, emerged three years later a colonel and secretary to the General Staff at SHAEF. After a spell in the State Department, he was assistant to T.W.A. President Jack Frye in 1946-47. When Frye quit to run General Aniline & Film, Burgess went along, later was tapped to head a study of White House organization.

In 1954 Defense Secretary Wilson spotted Burgess—a Democrat-for-Eisen-hower—and brought him full-time into the Administration as Assistant Defense Secretary. Manpower Expert Burgess worked out the Army’s new Ready Reserve Program, headed the committee that wrote the post-Korean prisoner-of-war code. A hard-but smooth-working executive with a knack for grasping complicated ideas and reducing them to a two-sentence précis, Burgess won a reputation as one of the best administrators in Government. As administrator of the nation’s fourth largest airline, Burgess will earn an estimated $100,000 (including bonuses, stock participation, etc.) v. his present $19,000 a year.