(5 of 9)
Shanks hates memos, delegates responsibility, passes out assignments with the informality of a man offering a stick of gum. When tapping the man to head the Pru's $5 billion Midwestern operation, all he asked was: "How would you like to go to Chicago?" Yet Shanks can be a flinty chip off the old rock with anyone who attempts to balk his overall policies. "I hate to be frustrated," he says. Last year, when a bitter disagreement came up over his idea of pushing small loans, Shanks stood it as long as he could, then shook up his bond department from top to bottom. Two executives were fired, six others quit.
At least 25% of the time, Shanks is out on the road—and the trips are man-killers. Says the boss of the Toronto regional head office: "We brought him here one Sunday afternoon to do some work; he went to Winnipeg, where he gave two or three speeches, met every single Prudential employee, met the mayor, the Premier, went on TV and radio twice in one day. The same thing happened in Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver. The rest of us were all pooped out. But he just thrives. If he's at a dinner party one night, he's perfectly willing to have the press in for breakfast—every morning."
Shanks, a resolute homebody, is almost unknown in suburban Montclair. N.J., where he lives with his wife Martha. Their three children—Wallace, 31, Margaret, 28, Meteer, 25—are married and living away from home. His main relaxation is the piano; he practices 1½ hours each day, takes a weekly lesson from the same teacher he has had for nearly 20 years, and once every year sits down to a duet with her at a local recital. Since he became president, he has read innumerable books on how to be a successful executive, and has yet to find one, he says, "that indicates that I have a chance."
From Fairmont to Gibraltar. His father was the postmaster of Fairmont, Minn.—a firm-handed Methodist who looked on liquor as the root of all evil. From the start, young Carrol was smart in school. Following an elder brother, he went to the University of Washington, made straight A's, Phi Beta Kappa, the presidency of Beta Theta Pi. courted his future wife, and clerked afternoons and Saturdays in a downtown Seattle shoe-store. Married in 1921, he headed East to Columbia law school, where he made a reputation for himself both as a bright young lawyer and a boxer with a Sunday punch. Once, when a cocky student dared Shanks to hit him on the chin, Carrol obliged—and knocked him cold.
Shanks took a job teaching law at Yale, wrote four legal books with a Columbia classmate and lifelong friend, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. But teaching was not for him. "I wanted something to happen, wanted to hear the telephone ring." Moving on in 1931, he took a job with Root, Clark, Buckner & Ballantine, one of the big Manhattan law firms, and again was disappointed. "Law is bookish," says Shanks. "I like the action, the battle, the campaigns." Finally in 1932 he found just what he wanted. Over in Newark, the Prudential Insurance Co. of America, with millions invested in railroad bonds, asked Root, Clark for someone to help with their portfolio. Shanks was the man. Overnight he started a rise punctuated by enough battles to satisfy any warrior.