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Nearly 80% of General Mills' sales come from flour, consumer foods, and such specialty products as high-protein soybean meal. The rest of its sales come from a strange hodgepodge of activities: chemicals and electronic components divisions which are the remains of a long-abandoned diversification effort that once even had the company producing two-man submarines. Rawlings plans to continue these offshoots but stresses that "our greatest opportunities for profits and growth lie in the convenience food business."
Fish at 5. Rawlings' quick mind and near-photographic memory are hidden by a deceptively casual manner. During office hours, he is as likely as not to be found in a staff member's office, feet propped on the desk, puffing his ever present pipe, and talking about the 5-lb. bass he caught that morning near his Lake Minnetonka home between 5 a.m., when he arises, and 7:30, when he gets to work. Rawlings hates committees, delegates work to individual staff members and expects results. "He doesn't expect people to come to him with questions, but rather with answers—or at least recommenda tions," says one of his top men.
The man who is happiest and perhaps least surprised by Ed Rawlings' swift transition from military to civilian business is Chairman Bell. Says he: "I've known and respected Ed for such a long period of time that nothing he does surprises me. This is what I hoped and believed would show up."