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Webb is a nut about smoking (all his desks bear metal signs saying NO SMOKING, and he means it) and about standardization. Webb offices are run according to "The Blue Book," which specifies even what kind of desk calendar pads are to be used and what kind of lettering must be on the door. One employee who drove a tan car when Webb wanted all company cars to be black found his sedan had been removed from the parking lot and repainted while he was at work. Webb is too busy to spend much time at his retirement cities. But he did manage to spare a day last week to talk with a group of medical researchers about the establishment of a research center for gerontology at Phoenix's Sun City. "When I see what we've built," he says, "it's the most satisfying thing that's ever happened to me. An old fellow came up to me once with tears in his eyes and thanked me for building Sun City. He said he was planning to spend the happiest 40 years of his life there." The mere thought of staying put so long makes Delbert Eugene Webb profoundly uneasy.
* New president is 49-year-old LaVergne Jacobson, who signed on with Webb in 1938 as a $25-a-week timekeeper.