The Berlin Hairlift

At 23, Frank Nicholas Piasecki was a fast-rising genius. The Philadelphia-born son of a Polish immigrant tailor and graduate of New York University's Guggenheim School of Aeronautics, he developed and in 1943 test-flew the second successful helicopter made in the U.S. (Igor Sikorsky flew the first in 1939.) The same year, Piasecki incorporated his own company to build helicopters and landed a Navy contract.

In 1946, when his war baby needed funds to keep going, Laurance Rockefeller and Felix du Pont Jr. quickly came forward, exchanging some $500,000 for 51% of the stock. Flatteringly, they decided to change the company's name from P-V Engineering Forum to Piasecki Helicopter, kept Piasecki on as president.

But soon the Rockefeller group decided that Piasecki's genius lay in design, not administration, and Piasecki was moved upstairs to board chairman, while Production Expert Hart Miller was made president. At the beginning of 1953 the Rockefeller group made another change: it brought in veteran aircraft engineer-executive Don R. Berlin, 57, as president, gave him a mandate to cut costs and payrolls. Berlin lifted so many scalps that his first months were called "the Berlin Hairlift."

On the Rise. With Berlin piloting, the company gained altitude fast. Earnings climbed 47% in 1953 to $1,410,345, and though sales dropped 44% the following year, profits fell only 4%, held at a satisfactory $1,360,241. Frank Piasecki's 20-passenger H21 Workhorse swept helicopter honors for speed and altitude at the 1953 Dayton Air Show, and Piasecki ranked as the No. 1 manufacturer of big transport helicopters. But inside the executive suite raged a struggle for control: Piasecki men v. Rockefeller men. In March 1955 Frank Piasecki lost even the board chairmanship to President Berlin. Four months later, almost completely shorn of power and with nothing left but a directorship, he walked out to form his own outfit, the Piasecki Aircraft Corp. The Berlin-operated helicopter company quickly slammed the door. In two successive special stockholders' meetings it changed the name of Piasecki Helicopter to Vertol (vertical take-off and landing) Aircraft Corp. and amended the bylaws to bar Piasecki's re-election as a director, on the ground that he was running a rival company.

Fall. Piasecki and associates still owned 23.7% of the 471,391 shares of outstanding common stock, and in an attempt at a comeback, began soliciting proxies for last week's annual meeting. Once again, they were rebuffed. The company, Berlin reported, was doing better than ever: 1955 peak profits of $1,550,937, a husky backlog of nearly $150 million, first-quarter sales well ahead of '55. Piasecki tried to raise points of order and ask questions, but got nowhere. He attempted to increase his bloc's directorships from three to five on the 13-man board, but was voted down almost three to one. Said an associate glumly: "Either we go back into control or we sell out."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.