Changes of the Week

P: James T. (for Tolman) Pyle, 43, was sworn in last week as Administrator of the Civil Aeronautics Administration after three months as acting Administrator following the death of the CAA head, Charles J. Lowen. Born in Manhattan, Pyle attended Groton, earned a Phi Beta Kappa at Princeton ('35), where he learned to fly in his spare time, a skill he still keeps up in one of CAA's DC-3s. After graduation he went to work for Pan American World Airways, later became an assistant to a vice president. During the war he served in the Pacific as an operations officer with the Naval Air Transport Service, afterward set up two companies of his own in Denver (Air Charter Co. and Denver Air Terminal Corp.), which he later liquidated because CAA did not give him the necessary certificate for a charter service, and the air terminal company failed to make money. In 1953 he was made a special assistant to the Assistant Navy Secretary for Air, specialized in civil aviation problems such as traffic control and airway navigation.

P: Ben S. (for Screws) Gilmer, 51, operating vice president of Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Co. (1955 net income: $64.2 million), became president succeeding Fred J. Turner, 63, who moved up to chairman of the board. A native of Montgomery, Ala., Gilmer graduated from Alabama Polytechnic Institute ('26), then went to work for Southern Bell, rose through the company's plant and commercial departments, by 1950 became general commercial manager. Two years later he was made vice president of Northwestern Bell Telephone Co., then the Pacific Telephone Co., returned to Southern Bell last year as operating vice president.

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