PERSONNEL: Cubbyhole

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In Chicago the president's office of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe R. R.—first among U. S. railroads in trackage operated (13,500 miles), fourth in revenue—is a severely handsome, blue-carpeted room overlooking Lake Michigan. It contains two desks, one flat and one rolltop, and last week no one sat at either. But hard at work next door, in the same cubbyhole he has occupied for 29 years, was beaknosed, grey-haired Edward J. (for nothing) Engel.

Edward Engel is fast and thorough, likes to pace nervously while talking. He has no hobbies, no pretensions. The switchboard girls love him because he dials his own numbers, speaks at once to anyone who calls. Says he: "I hate to be kept waiting, so why should I keep anyone waiting?"

As chief clerk, vice-president, then executive vice-president, Edward Engel has helped three presidents run the Santa Fe. Last week, at 64, he was elected president to succeed old Samuel Taylor Bledsoe, who died five weeks ago. Friends who later stopped into the president's office to wish him well found nothing there but great baskets of flowers. Pacing up & down his cubbyhole next door, President Engel explained: "I can't work around these flowers. I'll move in when they wilt."