PERSONNEL: Changes of the Week, Mar. 29, 1954

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¶ S. Clark Beise, 55, senior vice president of California's Bank of America, the world's biggest private bank, was named by the board of directors to succeed President Carl F. Wente, who has reached the bank's mandatory retirement age of 65. Son of a Minnesota doctor, Beise (rhymes with icy) decided in high school that he wanted to go into banking. As a business administration student at the University of Minnesota, he worked as a bank messenger on the side. While he was working as a Federal Reserve System bank examiner in the mid-19303, his knowledge of banking so impressed the late Bank of America Founder A. P. Giannini that in 1936 Giannini said: "We can use a man like you, and you'll find the way open clear to the top if you make good." Said Beise: "I'll make good. When do I start?" Beise started right away, became a vice president his first year, chairman of the managing committee in 1949, senior vice president in 1951.

¶ Lila Bell Acheson Wallace, 63, co-owner and co-editor with her husband DeWitt Wallace of Reader's Digest, has been added by Robert R. Young to his proposed slate of New York Central directors. If Young wins his battle for control of the Central, Mrs. Wallace will become the first woman director of a major U.S. railroad. Said she: "I think everything needs a woman's touch."

¶ George P. Luckey, 62, will step down as president and board chairman of Hamilton Watch Co. in mid-April. Luckey, a physicist by training, joined Hamilton in 1927, was vice president in charge of manufacturing when the directors tabbed him as president in 1952. Likely choice to succeed him: Executive Vice President Ar thur B. Sinkler, 44.

¶ Robert S. Kerr, 57, Democratic U.S. Senator from Oklahoma and president of Kerr-McGee Oil Industries, Inc., moved over into the chairmanship to let Co-founder Dean A. McGee, operating boss since Kerr went into politics, take over the presidency.

¶Edgar A. Newberry, 68, vice chairman of the board of J. J. Newberry Co., the fourth biggest U.S. variety-store chain (475 stores in 45 states), was elected chairman, succeeding his elder brother, founder of the chain, who died this month.