PERSONNEL: Changes of the Week, Jun. 24, 1957

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¶ Ralph Lazarus, 43, fourth-generation retailer of the Lazarus merchant family, stepped up to president of Federated Department Stores, Inc., which grossed $601 million in the past year from its 38-link chain. His father, Co-Founder Fred Lazarus Jr., 72, moved up to chairman. Former Chairman Lincoln Filene, 92, also a founder and the dean of U.S. retailers, eased into the new job of honorary chairman. The executive switch means that Fred Lazarus will steadily relinquish more authority to his son, who in 22 years with the company following his graduation from Dartmouth has held every post from sales clerk to basement-store manager. Like his son, chunky Fred Lazarus ("retailing is our life") also worked up from the basement. He became Federated's No. 1 man in 1945, transformed the corporation from a loosely knit cross-ownership of stock to a solid chain and trebled its sales by buying new stores. He will continue as top man, has no plans to retire, hopes this year to guide Federated to the U.S. department-store sales lead over front-running Allied Stores Corp.

¶ Lieut. General (U.S.A.F., ret.) Elwood Richard Quesada, 53, former vice president of Lockheed Aircraft Corp., was tapped as White House aviation adviser to replace Major General (U.S.A.F., ret.) Edward Peck Curtis, 60, who returns to Eastman Kodak Co. as vice president. "Pete" Quesada, who was wartime commander of the Ninth Fighter Command in Europe and boss of the thermonuclear bomb tests at Eniwetok in 1951, will quarterback the Eisenhower Administration's plans to work out a traffic control system for the commercial jet age. Last week the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee took the first big step toward such a plan, voted to create an air modernization board (TIME, May 27) that will lay the groundwork for a joint air control system for military and civil planes.