RECESSION BENFITS: RECESSION BENEFITS

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Many an executive has rediscovered an old truth: he should spend his time minding the store instead of wasting time on other affairs. Cambridge's National Research Corp. recently went through its long list of trade associations, discovered that it belonged to too many and promptly resigned from 80% of them. President Richard S. Morse decided too many valuable executive man-hours were lost at trade meetings. And as they spend more time on business, executives have reached some surprising conclusions about themselves. After a critical study of his company, President Hugh F. Colvin of Pasadena's Consolidated Electrodynamics knew just how to beef up his operation: he moved down to become an operating man again as senior vice president in charge of four fast-growing but troublesome divisions, while Board Chairman Philip S. Fogg took over the president's policymaking chair. Says Fogg: "This is what the recession does to your thinking. We are going to come out of this with talent applied in the right places."

On the other hand, Denver's subcontracting Stanley Aviation Corp., whose business is down 15%, decided that the problem was not too many executives but too few. It added new executives in production control, cost accounting and sales. "When do you add salesmen?" asks President Robert M. Stanley. "When you have more orders than you can fill, or when you don't have enough?" For similar reasons, cameramaker Bell & Howell this year tripled its ad and sales promotion budget to $600,000 for the second quarter as part of President Charles H. Percy's antirecession campaign, while Reynolds Metals is diversifying rapidly into new markets for aluminum swimming pools, auto parts, boats and tin cans. "We had all these programs before," says Vice President John Blomquist of Reynolds Aluminum Sales Co. "But now that business is tough, we're moving a lot faster in these development areas."

Says Denver & Rio Grande President Gayle B. Aydelott, who has used the recession to streamline everything from office procedures to main-line maintenance: "We found all sorts of revisions we could make to improve our operation. Now these revisions work so well we wouldn't go back to the old way of doing things even if the recession ended tomorrow."