Special Section: 50 Faces for America's Future

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he is one of the top American experts on arms control, and has played a key role in the SALT n negotiations. After graduating from Princeton University, Aaron became a State Department officer and later was a protege of then Senator Walter Mondale. Says Aaron: "I chose government because I felt it offered the most opportunity to participate in history."

2. William M. Agee, 41, wasted little time imposing his style of leadership on the giant Bendix Corp. (1978 sales: $3.6 billion). Shortly after he succeeded Michael Blumenthal as chairman and chief executive officer in 1977, Agee began instituting his theories of "participatory management." He expanded the top decision-making group, encouraged freewheeling discussions on corporate objectives, and sought to loosen the hierarchy with a series of gambits: opening up the executive dining room, tossing the intimidating teak table out of the conference room and abolishing the pecking order in the parking lot. Born in Boise, Agee attended the University of Idaho, and was at first turned down before being admitted by the Harvard Business School. He signed on with Boise Cascade, rose to become chief financial officer, and then joined Bendix in 1972 at the age of 34. He believes in young leaders. Says he: "I think a person my age can be a constructive agent of change."

3. Dr. Joseph C. Avellone, 30, is on the threshold of a promising career in a brandnew field: helping, he says, "to bridge the gap between those who make health policy and those who practice medicine. The decision makers don't know enough medicine, and the medical profession doesn't know enough economics and management." A surgeon, Avellone interrupted his medical studies to get a master's degree in public administration from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Last year he wrote a report, published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, that analyzed how a probe by the Federal Trade Commission would hamper the medical profession's power to set standards and to pass on a doctor's qualifications. Now practicing in New Hampshire, where he is also planning a study of the state's system for handling trauma victims, Avellone hopes eventually to work as a policymaker for federal health programs. Says Boston's noted surgeon Francis D. Moore: "Avellone is a pioneer."

4. Marion S. Barry Jr., 43, the mayor of Washington, D.C., holds the highest elected post attained by any of the black activists of the turbulent '60s. Son of a Mississippi sharecropper, Barry abandoned work on a doctorate in chemistry at the University of Tennessee to join the civil rights movement. As the first national chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, he was often jailed for taking part in protests. In Washington, D.C., he founded Pride, Inc., a job-training organization for young people, and turned into a skillful politician working as a member of the city council and chairman of the school board. The city's black and white middle class swept the former militant into the mayor's office last year. Barry admits his role has changed with the times. "I always knew it was better to make policy than to influence policy," he says. "I think integrity is the most important quality for a leader. People have to believe you won't sell them out."

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