6-Pack Would Be Proper for Toast

Quick, what was the biggest event of the past week? The Super Bowl? The inauguration of President Reagan? Neither, in the eyes of the Washington-based Can Manufacturers Institute, it was the 50th anniversary of the beer can.

On Jan. 24, 1935, the Kreuger Brewing Co. of Richmond, Va., introduced the beer can to the American public. It was made of three pieces of enameled steel, weighed 3 ounces empty and required a can opener--or “church key”--to open it.

It took a while to catch on, the trade association says, because the post-Prohibition public had to be convinced that beer belonged in anything but a keg or glass bottle. But the can finally caught on in the late 1940s, led by veterans who had consumed beer in nothing but cans during World War II.

Today, about 610 billion beer cans later, the container is made of two ultra-thin pieces of aluminum, weighs six-tenths of an ounce, has a pull-tab opener and is recyclable.

“In 1935, the beer can was a major innovation,” according to Michael Dunn, president of the Can Manufacturers Institute, “but today it’s an American institution. The beer can has become as American as the flag and apple pie.”

The beer can has another claim to fame--it’s now the same age as Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren and Donald Duck.

Some Talent Is Overlooked

With global competition in business growing ever stronger, American executives will have to change their attitudes toward young and old workers if they expect their companies to survive and thrive. At least that’s the opinion of William T. Mangum, president of Thomas Mangum Co., a Los Angeles-based executive search firm specializing in the high-tech field, who has a background in industrial relations.

Mangum observes that there is little empathy between executives--who generally are in the 50-to-60 age bracket--and the large portion of their work force in their 20s and early 30s. Senior managers should spend more time working and communicating with these younger employees who ultimately will be the company’s leaders, he says.

Senior managers must also realize the different values of the younger employees, who, in many cases, aren’t willing to work 18 hours a day. “They have watched their parents work their own marriages and lives into the ground. They don’t want to repeat that pattern.”

On the other hand, Mangum says, many executives are prejudiced against hiring or training for a new position someone over 55. “The rationale is that they have little time left to give the company, that the investment is not worth the while, and they are probably slowing down anyway. This, against the fact that company presidents and board chairmen have a history of holding their positions well into their 60s and even their 80s.”

In the past, Mangum says, “senior” meant old and doddering. But with today’s emphasis on health, diet and exercise, “we have an increasingly fit, dynamic, though graying, population. These people should be reappraised and given opportunity for growth for as long as they can and wish to serve.”