ORANGE COUNTY : McDonnell Douglas Names Liebl Head of Information Group
Gary Liebl, president of McDonnell Douglas Computer Systems Co. in Irvine, has been promoted to chief operating officer of the McDonnell Douglas Informations Systems Group in one of a series of staff changes announced Tuesday by McDonnell Douglas Corp. president John F. McDonnell.
In his new position, Liebl, 43, oversees the operations of 11 companies, including the Computer Systems Co., with 14,000 employees worldwide and estimated sales this year of $1.3 billion.
Liebl, who will maintain offices in Newport Beach, will report to Robert A. Fischer, who was named chief executive officer of the Informations Systems Group. Fischer, previously president of McDonnell Douglas Automation Co., operates out of the corporation’s headquarters in St. Louis.
Replacing Liebl at the Computer Systems Co. (formerly Microdata Corp.) is Vernon Z. Smith who was promoted from his position as executive vice president.
The Information Systems Group was created last year by McDonnell to spur the company’s efforts to cash in on the explosion of information-processing technologies and insulate itself from what was expected to be a more modest growth rate in the corporation’s primary operations, aerospace and defense contracting.
Until the appointments announced Tuesday, the Information Systems Group was overseen on a part-time basis by a three-member executive board that included Liebl, Fischer and McDonnell.
William J. Fisher, a Newport Beach management consultant, has been elected to the board of directors of Birtcher Corp., an ailing El Monte-based medical equipment manufacturer.
The announcement was made Tuesday by Birtcher chairman E.V. Jarvis, who said Fisher will be involved on a daily basis as the board’s representative to the company’s management team.
Jarvis said Fisher’s “expertise in streamlining operations, maximizing sales and production capabilities, and cost-reducing current operations will be extremely valuable to us in making our turnaround to profitability.”
In its 1984 calendar year, Birtcher lost $3.4 million on sales of $7.1 million. And in the first quarter of the current fiscal year the company lost $588,511 on sales on $1.6 million.
Fisher, director of William Fisher & Co., has about 20 years of experience in management, marketing, sales and financial consulting. He has helped turn around several medical and bio-technology companies in recent years, notably at American Diagnostic Laboratories of Newport Beach, a bio-tech company that was acquired by Hoffman-LaRoche in 1983.
Robert E. Anslow has been named general manager of Plessey Solid State, an Irvine high-performance semi-conductor manufacturer.
Anslow, 52, comes to Plessey from Rockwell International, where he served most recently as director of strategic planning for its semi-conductor products division in Newport Beach. He replaces Dennis Chant, who resigned from Plessey last November. Plessey’s parent corporation, Plessey Solid State Ltd., is based in Swindon, England.
Lawrence M. White, regional vice president of First American Title Insurance Co. has been elected to the Santa Ana-based company’s board of directors. White joined First American Title in 1956.
First American Bank & Trust Co. N. A. of Laguna Beach has named Steven Utley vice president of its business banking division. Utley, 30, had been a vice president at Capistrano National Bank and had also served 13 months with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s bank closing team in Costa Mesa.
Dean Isaacs has been named vice president and corporate counsel at Western Empire Development Co. Western Empire is a wholly owned subsidiary of Irvine-based Western Empire Savings and Loan. Before joining the development company, Isaacs practiced real estate and corporate law.
Patrick Bolton, employee relations director for Irvine-based Shiley Inc., has been named president of the Industrial League of Orange County Credit Union. Bolton succeeds Frederick Fortier, who will remain on the credit union’s board of directors as vice president.
