Western Digital Names Executive Vice President

Western Digital Corp., an Irvine computer parts maker, announced Wednesday that Edward L. Marinaro has been promoted to executive vice president.

The promotion of Marinaro, who joined Western Digital 18 months ago as vice president of marketing, offers yet more support to wide-spread speculation within the company that Marinaro is being groomed to take over as president when incumbent Roger Johnson decides to step down. In March of this year Marinaro was elevated to senior vice president of operations.

In his new post Marinaro is directly responsible for the manufacturing, engineering and marketing operations as well as the products and future business planning.

Prior to joining Western Digital, Marinaro was president and chief executive officer of Momentum Computer Systems International in San Jose. He also served as president and chief executive of Comdat Inc. in Fremont and as president of Memorex Mini Disk Drive Corp. in Santa Clara.

A native of Morristown, N.J., Marinaro lives in Newport Beach. He earned a bachelor of science degree in mathematics at St. Lawrence University.