Loews Chief Named Postmaster General
Preston Robert Tisch, president of the Loews hotel and theater chain, was formally appointed Wednesday as the new postmaster general by the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors.
Tisch, a multimillionaire New York civic leader, will succeed Albert V. Casey on Aug. 15. He said that he will need time to study the $30-billion-a-year postal operation before making any changes and refused to comment at a news conference about any possible steps he would take in the $86,200-a-year government post.
“This country has been very good to me and my family,” Tisch, 60, said. “I cherish this opportunity to be of public service and repay a small part of what this country has afforded us.”
Will Quit Loews Posts
Tisch said he would resign his posts as president and chief operating officer of Loews Corp., one of the nation’s largest diversified financial companies, and might place his stock holdings in a blind trust. He said he would follow the advice of Joseph A. Califano, counsel to the postal board of governors.
Because Casey accepted the postmaster’s job last January on an interim basis, postal board Chairman John R. McKean said Tisch’s appointment “culminates months of effort . . . to find the man or woman best qualified to lead this institution.”
“Bob Tisch is a careful, highly skilled manager and corporate leader who can strengthen the postal service,” McKean said.
Tisch disclosed that he had contacted Casey in July to apply for the job, although the postal service had hired an outside search firm to find prospects.
McKean said Tisch was chosen from hundreds of candidates, including at least 20 current postal employees.
The announcement, which was made a day later than expected, was delayed because board members disagreed on whether to select a current postal employee or someone from the private sector, McKean said.
Casey’s Recommendations
Casey, a former chairman of American Airlines, has recommended that his successor expand the use of technology in delivering the mail. Casey has accepted a teaching position at Southern Methodist University in Texas but is considered to be a leading candidate for appointment to an existing vacancy on the postal board.
Tisch, a native New Yorker, was named by the mayor’s office to oversee arrangements for Democratic national conventions in that city in 1976 and 1980. He told reporters that he is a Democrat but that “I hope the Republicans will come to New York some day and the mayor will appoint me chairman again.”
Besides hotels and theaters, Loews Corp., with annual revenues of $6.7 billion, owns the Lorillard cigarette business, Bulova watch company and most of the CNA Financial Insurance Co. Tisch and his brother Laurence went into the resort business together in the early 1950s and parlayed a series of acquisitions into a family fortune estimated at $1.7 billion.
