Rieland Named Chairman of Broadway
Broadway-Southern California department stores, in a major management shuffle, on Wednesday named a new chairman and announced the resignation of the chain’s president.
The developments come amid a series of moves by Carter Hawley Hale Stores, the Los Angeles-based owner of Broadway, to invigorate its management and reduce its debts.
Robert J. Rieland will take over, effective Feb. 15, as chairman and chief executive of Broadway, Carter Hawley’s top division and the area’s biggest chain of department stores.
Rieland, 59, had been president and chief executive of Thalhimers, a 26-store chain based in Richmond, Va., that Carter Hawley sold last month. The well-regarded division was bought by May Department Stores of St. Louis for $317 million.
Before taking the helm of Thalhimers in 1989, Rieland for eight years was president and chief executive of Miller & Rhoads, another Richmond department store chain.
At Broadway, he succeeds H. Michael Hecht, 51, who on Tuesday was named president of Carter Hawley, the parent company’s No. 2 job. Hecht, 51, is replacing Waldo H. Burnside, 62, who is retiring.
Leaving the Broadway is Thomas E. Dokter, 52, who in June was named president of the 43-store division and put in charge of merchandising and sales promotion. A spokesman said Dokter, who joined Carter Hawley in 1985, was “offered another job at the company, and he chose not to accept it.”
The spokesman said there are no immediate plans to fill the president’s job at Broadway.
Carter Hawley’s stock closed unchanged at $3.25 on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, but its depressed junk bonds rose several points. Along with executive changes, the company announced after the close of trading Tuesday that it negotiated a deal to sell its credit card business to General Electric Co.
The deal, expected to close by late April, would remove about $600 million in debt from Carter Hawley’s balance sheet while providing the retailer with $50 million in cash.
In other personnel moves this week, Carter Hawley announced that Edwin J. Holman, 44, the parent company’s senior vice president for operations, was promoted to executive vice president for operations. Also, Gary J. Peterson, 40, vice president for distribution, was promoted to senior vice president for distribution and facility management.
