Head of TVA Selected to Become Nation’s New Postmaster General : Government: Former auto executive Marvin T. Runyon Jr. worked his way up from the assembly line. He has a reputation for cutting costs.

Marvin T. Runyon Jr., a former auto plant manager who presided over the streamlining of the Tennessee Valley Authority, was named Tuesday as the nation’s 70th postmaster general.

Runyon, whose appointment was made by the postal board of governors, will assume the post in July. He replaces Anthony M. Frank, who retired in March. Deputy Postmaster General Michael S. Coughlin has been acting postmaster general since then.

Runyon’s four-year stint as head of the TVA, the federally owned electric utility, was among the organization’s most controversial. His reorganization efforts were credited with saving millions of dollars for industrial customers, but the streamlining came at the expense of thousands of jobs. That concerns workers at the U.S. Postal Service, which is undergoing reorganization and automation to replace jobs once done by hand.

Some postal union representatives said they feared Runyon’s reputation for cost containment would result in layoffs instead of staff reduction through attrition, the method favored by Frank.

A spokesman for the 236,000-member National Assn. of Letter Carriers, said representatives of the group--along with those from six other postal unions--met with Runyon on Tuesday but would have no comment until they had more time to review Runyon’s statements and his record.

The postal service, which has been eliminating thousands of jobs, intends to trim another 45,000 by 1995. There are now about 750,000 Postal Service employees, making the organization the nation’s largest civilian employer.

But Runyon, who was president of the Nissan Motor Co. plant in Smyrna, Tenn., before joining the TVA, already has disclosed that he thinks the Postal Service could get by with fewer managers.

“The less layers of management you have, the better you can communicate with the people who do the job,” said Runyon, who also spent 37 years with Ford Motor Co., retiring in 1980 as the vice president of body and assembly operations in Michigan.

Job cutbacks made so far are expected to save the Postal Service $4.5 billion a year in salary and benefits by 1995.

“A lot of people see automation as eliminating people. . . . What it does is upgrade people,” said Runyon, explaining that automation such as robotics requires highly skilled workers.

Arthur Sackler, managing director of the Mailer’s Council, which represents more than 21,000 companies that generate 75% of the nation’s mail, said he approved of the choice of Runyon. He said Runyon’s record at the TVA for cutting costs indicates that he will benefit the postal service, which operates under a similar public-private format.

“He must bring all his experience in the private sector to bear on a situation that could threaten the Postal Service . . . and (could) require a stamp price of more than 35 cents in the next couple of years,” Sackler said.

One of Frank’s major disappointments came at the hands of the independent Postal Rate Commission, which rejected his request for a 30-cent rate for first class mail, instead adopting a 29-cent charge, a decision that cost $850 million a year in revenues.

Many industry analysts warn that a substantial increase will be needed by next year if the Postal Service is not further overhauled.

Runyon said his chief aim is to make the service more competitive with private-sector companies. Other goals include applying more advanced technology and improving relations between managers and postal workers.

Frank had begun the $8-billion automated mail-handling program now in use. It processes 71% of all mail with special equipment that scans, reads and sorts addresses. Four years ago, just 26% of all mail was handled that way.

After military service and college, Runyon, a native Texan, went to work as an hourly employee on the assembly line at Ford’s Dallas plant before rising to a management job.

“I think this is probably a job in which you can do more for the public good than any other,” said Runyon, who described his new post as his fourth career move. “Every person in America is a customer of the post office--few other businesses, if any, have responsibility to so many customers.”