Group President Leaves Fluor; Two Promoted

In the first step in a reorganization of its upper management team, Fluor Corp. on Monday announced the departure of Gerald M. Glenn, a group president of the company’s core engineering and construction unit, Fluor Daniel.

Glenn, 51, resigned from his post as well as from Fluor’s board of directors “to look for other opportunities,” said Leslie G. McCraw, chairman and chief executive officer of Fluor.

The company also announced the promotion of two top executives to vice chairmen of the board: Vincent L. Kontny, president and chief operating officer of Fluor, and Hugh K. Coble, group president of Fluor Daniel.

“These changes are not indicative of any problems at the company,” said John Simon, an analyst with Seidler Cos., a brokerage in Los Angeles. “Fluor is just wondering what it wants to do with the rest of its life. How does it expand without repeating mistakes of the past?”

In the early and mid-1980s, Fluor suffered a series of losses after investing in such non-core businesses as real estate and gold mining. The company lifted itself from its abyss after a massive reorganization in 1986.

Fluor’s revenue last year was $7.9 billion--more than twice what it reported for 1987. Today it has a long list of impressive projects, including the cleanup of a closed uranium plant in Ohio--a $2.2-billion federal contract for the largest environmental remediation project to date. In recent weeks, Fluor’s stock has traded at more than $50 a share--compared to $15 a share in 1987.

“If you try to stay level, you’re probably going to end up moving backward,” McCraw said in an interview last week. “So we are challenging our organization to think through how we can do better tomorrow what we do today.”

McCraw said the changes are part of an effort to reduce the company’s hierarchy and give younger executives more responsibility and exposure to the board.

“We’re developing a succession plan, looking at people who range in age from 45 to 52--the next wave,” McCraw said. “This new structure will give some people greater visibility and will allow them to get more experience in management decision-making.”

McCraw said that the company will continue to announce changes over the next few weeks but that he does not expect more resignations.

Glenn “certainly was positioned for consideration” for a higher post, McCraw said. “His leaving was voluntary. He felt uncomfortable with some of the elements of the changes in our organizational structure.”

Glenn joined Fluor in 1964. Twenty-two years later, he helped the company form Fluor Daniel--a merging of two subsidiaries. In 1986, Glenn became a group president of Fluor Daniel in charge of marketing. Coble, also a Fluor Daniel group president, oversees operations for the subsidiary.

Coble, 59, has worked at Fluor since 1966, serving in several posts overseas. Kontny, 56, joined the company in 1965 and became president of Fluor in 1990.

In Monday’s trading on the New York Stock Exchange, Fluor’s stock closed at $51.75, down $1.12.