1958 - Saunders To Succeed Smith As N&W President April 1

[NW Mailing List]

Roanoke Times - February 28, 1958

Saunders To Succeed Smith As N&W President April 1

Top Executive To End 47 Years of Service

   Stuart T. Saunders, executive vice president of the Norfolk and 
Western Railway, will succeed R. H. Smith as president on April 1.
   Smith, who will retire March 31 under company regulations, is 
ending 47 years of service to the carrier with which he started as an 
axeman in the engineering department. He will continue as a member of 
the railway's board of directors. Saunders' election by the board as 
the railway's eighth president makes him, at 48, the youngest man 
ever to head the six-state road.
  Saunders joined the N&W as assistant general solicitor on April 1, 
1939, exactly 19 years before he will take office as president. He 
advanced to assistant general counsel in November 1947 and to general 
counsel in October, 1951. He was named vice president and general 
counsel on May 1, 1954 and became executive vice president on Oct. 1, 1956.
   Born in McDowell County W. Va., on July 16, 1909, Saunders grew up 
in Bedford on the N&W main line. After graduation from high school 
there in 1926 he received his A.B. degree from Roanoke College, then 
worked a year for the Virginia State Highway Commission. He then 
entered Harvard Law School where he obtained a law degree in 1934. He 
joined the Washington law firm of Douglas, Obear and Campbell and was 
a partner when he came to the N&W in Roanoke in 1939.
   Last month Saunders was elected a director of the railway and of 
its subsidiaries, the Pocahontas Land Corp. and the Virginia Holding 
Corp. He is also a member of the boards of the First National 
Exchange Bank of Roanoke, the Chesapeake Western Railway and the 
Virginia State Chamber of Commerce.
   The new president has a multitude of interest in professional, 
business and civic affairs. He is president of the Roanoke College 
board and a trustee of Hollins College. He heads the Roanoke Valley 
United Fund for 1958 and is president of Old Dominion Exposition, 
Inc., a non-profit organization which will produce industrial shows 
in the Roanoke area. He has served as president of the Virginia State 
Bar, the Roanoke Chamber of Commerce, Roanoke City-County Public 
Forum and Roanoke Rotary Club and is a member of the Roanoke City 
Charter Commission, chairman of the Roanoke County Red Cross chapter 
and chairman of the Regional Coordinating Committee, Red Cross Blood Center.
   A speaker of note, Saunders has talked on a variety of subjects 
before over a hundred audiences in recent years. He is married to the 
former Dorothy Davidson of Bedford. They have four children: Stuart 
Thomas Jr., Laura Jeter, Jesse Davidson and William Tazewell.
   Smith, who has headed the N&W since June 1946, is a native of 
Baltimore. He spent most of this youth on a ranch in Colorado before 
returning to Tome School in Maryland. While at Princeton University 
he first worked for the railway during the summer of 1910.
   After election to Phi Beta Kappa and graduation the next year he 
returned to the road permanently. He worked as a masonry inspector 
and transit-man until he was promoted to assistant roadmaster on the 
Radford Division in 1913. He became roadmaster, then served 
successively as assistant superintendent of the Pocahontas and 
Radford Divisions. He became superintendent of the Radford Division in 1922.
  In 1931 Smith was named head of the N&W's Eastern General Division, 
transferring to the Western General Division three year later. He was 
appointed general manager of the railroad in 1936 and named vice 
president and general manager in 1939. He became vice president in 
charge of operation on Jan. 1, 1942, and held that post through World 
War II and until he was elected president.
   In 1948 when the railroads were placed under government control, 
Smith was one of seven railroad presidents commissioned as colonels 
in the United States Army. He was in charge of the Pocahontas Region 
which included the N&W, C&O, Virginian and a number of smaller railroads.
   Smith also has been active in business and civic affairs. He is a 
former director of the Association of American Railroads, a past 
president of the Roanoke Chamber of Commerce and a former member of 
the Roanoke School Board. He is a director of the Winston-Salem 
Southbound Railway Co., the Norfolk and Portsmouth Belt Line Railroad 
Co., the First National Exchange Bank of Roanoke, The First 
Pennsylvania Banking and Trust Co. of Philadelphia, the Mutual Fire, 
Marine and Inland Insurance Co. and the Fruit Growers Express Co.
   He is a trustee of Hollins College and currently heads the 
Citizens Committee for Schools in Roanoke.

-----------------------------------

- Ron Davis, Roger Link