People in transport
p. 61 · Read in the full issue
• Mr Roderick Wilson, 44, manager of British Airways in the South-West Pacific, and based in Sydney, has been appointed British Airways manager in the United States. He will take up his new post early in 1976, and will be stationed in New York. Mr Wilson will be the youngest manager to hold the most senior appointment in the overseas division of the airline. He is a director of Air Pacific and an alternate director of Air Melanesia.
He will be succeeded in the South- West Pacific by Mr Frank Waters, who is at present manager for the airline in Spain and the Mediter ranean area. ® Mr Peter Kingsford-Smith, a senior member of the staff of Inter ocean Swire Pty Ltd in Sydney, and a nephew of the great Smithy, re tired on July 4 after 43 years in the shipping industry, during which he became well known in some Pacific Islands. He started work with Burns Philp in 1932, and visited Papua New Guinea for the first time in 1935 as assistant purser in the Macdhui. In 1948 he joined American Trading and Shipping Co when that company was operating the Admiral Chase and the Lautoka to PNG. In 1952 he transferred to G. S. Yuill, and since then has been closely linked with the Australia-PNG trade. In his time he saw G. S. Yuill and Co sucessfully become Swire and Yuill, Swire and Gilchrist and Interocean Swire. In World War 11, Mr Kingsford-Smith served with the RAAF and the RAF, and was awarded the DFC. • Mr John F. Jeffries, a Welling ton barrister and solicitor, has been appointed chairman of Air New Zealand, succeeding Sir Geoffrey Roberts, who retired on June 30 after a 44-years’ association with aviation.
Sir Geoffrey, after service with the RAF and RNZAF,, became the first general manager of TEAL, as Air New Zealand was then known, in 1946. He retired from that post in 1958, and joined the board the same year. • Sir Lenox Hewitt has been ap pointed chairman of Qantas, to succeed Sir Donald Anderson, who is retiring because of ill-health. Sir Lenox was Secretary of the Australian Department of Mines and Energy.