W. Allen Doane

A&B picks Doane
to lead company

Pfeiffer, who was filling in
for the ailing Couch, will
remain as chairman

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Alexander & Baldwin Inc. has promoted one of its three executive vice presidents, W. Allen Doane, to president and chief executive officer, filling a gap opened when John C. Couch took indefinite medical leave in late July.

Doane, who has been with A&B since 1991 but had years before that with another old Hawaii company, C. Brewer & Co., did not inherit Couch's additional title of board chairman.

That role stays with R.J. Pfeiffer, 78, who had retired but came back when Couch left for the mainland for treatment of liver cancer.

Doane, 50, remains president and chief executive officer of A&B-Hawaii Inc., the company's Hawaii land and agriculture subsidiary.

The other two corporate executive vice presidents, C. Bradley Mulholland, 57, and Glenn R. Rogers, 55, retain their respective positions.

Mulholland is president and chief executive of A&B's biggest subsidiary, Matson Navigation Co., and Rogers is corporate chief financial officer.

An A&B spokeswoman, Meredith Ching, said she had no new information on the condition of Couch, 59, who is living in the San Francisco area where he had treatment at the Stanford University Medical Center. Couch is on medical leave and remains a director of A&B, she said.

Doane came to Hawaii in 1969 as an officer in the Navy. He and his wife stayed for four years and in 1973 Doane, who has a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University in Utah, moved to the mainland to attend Harvard Business School.

He returned to Hawaii to work with C. Brewer & Co. as a planner, coincidentally under Glenn Rogers, then Brewer's planning director.

In 1979 Brewer's then parent, Philadelphia-based IU International Corp., transferred Doane to its headquarters, where he became involved in a wide range of the conglomerate's activities.

Doane left IU after a hostile takeover in 1988 and came back to Hawaii to work with the Honolulu-based Shidler Group, a national owner and manager of commercial properties.

In April 1991, he joined A&B as executive vice president and chief operating officer of A&B-Hawaii. He became president of that subsidiary in 1995 and its chief executive in 1997.

He was named executive vice president of A&B two months ago.

Doane is chairman of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii.