A&B leader
on leave while
battling cancer
Former CEO taking over
By Rick Daysog
for ailing John Couch
Star-BulletinJohn Couch, Alexander & Baldwin Inc.'s chairman and chief executive officer, will take an extended leave of absence to undergo treatment for liver cancer, the company said today.
The 59-year-old Couch's duties will be assumed in the interim by former A&B chairman and chief executive officer Robert Pfeiffer.
The company said that Couch is undergoing treatment at the Stanford University Medical Center for mild Hepatoma, which was discovered last week.
A&B could not estimate the length of Couch's leave. But the company said it expects an orderly transition.
The duties of other A&B top executives -- C. Bradley Mulholland, president and CEO of Matson Navigation Co., Allen Doane, president and CEO of A&B-Hawaii Inc. and David Koncelik, president and CEO of California and Hawaiian Sugar Inc. -- will remain unchanged.
"The management team that John Couch has assembled and groomed is strong and experience and ready for the task," Pfeiffer said. "All of us, however, the board of directors, the management and the employees of A&B and all of its subsidiaries and I are looking forward to Mr. Couch's speedy return."
Pfeiffer, 78, had served as A&B's chairman and chief executive officer from 1980 to 1995.
He was succeeded by Couch in 1995.
