Milchovich Named President Of Kaiser

Kaiser Aluminum Corp. named Raymond Milchovich president and chief operating officer of the company and its Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. unit.

Milchovich, 47, replaces George Haymaker Jr., who recently stepped down as president of the two operations while retaining his position as chairman and chief executive.

Kaiser said it re-established a chief operating officer position, which Haymaker dropped when he became chairman and chief executive in 1994, to help reach its goal of improving pretax operating profit by $120 million before the end of 1998.

Milchovich joined the Houston-based company in 1980 as manager of Kaiser’s Trentwood rolling mill in the Spokane Valley. He most recently served as vice president of Kaiser Aluminum and president of its flat-rolled products division.

Separately, the company said second-quarter profit from operations rose 67 percent on cost cuts and increased shipments of alumina, the raw material used to make aluminum.

Earnings rose to $13.7 million, or 16 cents a share, from $8.2 million, or 9 cents, a year earlier. Sales rose 30 percent to $597.1 million from $567.6 million.