TWICE People

John Schlenner has succeeded Jim Thorpe as Sears' divisional merchandise manager for audio and home office. Schlenner had led merchandising/marketing for Sears' Dealer Stores, and Thorpe goes on to head home fashions. No successor named yet to former VP/general manager Ray Brown, who continues to run Sears' CE business after assuming the new role of marketing VP in May …Alex Rivera, a 20-year CE veteran with Sony and Samsung, has joined Toshiba America Consumer Products as strategic field account sales VP, a new position. He will be responsible for buying group, distributor and special market sales … Discovery Marketing principals Lou Price and Mike Vann, have been named sales representatives for Russound's Rocky Mountain territory …Richard Hill, chairman/CEO of Novellus Systems, and Thomas P. Salice, vice-chairman of AEA Investors LLC, have been added to the board of Agere Systems …Rick Komendera has joined Richard Gray's Power Company as operations VP …Evan Neufeld, ex-global research senior VP at Jupiter Media Metrix, joins NPD Group as client development VP …Kevin Duffy joins Directed Electronics as international business and corporate development VP, a new post ...Jeff Coates and Jay Johnson have been named regional sales manager with NHT and The Rockford Home Group … Veteran character actor Hardy Rawls will replace fellow thespian Gordon Jump as Ol' Lonely, the Maytag Repairman, in the appliance maker's advertising. Jump, who will retire by the end of the year, played the role since 1988, replacing the original Ol' Lonely Jesse White, when the character was introduced in 1967. Mark Devine, the actor who portrays Ol' Lonely's sidekick, the Apprentice, will continue in that role.