CEOs change, stay the same: Coffman's death, Ford's promotion lower average age.

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CEOs change, stay the same: Coffman's death, Ford's promotion lower average age.

IN THE 18 MONTHS SINCE Arkansas Business last profiled the chief executives of publicly traded companiesin the state:

* Five companies have disappeared from the roster;

* Two companies have been added, although they are mighty small to be publicly traded;

* Four of the remaining companies changed CEOs, one because of the death of First Federal Bancshares of Arkansas' Frank L. Coffman, who had been the longest-serving CEO in the state; and

* Most of them have enjoyed improved stock prices over the past year, a reversal of the trend back in December 2000.

But the more, things change, the more some things stay the same: The rank of CEO in Arkansas is still exclusively male, mostly middle-aged (although the average age has continued to fall) and generally well-paid.

In addition to short profiles of the 27 CEOs of the state's 26 public companies (starring on Page 20), this issue also contains Arkansas Business' annual list of executive compensation (beginning on Page 30). The list includes the salaries and other compensation paid to 112 executives of those companies, as disclosed in corporate proxy statements filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The most highly compensated executive on that list isn't a CEO at all: It is Wayne Garrison, chairman of the board of J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell, who supplemented his $375,000 salary with a $10.7 million gain on the exercise of stock options.

The most highly compensated CEO was, fittingly, H. Lee Scott, who heads the world's largest company, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville. Scott was paid a salary of $1.12 million and a bonus of $1.78 million and realized a $7.4 million gain on stock options. When various other income was added in, his total compensation during the fiscal year that ended Jan. 30, 2002, was almost $10.56 million.

On average, the 27 CEOs had salaries nearing $400,000 last year, not including Advanced Environmental Recycling Technologies Inc. co-CEO Stephen W. Brooks, who took no salary at all. Their total compensation packages averaged $782,000, even ...

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