1980 0808 – NYT – Filling a Gap at California Life, by Leonard Sloane

  • Mark D. Mariska has been named president and chief operating officer of the California Life Corporation, an insurance holding company based in Los Angeles. The position had been vacant since Alexander P. Butterfield, a former aide to President Nixon, left the company a year ago.

  • Joseph P. Monge, a 68-year-old retired vice chairman of the International Paper Company who was elected chairman and chief executive officer of California Life in May 1979, continues in that position.

  • Shelby Cullom Davis, a former United States Ambassador to Switzerland and head of a New York investment banking firm, was elected a director.

  • Mr. Mariska, 35, had been chief assistant commissioner of the California Department of Insurance for the last 15 months. Previously he spent seven years with the INA Corporation, winding up as senior vice president and chief operating officer of its Teachers Insurance Company subsidiary.

  • Last year California Life suffered from highly publicized financial difficulties and a management shakeup – and Mr. Mariska indicated in a telephone interview that he was well aware of what had transpired. Then he added, wearing his new management hat, “We believe that much of the financial difficulties and other problems are behind us now.”