-based company, has named Boyd F. Schenk president and chief operating officer. Mr. Schenk has been chairman and chief executive officer of Pet Inc., an IC unit. He will continue as Pet's chairman.
Ray Morris, Pet's president and chief operating officer, will become the chief executive.
IC Industries' presidency has been vacant since Robert F. Schnoes was promoted to vice chairman in 1982. Mr. Schnoes resigned last summer.
Last year, the company's board extended the service of William B. Johnson, IC's chairman and chief executive officer, until 1986. There has been widespread speculation in recent years about a successor to Mr. Johnson, 66 years old, but Mr. Schenk, at age 62, is not considered a likely candidate.
In his new position, Mr. Schenk will be responsible for all of the company's segments except the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad, which will continue to report to Robert F. Stewart, 57, senior executive vice president. Other IC Industries units have interests in specialty foods, commercial and industrial products and consumer services.
The company also announced that C.L. Pecchenino, 57, president and chief executive officer of the Pneumo Corporation, will become an executive vice president of IC Industries and will be nominated for election to IC's board. Last October, IC acquired the Boston-based Pneumo, a producer of landing gears, flight controls and other aerospace systems. Mr. Pecchenino will remain president and chief executive of Pneumo.
Pet, purchased by IC Industries in 1978, produces a number of food items including Underwood meat spreads, Pet-Ritz frozen pie shells, Old El Paso Mexican foods and Whitman chocolates. The division reported a fourth consecutive year of record pretax earnings in 1984 even though sales declined 1 percent, to $1.1 billion.
Mr. Schenk, who attended the University of Idaho and the University of Utah and the executive program of Columbia University, began working for Pet in 1947 as a lab technician at its Buhl, Idaho, evaporated milk plant. He rose through a number of production and management positions to become president and chief executive officer of St. Louis-based Pet in 1969.
In 1984, he became chairman and chief executive of Pet as well as IC Industries' executive vice president for consumer products.
Other IC Industries' units include the Midas International Corporation, a maker and installer of vehicle mufflers; the Hussmann Corporation, a manufacturer of commercial refrigeration equipment; the Abex Corporation, a manufacturer of fluid power products for the aerospace, military and transportation industries, and Pepsi-Cola General Bottlers Inc., which serves eight Middle Western states.
IC has retained an investment banking firm to examine options for divesting itself of the Illinois Central Gulf, which hauls coal, corn and soybeans on nearly 7,000 miles of track between Chicago and Gulf Coast ports.