118 UTAH INTERNATIONAL: A BIOGRAPHY OF A BUSINESS Senior Vice President and Secretary Albert L. Reeves also directed staff functions. create, and that he was not the fellow on which to build Utah’s future.” This appraisal represented a dramatic departure from Eccles’s earlier view, expressed at the January 20, 1950, shareholders’ meeting, when he described Christensen as having “unusual qualities of foresight, leadership, imagination, and knowledge of construction and mining operations.” Although Eccles traveled extensively and spent much of his time in Washington, D.C., he chaired the executive committee and closely oversaw the company. As his confidence in Christensen dipped, his confidence in Littlefield rose. Other board members shared the chairman’s views, and starting in late 1956 and building slowly until the summer of 1958, personal animosities between Eccles and Christensen exacerbated their differences.