Boeing Co. said Nancy Bethel has been...

Boeing Co. said Nancy Bethel has been promoted to the No. 3 position in its commercial airplane division, the world’s largest manufacturer of passenger planes. Bethel, 43, succeeds Richard Albrecht, who retired Aug. 1, as executive vice president. She will help manage Boeing’s largest business with Ronald Woodard, the division’s president, and Tom Schick, Woodard’s deputy. Bethel was vice president and general manager for customer services. . . . Closely held A&W; Restaurants Inc. said it plans to open 100 outlets in regional malls and neighborhood strip malls in the next five years on the West Coast and Midwest. The nation’s oldest franchise restaurant chain has 180 mall-based units in 40 states. . . . Equity Office Properties Trust agreed to buy six office buildings from Prudential Insurance Co. of America for about $290 million, its third purchase since billionaire financier Sam Zell took the company public last month. . . . The National Assn. of Securities Dealers’ board today is expected to end a requirement that stockbrokers’ age-, sex- and race-discrimination claims against their employers be heard exclusively by industry arbitration panels. . . . Fourteen years after co-founding a small computer-cable company in his garage, S. Robert Levine is retiring as president and chief executive of Cabletron Systems. He will be succeeded by Don Reed, 53, a Nynex Corp. executive. . . . A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted unanimously to recommend approval of an implantable, pacemaker-like device made by Medtronic Inc. to control incontinence.