DAN Wright, the man who fronted the rescue of Glasgow's Albion auto components plant before leaving the business abruptly nearly two years ago, was yesterday appointed managing director of support services group Semple Cochrane.

Semple's deputy managing director, Ian McKendrick, who has a 10% stake in the company, resigned from the board yesterday to ''pursue other interests''.

Tom Clark, who led Paisley-based Semple's highly-successful flotation in late 1996, will remain as executive chairman but will relinquish responsibility for the company's day-to-day running to Wright.

Clark will devote his time to devising Semple's future growth strategy and seeking acquisitions.

Clark said McKendrick, one of three colleagues who participated equally with the executive chairman in purchasing Semple in 1980, would ''continue to help out with our businesses in South-east Asia for several months''.

Insisting that McKendrick's departure was ''amicable'' and disputing the suggestion that it was sudden, Clark added: ''It is not sudden. We don't do sudden things very often.

''The departure was amicable. It is where he wants to be and, more importantly, it is where the company wants to be.

''We are trying to build for the future. I think you have got to (accept) that guys that have been here for 20 years are not all men for the future.''

Clark said the ''men for the future'' were now the ''ones in command''.

McKendrick's stake is worth more than #4m and Clark pointed out that he was the subject of ''an orderly market agreement'' which would ensure he disposed of any shares ''in an orderly way over time''.

Semple offers a wide range of engineered support services covering everything from ship refitting - it is working on the former Royal Yacht Britannia just now - to an electronic surveillance system for Bangkok's main prison.

Meanwhile, John Brady has been appointed as an executive director with responsibility for Semple's rail division.

Brady worked with Semple for 10 years but missed out on some of the flotation spoils by leaving four years ago to work for

Glasgow-based specialist engineering company Walker MacLeod, one of its suppliers.

He returned early last year to develop the rail activities, which cover aspects as diverse as devising generation systems to ensure points do not freeze and installing closed-circuit television cameras at stations.

Wright joined Semple's board as a non-executive director at the time of its flotation, only about two months after his sudden and surprising departure from the three-plant Albion Auto Industries.

He said yesterday that he had left Albion because ''my ambitions for the group were more aggressive than some of the other directors'', and he continues to believe he was right.

Wright had fronted the rescue of the Albion business from receivership in 1993, following the collapse of Leyland DAF.

Sales soared from #30m to #75m in two years but had flattened out in the year in which Wright left and he had wanted to keep the growth rate going.

The Semple appointment is Wright's first full-time job since leaving the chief executive post at Albion.

He said yesterday that he had been involved in consultancy work for the aeronautics and vehicle construction industries and had received offers of funding from venture capitalists to pursue acquisitions.

He said it had been difficult to see any acquisitions of sufficient magnitude.

Wright was also part of the anti-devolution ''Think Twice'' campaign, in the run-up to last September's referendum.

Semple Cochrane shares, placed with institutions at 180p each when the company came to market at the end of 1996, edged up 1p to 494p yesterday.