SPRINGFIELD, Mass. For the first time in its nearly 80-year history, Peter Pan Bus Lines has a president who last name isnt Picknelly.

Peter Pan announced last month it had promoted Brian R. Stefano to president and chief financial officer.

"Its exciting," Stefano, 48, told an interviewer. "The business is a very competitive, capital-intensive business. Last year was a challenging year with high fuel prices and the weather. But we had a very good first quarter. People are out traveling. College students are traveling."

Stefano has assumed day-to-day management of Peter Pan, which has about 800 employees, upwards of 300 motorcoaches, and transports nearly 4 million people annually. He succeeds Peter A. Picknelly, 53.

According to the company, Picknelly will devote more of his attention to other family-owned businesses, including a real-estate development company. The familys other businesses include a sporting-goods wholesaler and Belt Technologies, which makes belts and pulleys used by industry.

Picknelly has taken the titles of chairman and CEO, which have been vacant since the death of his father, Peter L. Picknelly, in 2004. (See Oct. 15, 2004 Bus & Motorcoach News.)

Stefano has been with Peter Pan for 23 years. He was an accountant working for an outside firm on Peter Pan business when Peter L. Picknelly hired him as the companys controller.

In recent years, under Peter A. Picknelly leadership, Peter Pan partnered with Greyhound Bus Lines to create BoltBus, and initiated Peter Pan Express, to better compete with curbside operators and megabus.com.

More recently, Peter Pan shut down a taxi service it had started in Northampton, Mass. Green Cab Co. operated a fleet of five Ford Escape hybrid taxis and a pair of small vans, serving Northampton and Amherst, Mass.

The 20-month operation failed to turn a profit, however, running up against livery vehicles that a Peter Pan executive said were evading city regulations and bottom feeding.

Stefano is an alumnus of Western New England University.