ORANGE COUNTY

Ralph W. Salo, former chief financial officer for The Broadway Dept. Stores, a 42-store division of Los Angeles-based Carter Hawley Hale, has been appointed vice president and chief financial officer of Anaheim-based Clothestime Inc., which operates a 248-store chain of women’s discount apparel stores.

Salo, 42, who served four years as chief financial officer for The Broadway chain, fills the vacancy left by William W. Mowbray, who resigned as chief financial officer of Clothestime in July, in part to pursue investments in areas other than retailing. When he retired, Mowbray, 46, was considered by Clothestime executives to be one of the major players in orchestrating the company’s burgeoning growth over the last seven years.

Salo said he left The Broadway because he wanted the “opportunity to be with a company that’s growing at between 20% and 25% a year.”

Clothestime, he said, “presents more of a challenge than maintaining an operation that’s pretty well established but really not growing all that quickly.”