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High Performance Railroads: Interstate II for the 21st Century
800 Jaguar Lane * Dallas * Texas * 75226
www.TexasRailAdvocates.org
Our mission is to accelerate Texas's economic growth and enhance the quality of life enjoyed by its people by advancing the development of rail service to its full potential as a carrier of freight and passengers. |
Joe Adams is the Chairman's Special Representative for Union Pacific for Texas. In 1999, UP Chairman & CEO Dick Davidson appointed Adams to work with governmental, business and civic leaders on issues of importance to the Houston/Gulf area.
Adams began his career with the railroad in 1978 as an Assistant General Attorney in Omaha with responsibility for federal legislative issues. He was promoted to Associate General Counsel and put in charge of the railroad's government affairs program in 1982. In 1987, Mike Walsh, then CEO of Union Pacific, appointed Adams as Executive Assistant to the Chairman with responsibility for the coordination of senior management activities and the management of the railroad's Executive Department. When Walsh left Union Pacific to head Tenneco, Adams continued in this capacity under Dick Davidson.
Prior to joining Union Pacific, Adams served in the Nixon and Ford Administrations in Washington at the Civil Aeronautics Board, the White House and the U.S. Treasury Department. He is a graduate of Brown University and Stanford Law School.
Adams maintains offices at the Union Pacific's regional headquarters in Spring and in downtown Houston.
Michael W. Behrens, P.E., is executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). Under Texas Transportation Commission direction, he manages, directs, and implements TxDOT policies, programs, and operating strategies. He also represents TxDOT before the Texas Legislature and other entities. He became executive director Sept. 1, 2001.
In 1970, Behrens earned his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Texas A&M University and he began his career with TxDOT as an engineering assistant in the Yoakum District. Other positions he held in the Yoakum District include La Grange area engineer, district planning engineer, and assistant district engineer.
In 1992, after serving as acting district engineer for the Yoakum District, Behrens was appointed district engineer for the 11-county district. He became the department's assistant executive director for engineering operations in Austin in April 1998.
Behrens is a member of the Transportation Research Board Executive Committee and the board of directors of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). He is past president of the Western Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (WASHTO). Also, he serves on the Civil Engineering Council for Texas A&M University and on the Texas Transportation Institute Advisory Council.
Born in LaGrange, he and his wife, Karen, have two sons, Keith and Kevin, and a daughter, Shara.
The following is a self description of transportation experience from Gil's InterState II article where he presents a case for a Second InterState system in the U.S., the rail InterState.:
People identify me with railroad issues and advocacy. They forget that I came out of the highway lobby. As late as 1987 I was active in promoting a $1.6 billion, 1077-mile, four-lane highway development program for my home state of Mississippi. During my business career I have owned five auto dealerships and an air charter service. My first involvement at the federal level was in highway safety. President Nixon named me to the National Highway Safety Advisory Committee. In 1975 President Ford appointed me to the National Transportation Policy Study Commission, which was chaired by Bud Shuster. I led the subcommittee on advanced technology.
I went into this process a strong believer in highway transportation. After three years, I was transformed into a believer in intermodal transportation. Those sentiments were confirmed by my later work as Federal Railroad Administrator under President Bush--which also brought me into contact with leaders in aviation and transit....
George Elking was born and educated in St. Louis,Mo. He was married to the late Rita Kosman Elking for 42 years. He started his career with the MKT(Katy) Railroad in 1961, in the pricing department, in St. Louis, Mo. He rose through the ranks to become a Genreral Freight Agent. He was in charge of Piggyback(Intermodal) rates as well as overseeing all other pricing officers activities.
In November 1974, he was promoted to Asst. VP of Sales, in the MKT’s Dallas, TX headquarters. Initially he had only online sales and customer service responsibility but that role was later expanded to include all off line sales offices throughout the USA. He participated in the development of the Katy’s first FRA Loan application which also was the first time for the Federal Government to establish their loan parameters.
In 1980, with the advent of deregulation, George was given the added responsibility for both on line and off line sales. In this era his expanded role was to be the conduit for communications between the recently deregulated Rate, Industrial Development, and Operating Departments. In this role he had to develop a close working relationship with operations in order to insure customers would get the service they expected and needed.
During the 80’s George was involved with the establishment of the Katy’s Transloading service, the OKT Railroad start up, new run through train and terminal innovations with various Class One Railroads and Third Party Intermodal providers.
In August 1988, the MKT ceased its existence and it became part of the Union Pacific Railroad. At that time George, went to work for Slay Industries he started their TEXAS operations. He began their PVC Packaging, Warehousing and Tank Trucking operations, in Houston, TX. Slay Industries is a St. Louis, Headquartered family owned company. You can see the whole Slay Industries story by going to www.slay.com.
Throughout his business career George has had civic ties through his involvement as President of both the North American Association of Rail Shippers and Southwest Association of Rail Shippers. In addition to those groups he has served as a Board Member of the Plano Chamber. He is a current member and past board representative for Plano Sunrise Rotary Club. He is currently Rotary District 5810s Blood Donation Chair. With that duty goes the responsibility to encourage the District’s 61 Rotaries to donate blood. He is past President of Plano Sister Cities International and still serves on the City of Plano’s International Relations Committee. He serves on the Collin County Planning Board and is Collin Counties Representative on the North East TEXAS Rail District Board. He is supporter of many Plano area charities such as God’s Food Pantry, Plano Children’s Medical Clinic and St. Vincent de Paul Society.
Recently appointed to Amtrak’s Management Committee by President and CEO Alex Kummant, Emmett Fremaux brings a combination of customer service, operations, and marketing/sales experience to his new role as VP Marketing & Product Management.
Fremaux had re-joined Amtrak in August 2005 as VP Customer Service, following four years with the global consulting firm Accenture. He previously led Amtrak’s Sales & Distribution department during (1996-2001) as VP Customer Relationships & Revenue.
In his new position, Fremaux will concentrate on building a more focused Product Management capability at Amtrak, designed to align operations, finance, planning, and customer service efforts around a well-defined set of products across the company’s NEC, State Corridor and Long Distance business lines, and to support Amtrak’s growth strategy with an actionable focus on continuous improvement at the product level. Marketing efforts will be increasingly aligned with product performance improvement to drive ridership and revenue growth around improved customer satisfaction.
As VP Customer Service, Fremaux had responsibility for Amtrak’s Transportation Department, with a $1.1 billion operating budget and 8500 employees. He led a number of key strategic initiatives including, food and beverage reform, customer service quality measurement, the comprehensive NEC/Acela service improvement program, and a Long Distance product enhancement program focusing on the deployment of Customer Service Managers to drive service quality and improve product components on a route basis.
As VP Customer Relationships & Revenue (1996-2001), Fremaux led Amtrak’s sales and distribution operation (now part of the Marketing organization), where he established a strategic approach to channel-based sales distribution and the initial “interactive channel” capabilities – amtrak.com, Quik-Trak ticketing kiosks, and “Julie” (Amtrak’s natural language full-service auto-agent). Coordinated channel management, supported by technology advances, has grown the interactive channel share to nearly 50% of revenue vs. high-cost call center or station agent channels, in efficiently supporting the customer transactions that generate Amtrak’s $1.4 billion in ticket revenue.
Fremaux graduated magna cum laude from Williams College with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English, from Tulane University College with B.A. in Justice Administration, and completed graduate course work in the Master of Public Administration program at the University of New Orleans. He and his wife Lani Fremaux have two college age daughters and live in Washington, DC.
John Horsley is Executive Director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO).
From 1993 to 1999 he served at the U.S. Department of Transportation. As Associate Deputy Secretary, he was an advocate for intermodal policies, quality of life initiatives, and liaison to State and Local Governments, U.S. Congress, and transportation constituencies.
A native of the Northwest, Horsley was elected to five terms as County Commissioner in Kitsap County, a community just west of Seattle. He is a graduate of Harvard, an Army veteran, a former Peace Corps volunteer and Congressional aide, and did graduate study at Georgetown. He is Past President of the National Association of Counties, and was founding Chairman of the Rebuild America Coalition.
Russell McGurk is Director of Policy and Communications for Growth Options for the 21st Century (Go21). His professional background includes the management of political and issue campaigns and nearly 15 years of government experience, most recently as Chief of Staff to a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Ross Milloy is the President of the Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council, a non-profit public-private corporations comprised of contributing members from the region's business and public sectors. Charter membership includes 15 local governments and more than 60 private firms and individuals. The Corridor Council is not a political subdivision of the State of Texas, nor does it have any statutory authority. Rather, it derives its authority from the degree of consensus he can create around the issues it addresses.
Jennifer Moczygemba is the Director of the Multimodal Section of the Texas Department of Transportation.
The Multimodal Section is responsible for project planning, operations, and state/federal coordination pertaining to water transportation, freight and passenger rail, bicycles and pedestrians. In cooperation with the Federal Railroad Administration, this section is also responsible for safety inspections of railroad infrastructure and equipment.
Major freight and rail activities include passenger rail issues, rural rail transportation districts assistance, review of proposed railroad mergers and/or abandonments filed with the Surface Transportation Board, intermodal freight issues, and management of state owned rail facilities. Responsibility for Rail Safety was transferred to TxDOT on October 1, 2005.
Pete Rickerhauser is the Vice President of Network Development for BNSF Railway. BNSF, a subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE:BNI), BNSF Railway Company operates one of the largest railroad networks in North America, with about 32,000 route miles in 28 states and two Canadian provinces. BNSF is among the world’s top transporters of intermodal traffic, moves more grain than any other American railroad, transports the components of many of the products we depend on daily, and hauls enough low-sulphur coal to generate about ten percent of the electricity produced in the United States. BNSF is an industry leader in Web-enabling a variety of customer transactions at www.bnsf.com.
Since 1995, Dick Schiefelbein has served as the Port of Houston Authority’s railroad coordinator. In that role, he negotiated the agreements assuring competitive rail service at the Barbours Cut container terminal and at the new Bayport Container Terminal.
Dick sits on the Board of the Port Terminal Railroad Association and is a past chairman of the Greater Houston Partnership’s Freight Rail Committee.
Three years ago, he conducted a study of railroad crossings in Harris County and has been involved in the effort to improve mobility in Houston by adjusting rail lines in the region.
A former Deputy Federal Railroad Administrator, Dick has also worked for Burlington Northern Railroad and the Interstate Commerce Commission.
He has an MBA degree from the University of Dallas and an engineering degree from the University of Illinois.
Joseph Schwieterman is professor of public service management and director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University in Chicago. Schwieterman, an authority on the airline and railroad industries, is regularly interviewed on Bloomberg Radio, NPR's "All Things Considered" and other media outlets. His most recent book, "When the Railroad Leaves Town: American Communities in the Age of Rail Line Abandonment," was a finalist in for the 2005 George Hilton book award.
Gene Skoropowski has been Managing Director of the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority (CCJPA) since August 1999, 10 months after the CCJPA took over the administrative management of the Capitol Corridor service from the Caltrans Division of Rail.
For ten years prior, Gene was Director of Rail Transportation for Fluor Corporation, heading rail projects in Southern California, Florida, Montreal, London, Paris and Amsterdam. He served ten years as Assistant General Manager of the Philadelphia regional transit system, and was Chief Railroad Services Officer for Boston's sprawling commuter rail system for five years. While practicing as a private architect and planner, he also served 6 years on the Boston transit system's budgetary board and regional planning commission.
Gene became active as a rail advocate in the late 1960's as a 'paying daily rail commuter' in the Boston area. He is a graduate of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., with a professional degree in architecture. He and his wife Joann live in Dublin, and have three grown daughters and one grandson.
