(The following story by Alex Kummant appeared on the New York Times website on August 10.)
NEW YORK — A streak of resilience runs through my family. Three of my grandparents’ families immigrated in the 1700s to Russia, then under Catherine the Great, from Germany. Then they were forced to leave during the Russian Revolution.
After World War II, each of my parents immigrated to Canada and then to the United States, where they met. My mother came from a German refugee camp after leaving Estonia just ahead of the collapsing Russian front. My father’s family, from Poland, regrouped in Vienna and then left. In effect, my family lost everything twice.
My father was chief engineer in a steel mill in the United States during the oil drilling boom of the 1970s. The endurance required in that type of work is also a thread in the manufacturing and transportation companies I’ve been involved in. These are heavily capitalized businesses where there’s an almost physical engagement. That has always appealed to me. The strategic questions are often about whether you spend a great deal of money or close facilities.
Part of life in heavy industry involves a certain dogged persistence in pursuing incremental improvements. I contrast that with the Silicon Valley executives who say you need to have big goals and challenge the organization. I don’t disagree with that, but when you grow up in manufacturing or transportation, the incremental improvements you make every day are what create robust change in the end.
My first job out of college was in an engineering group at Standard Oil of Ohio. I spent three years on a solar energy project. When oil prices crashed in the mid-1980s, it was clear that the project would be discontinued. Twenty-three years later, the price of oil is playing a significant role in Amtrak’s recent increase in ridership.
I went to Carnegie Mellon University for a master’s degree in engineering. After graduating, I worked for a Carnegie spin-off. I also went back to school, in the late 1980s, for an M.B.A from Stanford. In 1999, I joined the Union Pacific railroad as vice president and general manager, industrial products, in Omaha and eventually took over as vice president, central region, in Kansas City, Mo.
Competition among big railroads can be fierce, but I married a woman from another railroad company. I met Kathleen, my wife-to-be, when I was at Union Pacific and she was working for Burlington Northern Santa Fe. I left Union Pacific and became president of Bomag, an international manufacturer of heavy equipment for road construction.
Most big rail companies are facing a brain drain in the next five to seven years because of retirements. But also, because of our pay scale, we’re going to have to find ways to attract and retain the next generation of employees. Since we report to people rooted in government, sometimes we have to work hard to get the point across that we cannot support critical functions at the government pay rate. It’s always a political tug of war.
We’ve just completed a major labor agreement with our 15,000 unionized front-line people, which was long overdue. They’re now much more aligned with the market. But we’re also an intense knowledge business, with complex systems that include marketing, finance, engineering and I.T. Those are all critical functions as well.
Chief executives are often asked what keeps them up at night. For me, the first answer is my four-month-old. The second answer is human resources issues.
Being an older father keeps you young. People who have children at a younger age sometimes take it for granted. You trade off a creaky back for a certain amount of wisdom you can bring to a child. I approach fatherhood with a sense of humility every day, and a little bit of wonder. It’s a blessing.
(As told to Patricia R. Olsen.)