(The Associated Press circulated the following article by Donna De La Cruz on August 30.)
WASHINGTON — Amtrak’s board of directors yesterday selected Alexander Kummant, a veteran railroad and industrial executive, as its president and chief executive.
Kummant will assume the job Sept. 12. He will take over for David L. Gunn, who was fired last November. Kummant previously was a regional vice president of the Union Pacific Railroad. Most recently, he was executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Komatsu America Corp., a construction equipment manufacturer. David J. Hughes has been acting Amtrak president since Gunn left.
Amtrak Chairman David M. Laney said Kummant had the credentials and experience to lead “a changing Amtrak that is more customer-focused and fiscally responsible.”
Amtrak supporters, who have accused the Bush administration of trying to dismantle the railroad, reacted cautiously to Kummant’s appointment.
“It’s good they finally appointed someone, but given this administration’s record on Amtrak, we need to know whether he was brought in to build up Amtrak or tear it down,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). “We await what he’ll have to say about Amtrak’s future.”
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said the Amtrak board “has exercised questionable judgment in the past, so I am obviously concerned about their choice to run our nation’s passenger rail system.”
Kummant, a native of Ohio, earned his undergraduate degree from Case Western Reserve University, a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from Stanford University. His wife, Kathleen Regan Kummant, is a former senior executive with the Santa Fe and BNSF railroads.
In a conference call with reporters, Laney also discussed Amtrak’s top priorities, which include improving security and cutting costs. The board is studying Amtrak’s long-distance routes and may, by the end of this year or early 2007, select routes to eliminate, expand or reduce.
Amtrak has debt of more than $3.5 billion and its operating loss for 2005 topped $550 million. It has never made a profit in its 35 years of operation.
Gunn’s firing capped a bad 2005 for Amtrak. It had to suspend all high-speed Acela service in April after finding cracks in some brakes.
The Government Accountability Office said in October that Amtrak must improve how it monitors performance and oversees its finances.
In May and June this year, three power failures disrupted trains along the Northeast Corridor. Laney said a report on the cause of the outages is imminent and that he “did not think it will be seen as Amtrak’s responsibility.”
Under a Senate bill, Amtrak’s federal subsidy would increase 8 percent, to $1.4 billion, for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. Amtrak received a $1.3 billion subsidy for the current fiscal year.