RICHMOND, Va. — CSX Corporation announced the election of David M. Ratcliffe and Donald J. Shepard to its board of directors. Mr. Ratcliffe serves as president and chief executive officer of Georgia Power Company and executive vice president of Southern Company. Georgia Power is a business subsidiary of Southern Company. Prior to assuming his current role in 1999, Mr. Ratcliffe held an array of senior positions with the company, most recently as executive vice president, treasurer and chief financial officer. Mr. Ratcliffe also served as senior vice president of external affairs for Southern Company and parent firm of five utilities: Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, Mississippi Power, and Savannah Electric. Mr. Ratcliffe has 30 years of service with Southern Company.
Mr. Shepard is chairman of the executive board and chief executive officer of Aegon N.V., an international insurance organization based in the Netherlands with other major country units in Hungary, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Aegon is one of the ten largest listed insurance groups worldwide.
Mr. Shepard joined Life Investors, Inc., a predecessor company of Aegon, in 1970, where he held a number of management and executive positions. In 1986 he became executive vice president and chief operating officer. He held this position until Aegon consolidated its other U.S. operations with Life Investors in 1989 to form Aegon USA, Inc., at which time Mr. Shepard was named chairman, president and chief executive officer. He was named chairman of Aegon N.V., in April 2002.
“We are delighted to have David and Donald join our board,” said John W. Snow, CSX chairman and chief executive officer. “Their impressive accomplishments and broad range of business experience will add great value to the corporation.”
Mr. Ratcliffe is also a member of the board of directors of Mississippi Chemical Corp., Atlanta and Georgia Chambers of Commerce, Woodruff Arts Center and serves as vice chair of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank.
Mr. Shepard is a member of the board of directors of the Mercantile Bankshares Corp., the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, the Financial Services Roundtable and the Johns Hopkins Medicine. He is also a trustee of the Johns Hopkins University.
CSX Corporation, based in Richmond, Va., operates one of the largest rail networks in the eastern half of the United States. It also provides intermodal, domestic container-shipping and global container terminal operations.