(The following article by Parmy Olson was posted on Forbes website on August 30.)
WASHINGTON — At last, there’s a new head conductor for the strapped-for-cash U.S. passenger train service Amtrak. After a nine month search by Amtrak’s board of directors — who were themselves appointed by the President — Alexander Kummant has been chosen to take the helm on Sept. 12.
Kummant, 46, is effectively replacing David Gunn, a 20-year veteran of the railways who spent much of his tenure at Amtrak sparring with the Bush administration over policy and federal funding. Keeping the seat warm since Gunn was fired last November has been interim chief executive David Hughes, a former Amtrak chief engineer.
The tensions between Gunn and the Bush administration were not without cause. A quasi-governmental agency, Amtrak was created by Congress 35 years ago and has seen losses of over $1 billion in the last three years. While transport planners have pushed for the company to cut costs, reduce long-distance routes and carve off non-core business, members of Congress have hesitated to cut government subsidies since the rail service employs many of their own constituents.
Kummant will thus have much political parleying to look forward to, though he might find himself on a steep learning curve when it comes to representing Amtrak. While his first job saw him working on the railroad as part of a track crew in Lorain, Ohio, his most recent posts were far from the train lines. He was most recently an executive at a division of the Japanese construction equipment giant Komatsu, and prior to that ran a division of heavy machines-maker SPX.
Apart from a stint as a freight rail executive at Union Pacific, experience with passenger rails services seems palpably absent from Kummant’s resume, and that has already raised eyebrows among some members of Congress.
Even so, Amtrak’s chairman David M. Laney reckons Kummant is just what the company needs to become more customer-focused and fiscally responsible.
“His appointment fulfills the board’s commitment to select an extraordinarily strong and capable leader for Amtrak’s future,” Laney said in a statement.
The industry, as well as the U.S. government, will be waiting to see how true that is.