VANCOUVER, B.C. — Two senior BC Rail executives — president Mark Mudie and vice-president Debbie MacLagan — have abruptly left the Crown corporation, the Vancouver Sun reported.
BC Rail representative Alan Dever confirmed Monday the two executives left the organization Friday, but offered no explanation for their sudden departure.
“These are personal and confidential [issues] and we are not going to make any other comments,” he said. “They have left. It’s a private and personal matter between them and the company.
Mudie’s position at BC Rail will be filled temporarily by BCR Group chief executive officer Bob Phillips, while MacLagan’s position will be filled temporarily by Ian McIver, BC Rail’s sales and marketing director.
Mudie, who became president and chief operating officer at BC Rail in May 2001, joined the company in 1999. He appointed MacLagan as vice-president, marketing and sales, earlier this year.
She had been with BC Rail for 11 years and her previous positions included assistant vice-president of IT and operating systems, general manager of transportation, director of customer service design and asset utilization, and director of fleet management and service design.
BC Rail is Canada’s third-largest railway, as measured by revenue, and operates 2,315 kilometres of mainland track throughout the province. The parent BCR Group of Companies decided earlier this year to sell off its marine division and is currently looking to cut costs and sell some BC Rail assets to the private sector.
The BCR Group reported a loss of $106.9 million last year, compared with a $6.7 million loss in 2000. Mudie met with northern B.C. mayors this year to try to secure property tax breaks that would make the sale of BC Rail’s 400-kilometre line from Fort St. John to Fort Nelson more attractive to a private operator.
In the company’s latest annual report, Mudie said BC Rail must focus on its core operations and concentrate on what it does best — being a streamlined regional freight railway.
“Our ongoing challenge is that BC Rail is a regional railway that faces the same cost structures as larger North American railways, yet lacks their economies of scale,” he said in the report. ” . . . The year 2002 will be one year of challenge and change.”
Rocky Mountaineer Railtours executive vice-president James Terry said he always found Mudie to be a very honest, hard working “straight shooter” in business dealings.
“He has always been a good straight-up guy and when he said he’d get back to us on something, he’d get back to us right away and our dealings were always very professional,” he said.