(The following article by Chris Mondics was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on July 16.)
CAPE BRETON, Nova Scotia — David Gunn made a career restoring troubled transit systems in some of North America’s largest cities, including Philadelphia.
But he says he feels most at home in the remote hills of Cape Breton Island in northern Nova Scotia, where he lives in a large Colonial farmhouse perched above Lake Bras d’Or, a body of salt water connected to the Atlantic by an inlet. Little more than 100 yards from his house nests a pair of bald eagles that swoop and soar over the lake, or screech at the approach of passersby. Huge spruce forests cover the hills and reach to the water’s edge.
Gunn’s mother grew up on a nearby farm; his father’s family came from an even more remote region farther north, in Newfoundland.
Now in his late 60s, Gunn remains true to his tightfisted Scottish ancestors by pinching pennies wherever possible.
He drives a meticulously maintained 10-year-old pickup. And he heats his house with wood that he cuts on his 1,000 acres and splits without the aid of a mechanized splitter. He reckons that he uses about seven cords to get through the long Nova Scotia winter. A visitor noted that the stoves were in use all day recently to ward off the cold of late May.
Four years ago, around the time Gunn was named Amtrak president, he received a call at home from a consultant at McKinsey & Co. who wanted to travel to Nova Scotia to explain to Gunn why McKinsey should continue advising the rail line on how to cut staffing and other costs.
To discuss the matter, the consultant offered to take Gunn out to dinner, but that plan was dropped after Gunn explained that the only options were several fast-food restaurants in Port Hawkesbury, a dozen miles away.
Gunn listened to the pitch, but he doesn’t believe in consultants: “If you know how to do your job, you don’t need a consultant.” McKinsey was not able to persuade him; as soon as he took over, he made sure that Amtrak did not renew its contract with the company.
The Harvard-educated Gunn could make a pile of money hiring himself out as a consultant in Washington. But he says his neighbors, friends and relatives on Cape Breton are most important to him. He sings in his church choir, and when his church lost its minister, he stepped in to give sermons.
Over a long career running transit agencies in Toronto, New York and other cities, Gunn has had to answer to some tough overseers. But he frets the most over his sermons. His fellow churchgoers are one group he least wants to disappoint.