Stephen Gardner of Amtrak explains details of the storm-damaged North River Tunnel beneath the Hudson River during a Jan. 28, 2019, inspection trip for elected officials. Gardner is being promoted to a newly created position overseeing operations and commercial efforts.
Pool photo/Ed Murray, New Jersey Advance Media for NJ.com
WASHINGTON — Amtrak has announced the addition of a new chief financial officer and the promotion of Stephen Gardner to a new position.
Tracie Winbigler will join Amtrak June 24 as executive vice president and chief financial officer. She previously was chief financial officer at retail firm REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.), and before that was chief financial officer and later chief operation officer at National Geographic.
Gardner, a senior executive vice president, will take the newly created position of chief operating and commercial officer, reporting directly to CEO Richard Anderson. He previously served as senior executive vice president for the commercial, marketing and strategy group. He has been at Amtrak since 2009.
Could a new CFO push to move the organization to GAAP?
One of the primary duties of any top-level corporate officer is to train his/her successor. This precept has been followed quite successfully over the years and especially in the railroad industry; see both of Rush Loving’s books. In the event that more than one is “ready to move up”, they are well qualified to take a similar position at another key player in the same industry. Unfortunately, Amtrak is, and has been, the rare exception in the industry. In the present case, Gardner is as poorly qualified as Anderson.
Jeffrey Blackwood – Good point(s). I suppose in the real world today, it’s not your father’s Oldsmobile.
If our economy is undergoing financialization (the increasing dominance of the financial sector over the economy and government policy), then railroads are going to hire the best financial people money can buy, railroad experience not required. This is unfortunate, because these people probably won’t have a love and respect for the business. Perhaps it’s just the transportation business, but wouldn’t you want for a senior leader of a airline a man or woman who loves airplanes, or for a railroad senior leader a man or woman who loves trains?
As for Gardner, he is being positioned to follow Anderson as CEO. The track record of Amtrak CEOs promoted from within isn’t good.
Gerald – So I shouldn’t blink if, say, Union Pacific announces the hiring of a CFO straight from Can-Am motorcycles and Better Homes and Gardens? I would think that railroad finance has many unique aspects, the understanding of which only comes with years of experience in the industry, but maybe it’s different with a more political animal, like Amtrak. Hiring top-level people from outside the industry, this particular industry, just seems odd and wrong-headed to me.
Ian and George
A CFO does NOT need to have experience in the industry they are working, they do however need to have experience with the financial markets, accounting and anything else related to finances…hence the term Chief Financial Officer. So the sarcasm from both of you is misplaced and out of touch with modern reality.
The exception of course should be the CEO of the company when it comes to something as specialized as railroading, in this case Amtrak has failed, and the same would go with the COO(Chief Operating Officer) position…but we all know that neither of the two persons in those positions know diddly squat about railroad operations. So Amtrak is batting .333 for those 3 offices(they’ve gotten one out of 3 correct).
Workers are workers and managers manage. It doesn’t matter if the manager at the ball factory thinks balls are square widgets. Just send them down the conveyor belt. And airplanes don’t need wings to fly according to the manager. Have faith it will all work out in the end! :~}
Hmmm…..Recreational Equipment and National Geographic – I guess CFO’s are fungible these days, and there’s nothing special about a railroad that would require experience in that field. Hey, a railroad is the same as an airline, isn’t that true? So why not the same as recreational equipment and a magazine? Onward and upward!