CEO Nate Asplund took over Jan. 1 from former chief Jim Hertwig, who retired as of Dec. 31, 2017. Before joining FEC, Asplund served as president and CEO of the Red River Valley & Western Railroad, a 500-plus mile regional railroad serving North Dakota and Minnesota.
Between 2010 and 2015, Asplund served as BNSF Railway’s assistant vice president for Mexico traffic. In this role, he served as the general manager of BNSF’s Mexico subsidiary and led a team focused on intermodal transportation via five international gateways accessed by BNSF and its partner railroads in Mexico.
Asplund joined BNSF Railway in 2007 to head of its public-private partnership team and successfully pioneered partnerships with the public sector to remedy rail infrastructure chokepoints in several Midwest and Western states.
Between 1994 and 2007, Asplund served with Crowley Maritime Corp. in a variety of functions where he developed marine transportation and logistics projects in the U.S., South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Russia, and Africa. Between 1988 and 1994, Nate worked for Burlington Northern, focusing on agricultural export traffic to the Pacific Rim and Mexico.
