Rising Stars 2023: Dustin Ralls

Dustin Ralls, 35
Manager of product development
Canadian Pacific Kansas City

Nominator’s quote: “Dustin is a true railroader. … We are so thankful for Dustin’s dedication, his knowledge and his ability to lead a project through the pipeline.” — Gil Niesen, Canadian Pacific Kansas City

Education: Bachelor’s degree in marketing and management and MBA from Benedictine College.

Job responsibilities: Evaluate and recommend product offerings that provide balanced, competitive service in new or existing markets. Also, manage changes in existing design that improve and minimize impact to service quality and lead development of service standards while corresponding with operational capability in consideration of network capacity.

Career path: Worked as a conductor switchman in Kansas City, Missouri, with BNSF Railway Co. Later, promoted to terminal trainmaster in Belen, New Mexico, and then division trainmaster in Albuquerque. Hired at Kansas City Southern as corridor manager and chief dispatcher, then advanced to business implementation manager. After Canadian Pacific and KCS merger, transitioned to new role as manager of product development.

How did you get into the rail industry? In high school, our next-door neighbor worked for BNSF and seemed to really enjoy his job. I was always fascinated with the fast-paced logistics industry, so I would constantly ask him questions about the railroad and how it operated. He encouraged me to give it a try when I graduated, so I applied and was offered both a frontline supervisor job with Union Pacific Railroad and a conductor job with BNSF. Based on my conversations with him, I felt the experience I would gain as a conductor would be invaluable later in my career. As a result, I decided to forgo the jump directly into management and started at the ground level. I've called on this experience countless times since transitioning to management and wouldn't change a thing.

What is the best career advice you’ve received so far? My first mentor always told me to never be afraid of asking questions because there’s no such thing as a stupid one. In a safety-sensitive situation, you never know if it’ll save your life. You’ll also be surprised at how much you’ll learn, and how often you can call on that knowledge later in your career.

What advice would you give to a new railroader? Never pass up the opportunity to learn something new. Knowledge is power, especially in the rail industry. The more you know about a multitude of different aspects, the more well-rounded and better off you'll be.

What was your first job? Cleaning toilets and digging ditches. When I was 13, I actually had two jobs that I split my time between working during the summers. I was a janitor for a small local gym in downtown Kansas City. My mom would take me to work with her a couple days per week and I would walk across the street to the gym and clean. When I wasn’t at the gym, I worked for my dad’s friend digging sprinkler lines by hand for residential installation. My parents wanted me to understand the value of hard work, so needless to say, I was ready for school to start in the fall.

Share a fun fact about yourself. When I’m not working or chasing my 4-year-old around the house, my favorite pastime is hunting. I’ve had quite a few adventures that range from spearfishing in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, to bowhunting desert sheep in Texas. My ultimate goal is to eventually go on a backcountry elk or moose hunt with a bow.

If you could have dinner with anyone alive in the world, who would it be and why? Peter Zeihan. He’s an author and geopolitical analyst who has an incredibly well-educated view of how the world operates. He’s correctly predicted a multitude of world events, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine down to the exact year, almost a decade prior to the event. I would love to hear more from him on the current state of world affairs, in addition to what he thinks will happen globally in the coming years.

Who has had the biggest influence on your career and why? My parents. They always stressed to me that there is nothing you can’t accomplish as long as you’re willing to work hard enough. I utilized that mentality in sports, school and now in my professional life, and it continues to serve me well to this day.

Describe a major obstacle in your career and how you surmounted it. Managing the processing time to determine the feasibility of new business opportunities. The process was taking entirely too long, which was further complicated by an unplanned 50% reduction in headcount. To overcome this hurdle, we developed a set of metrics and a live dashboard to monitor all aspects of our process on a daily basis. From there, we created a standard deviation and investigated anything outside the parameters to replicate the positives and mitigate the negatives. The result was a more than 95% reduction in overall processing time, with a goal success rate increase from 7% to 83%.