Emilio Sacristan: A principled pragmatist

By Pat Foran, Editor

Officially, Emilio Sacristan Roy has been Asociacion Mexicana de Empresas Ferrocarrileras A.C.'s (AMF) director general since January. But the 66-year-old economist/educator/consensus builder has been the Mexican railroad network's biggest fan for more than a decade.

Sacristan's eclectic resume screams problem-solving experience; it lists more than three dozen job titles in government administration alone. But in international rail circles, he's known as the principled pragmatist who helped shape Mexico's successful railroad privatization in the mid- to late 1990s. His newest gig should only serve to reinforce his reputation.

"He really knows how government and transportation work," says Gil Carmichael, former Federal Railroad Administrator and current senior chairman of the University of Denver's Intermodal Transportation Institute, where Sacristan is on the faculty. "He keeps it simple and makes things work."

Like father, like son
Making things work — particularly during crises — is a Sacristan family trait. A lawyer by trade, Emilio's father, Antonio Sacristan Coles, was treasury undersecretary of Spain's Republican government in the mid-1930s. A self-taught economist, Antonio wrote the first review in Spanish of John Maynard Keynes' 1935 book The General Theory of Employment, Interest & Money.

A year later, the Spanish Civil War broke out. When the military toppled the government in 1939, Antonio was an economist without a country. He and his wife, French-born Dolores Roy, fled to Mexico to start a new life. Antonio went first, arriving in Mexico City in May 1939; Dolores joined him in September. Emilio was born in December.

In Mexico, Antonio was a banker, and teacher of law and economics. It was the latter subject that Emilio ("I'm a Keynesian") loved.

My father said, "'You have to go to Harvard,'" Sacristan says. He did, graduating cum laude from the Cambridge, Mass., university with a B.A. in economics in 1961.

After a year in graduate school at New York City's Columbia University, he returned to Mexico to get married and, he thought, to work in the development bank his father founded. But the institution was nationalized, so Emilio sought work elsewhere. He found it with the Mexican government.

Sacristan worked at federal agencies for the next 36 years, serving in numerous departments and capacities — from economic advisor/portfolio investment analyst to vice president of government-run steel mills to VP-airports. Along the way, he learned to roll with the political punches.

"In government, you have to; you're out of a job pretty much every three years," he says.

He also developed a reputation as an effective educator. Since 1963, he has been a professor of economic theory at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and he has lectured at a host of other institutions. In 1968, he returned to Columbia and earned his M.A. in economics.

And, like his father, he has published numerous essays and articles in academic and industry periodicals. Sacristan's ability to step comfortably in and out of the academic and political worlds prepared him for his biggest challenge. In 1993, he was asked to manage the privatization of Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Mexico's (FNM) locomotive shops. But Sacristan wasn't big on privatization.

"I did not see how private ownership could improve their performance," he says.

Always game to entertain an idea, Sacristan studied the shops. His conclusion? The shops were grossly inefficient and incapable of making it on their own — ideal candidates, then, for privatization. By 1994's end, the San Luis Potosi shop was concessioned — successfully enough to convince FNM President Luis de Pablo to ask Sacristan to privatize Mexico's railway system. Again, he bristled. But upon further review, Sacristan saw no other alternative.

"People tried to turn FNM around, but the inertia was just too great," he says.

He spent the next five years piecing the privatization together.

"It's been very successful," says Ferrocarril Mexicano S.A. de C.V. (Ferromex) Operations Director Lorenzo Reyes Retana, who worked with Sacristan at FNM. "We all recognize Emilio's role in making it happen."

The art of nudging
So, when the six privatized roads last year began to think about establishing an association of their own, the politically connected Sacristan was the clear choice to serve as director general.

"He articulates the industry's issues very, very well," Reyes Retana says.

It helps that Sacristan, whose love of life is infectious (so is his hearty laugh), is "really fun to be with," Reyes Retana says. "He has a great sense of humor and perspective."

Sacristan, who in 1999 had hooked up with supplier Alstom Transporte S.A.de C.V., where he served as VP and managing director until March 2004, was thrilled to sign on. AMF's mission is to represent the railroads' common interests — from interline service to tax-related issues — and promote the use of rail. Sacristan's biggest near-term challenge: help railroads — chiefly, TFM S.A. de C.V. and Ferromex — resolve thorny trackage rights issues that have plagued the privatization since Day One.

"If the railroads don't get along better, local shippers will start to suffer," he says.

The good news: Representatives from the six railroads now meet monthly.

"We're getting there," Sacristan says.

A nurturing nudge or two from Sacristan will help ensure that they do.