Q&A with Grace Olsen, Union Pacific's director of locomotive engineering and quality
10/26/2022
Grace Olsen, 35, is director of locomotive engineering and quality for Union Pacific Railroad. Her team of 200 employees is charged with taking care of the Class I’s locomotives, a job that involves researching reliability trends and making sure UP’s power performs “as best as possible,” she says.
Increasingly, that means finding ways to reduce UP’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Last year, the railroad announced a goal to reduce its absolute Scope 1 and 2 GHGs by 26% by 2030 from a 2018 baseline. Since most of UP’s GHGs come from locomotives, that puts Olsen and her team in the driver’s seat to help meet that goal. According to UP, Olsen’s work is at the forefront of UP’s hybrid locomotive and battery-charging technology development. She’s also played an integral role in driving locomotive manufacturers to test and approve higher locomotive biofuel blend limits.
Recently, Olsen was honored with UP’s 2022 Chairman’s Environmental Award, which recognizes a UP employee who “demonstrates outstanding environmental awareness, leadership and responsibility.”
Her leadership at UP has attracted recent recognition from outside the company, as well: Olsen has been included among Profiles in Diversity Journal’s “2022 Women Worth Watching.”
On the personal side, Olsen is a new mom to son Glen Arthur Olsen, now three months old. Last week, during her final days on family leave, Olsen talked with RailPrime Senior Associate Editor Julie Sneider about being a female engineer working on the railroad, as well as how she’ll apply the new leadership skills she learned while at home full time with Glen to her job at UP.
RailPrime How did you end up in your current role at UP?
Olsen: UP recruited me out of college — I went to the University of Michigan — for their operations management training program. I started that in 2010, out of Chicago. Then my first manager’s position was with Mike Iden [UP’s former general director of car and locomotive engineering], who is very well known in the industry for his environmental sustainability efforts and being an all-around railroad savant.
I worked for him for a year, learned a lot about the projects that we’re talking about today: how to think creatively about what we can do about locomotive emissions and locomotive problems in general. I was part of the gen-set implementation in Chicago, and working for Mike gave me a window into the railroad industry. That was 12 years ago, and it was a bit of foreshadowing of what was to come.
I left that job and then worked in our locomotive shops for the next eight years. My last job there was as director of the Chicago shop, and I ran that facility for a little over a year until I came to this role.
My main job now is to work with the locomotive shops to make sure we have the most reliable product, but then also make sure the sustainability piece is part of our portfolio.
RailPrime You work on the day-to-day operations side of locomotives, but you’re also focused on the future through the company’s sustainability efforts. Are those two roles integrated?
Olsen: They are very integrated. For example, this summer we had a team and an intern working on how fuel nozzles are oriented on the locomotive [to make] sure we don’t have any fuel spills. That’s a good example of where the sustainability piece of my job is important, but also how the maintenance piece works. That’s where it comes together.
RailPrime As a female engineer who works in railroading, you are a minority in two fields that remain male-dominated. What has that experience been like for you?
Olsen: I have three brothers and played sports all while growing up, so I was often the only girl. Even in math, in high school — although the situation is now getting a lot better — but [I was] often one of few girls.
Then you get to engineering school and it’s the same: You’re 20% to 30% of the population. While [the percentage of women] is even less in railroading, I was used to that throughout my different experiences leading up to the railroad.
I saw a lot of opportunity at the railroad. At a very young age in your career, you can learn a lot, make really important decisions on a day-to-day basis for the business, and become a leader quickly. So, I signed up because of those opportunities and I've been really fortunate. I’ve had a lot of great mentors along the way who’ve helped me get to where I am today.
RailPrime In the article about you in Diversity Journal, you mention your grandmother was a major influence on your life. How so?
Olsen: She was of the Queen Elizabeth age of, ‘Never complain, never explain and keep a stiff upper lip.’ She taught me a lot through example. I remember her always saying that you make your own choices and as long as you make your own choices, you should have no regrets in life. And you should be able to live your life to the fullest.
That's the one piece of advice I’ve always tried to keep in mind and it helps me in my railroad career. When I moved to North Platte after my work in Chicago, I didn’t know anyone and I wasn’t used to living in a small town — I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. But she had given me a lot of confidence while I was growing up to do things that maybe my peers weren’t doing.
She did her own thing, too. She didn’t have to work after college, but she wanted to be her own person and teach. She had a family later in life, which wasn’t very common back then. Most women got married right away and started a family, and she didn’t start her family until she was 34. So, yeah, she taught me a lot — foundationally and for my career.
RailPrime Who have been some of your other mentors?
Olsen: I have a lot of mentors at UP. One reason I’ve stayed so long at UP — and will continue to stay — is because everybody is willing to help and offer their experiences. I consider my current boss, [UP AVP Mechanical] Jeremy Givens, one of mentors. One of my previous bosses, John Estes, had a big influence on my career. And Mike Cook was a mentor in North Platte. …
When you move to a lot of different places, you learn to lean on people because you are new and need help. I’ve made a lot of great friends and work colleagues. Outside of work, I have three great girlfriends from college who I lean on quite a bit; and, also, my parents.
RailPrime Have you had the opportunity to mentor junior employees, especially other women?
Olsen: Something I've tried to do informally in the last year is every time I visit a railroad location, I try to have lunch or dinner with the female employees who work at that location. … That’s really where those relationships start, which is just making sure you have that connection and that you are known to be someone who can give advice.
RailPrime What are you looking forward to achieving or striving toward when you return to work?
Olsen: The first is that having Glen has been a gift for me as a leader. And I hope to take what I’ve learned from him and make my team better. He has taught me a lot about how people learn, and being that guidance for him has made me take a step back and think about how I teach people. I want to be that kind of person for the people at the railroad: someone who takes the time to teach people.
I think I've gotten to a place in my career where things are more stable and I'm not moving every year or two, so I have that time to teach and mentor more. That’s first and foremost what I want to do with my team when I get back.
Second, I’m really excited about the work we’re doing with battery locomotives, and specifically that hybrid project — I’ve been thinking about that a lot.
