From the editor: Hamberger to receive the 2018 Railroad Innovator Award

By Pat Foran, Editor

We announced this late last month and I'm very happy to share the news in this space: Progressive Railroading and RailTrends^® have named Association of American Railroads President and CEO Ed Hamberger the 2018 recipient of the Railroad Innovator Award. The award recognizes an individual’s outstanding achievement in the rail industry.

Hamberger, who's served as AAR's CEO since 1998, has helped the freight-rail industry navigate periods of economic change and regulatory uncertainty. Notably, he's consistently (and nimbly) advocated for a balanced regulatory environment, one that has enabled railroads to post continued record private investment in infrastructure. He's also fostered innovation on the government relations front, leading the way as the industry entered the public-private partnership realm. And he remains focused on clearing a path to help railroads develop and deploy new safety technologies.

Ed began his career in transportation as general counsel of the National Transportation Policy Study Commission. He served as assistant secretary for governmental affairs at the U.S. Department of Transportation and managing partner at D.C. firm Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell. He also served as an appointed member of the Private Sector Advisory Panel on Infrastructure Financing; a member of the Presidential Commission on Intermodal Transportation; and on the Blue Ribbon Panel of Transportation Experts.

AAR's longest-tenured head, Hamberger on May 16 announced plans to retire early next year.

"Ed has helped the AAR through the flowering of the 'railroad renaissance' with grit when it was needed to fend off ill-conceived regulatory threats, and he did so with grace, always," says Tony Hatch, an independent transportation analyst and program consultant for the annual RailTrends conference. "Under his tenure, the rails moved through enormous challenges, from the fall of coal to the rise of intermodal, and the PTC mandate. Under his beneficent leadership, the rails have done so well and expanded to be a truly continental network. Like Victoria to 19th century England, we may look back on this as rail's 'Edwardian Age.'"

I already do. I met Ed in fall 1998, a couple of months after he'd been selected to lead the AAR and a couple of weeks after I got the editor gig here.

Ed's grasp of the issues (not just the rail ones) and ability to put them in context make him a natural dot-connector and a go-to problem solver. He's done more than help railroads tell the rail story. He’s nudged them to keep the storytelling in present (and future) tense.

We'll present Ed with the award during RailTrends 2018, which will be held Nov. 29-30 at the New York Marriott Marquis in New York City. For more information, log onto RailTrends.com.