Richard K. Davidson

Richard (Dick) K. Davidson (born January 9, 1942 in Allen , Kansas ) is an American manager. He was chairman , CEO and president of Union Pacific Corporation .

Life

Richard Davidson grew up on a small farm near Topeka . His father died in a traffic accident when he was six years old. His mother then began to work as a nurse, she also ran the farm, on which Richard and his brother had to work.

In 1960 Richard Davidson began working as a brakeman and after two years as a conductor at the Missouri Pacific Railroad to finance his studies. After receiving his bachelor's degree from Washburn University in Topeka in 1966, he was accepted into the management trainee program of the Missouri Pacific. After nine months, he began his work as Assistant Trainmaster in the Hollywood Yard in Shreveport ( Louisiana ) in 1966 and then worked in other areas of the operational department. In 1975 he was Assistant to the Vice President for Operations for a year and then became Vice President for that area. After the merger of the Missouri Pacific Railroad with the Union Pacific Railroad in 1982, he worked in various management positions at the Union Pacific Railroad. From 1986 he was appointed Vice President for Operations by the President of the Union Pacific Railroad, Michael H. Walsh , to implement the company's internal quality system.

In 1989, after moving from Jerry R. Davis to CSX Transportation, he became executive vice president of operations. In August 1991, after the sudden departure of Walsh, he became President, CEO and Chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad. In August 1995 he gave up the role of president to Ronald J. Burns and served as chairman of the railway company. After Burns had to leave the company in November 1996, he again took on the role of Chief Executive Officer. On January 1, 1997, he became Chairman, CEO and President of the holding company Union Pacific Corporation, succeeding Andrew L. Lewis .

During this time (end of 1996 / beginning of 1997) the merger of the Union Pacific Corporation with the Southern Pacific Rail Corporation as well as unexpected economic growth led to a complete overload of the route network with the result that trains ran for hundreds of kilometers on the routes jammed. As a result, Davidson's open manner succeeded in regaining the confidence of investors and senders and averting long-term damage to the company.

Davidson moved the headquarters of the holding company to Omaha to the headquarters of the rail company. Through the sale of all non-rail group companies, most recently in 2005 the forwarding company Overnite Transportation , the Union Pacific Corporation became a pure rail company again.

On January 1, 2006, he resigned as President and CEO of Union Pacific Corporation and passed the business on to the president of the rail company, James R. Young . At the end of January 2007, he retired as Chairman of Union Pacific Corporation and as CEO and Chairman of Union Pacific Railroad.

In addition to his work at Union Pacific, he served on the boards of the California Energy Company, Impala Asset Management, Chesapeake Energy Corporation, The Kroger Co.

Richard Davidson received several awards. In 2001 he was inducted into the Kansas Business Hall of Fame and received the Horatio Alger Award. In 2003 he was named Railroader of the Year . In 2004 he was the "King" of the Aksarben Foundation , a non-profit organization in Nebraska.

He served on the Foundation's board of directors for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and a member of the Kennedy Center Corporate Fund Board, as well as the Board of Trustees of the Boy Scouts of America .

Richard K. Davidson has been married several times and has several children.

literature

• Maury Klein : Union Pacific: The Reconfiguration . America's Greatest Railroad from 1969 to the Present. Oxford University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-536989-2 , pp. 161 f .

Web links

• Richard K. Davidson 1942 - Biography -. Accessed December 21, 2017 . 
• Richard K. Davidson: Executive Profile & Biography - Bloomberg. Retrieved December 21, 2017 . 
• Richard K. Davidson - Kansapedia - Kansas Historical Society. Accessed December 21, 2017 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ AKSARBEN MONARCHS . ( aksarben.org [accessed December 13, 2017]). AKSARBEN MONARCHS ( Memento of the original from December 13, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.