Status of the Railroad - A Message from Kenny Rocker, EVP, Marketing & Sales
Announcement Number: CN2024-20
Categories: General Announcements
Posted Date: July 30, 2024
To Our Customers,
As we round out July, I’m pleased to see the rebound in carloads after a slow start to the month from the impacts of Hurricane Beryl. The Operating team did a fabulous job of being prepared and quickly responding to safely restore operations. This further demonstrates our network resiliency in the wake of major weather disruptions.
We continue to make progress to be the best in Safety, Service and Operational Excellence. Safety is a key pillar of our strategy, and we continue to make progress to be the best in the industry. Year to date, we’ve improved our reportable injury rate by 20% and reportable derailment rate by 15%. But we’re not going to stand still and will continue to enhance our safety culture until every employee goes home safe every day.
On the service front, we strive to provide the level of service that you need and expect. Our key operating metrics are trending in the right direction – weekly car velocity is up to 206 miles per day and terminal dwell times have dropped by 3%. But as with safety, we know there is room for improvement and continue to address areas on the network that are challenged with variability.
Listening to Your Needs
We value your business and want to provide the best experience to you. Your feedback is important in helping us identify areas for improvement. One great example of taking your insights to drive change is how we’ve enhanced our Shipment Management tool –providing more customization and data integration to get you the information that is important to you. We continue to look for ways to make it easier for you to do business with us and have streamlined the survey to better gauge how we are performing to the service levels we sold. I encourage you to take a few minutes and share your thoughts with us when you receive our shorter survey once a quarter.
Announcing Marketing & Sales Leadership Changes
I am excited to share some great news with our Commercial leadership team. Josh Perkes has been appointed to senior vice president and chief human resources officer, reporting directly to CEO Jim Vena effective August 1. Josh has been a fabulous leader on our Commercial team, serving most recently as vice president at Loup Logistics for the last three years.
I am equally excited to announce Elise Gosch has been appointed to succeed Josh as vice president – Loup Logistics. Elise has been with Union Pacific for more than 20 years, most recently serving as assistant vice president - Corporate Strategy. Her experience includes several leadership roles in Marketing and Sales, including assistant vice president-Intermodal Sales and general director-Commercial Strategy.
Thank You
As always, thank you for choosing Union Pacific as your transportation provider. I’m excited about the opportunities ahead to grow with you. We have good momentum and a focus on what’s possible as we continue our journey to be the best in Safety, Service and Operational Excellence.
Sincerely,
Kenny Rocker
Executive Vice President, Marketing & Sales