Alexander K. Kummant (born 1962)
was named by
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
on August 29, 2006, as the railroad company's new
president and
chief executive officer
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization.
CEOs find roles in variou ...
effective September 12 of that year. He succeeded
David L. Gunn in this position who was dismissed in November 2005, and
David Hughes who had been serving as interim president.
Kummant submitted his resignation from Amtrak on November 14, 2008.
He graduated from
Case Western Reserve University's engineering school in 1982.
Before working for Amtrak, Kummant had worked as an executive for
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...
(UP) where he fulfilled several Vice President roles. After UP, Kummant also served as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of
Komatsu America Corporation. Before that, he was president of
BOMAG, the
German manufacturer of
road rollers and other construction material compacting equipment.
As Amtrak president and CEO, Kummant was more conciliatory towards the survival of Amtrak in its current form than Congressional Republicans had been during the early 2000s. During his term, he did not support Congressional proposals to split the
Northeast Corridor (the segment from Boston to Richmond) from the rest of Amtrak's operations; nor did he envision shedding the long distance east-west routes of Amtrak.
Kummant submitted his resignation on November 14, 2008. Upon his resignation, Amtrak
COO William Crosbie assumed the role of interim CEO, but was succeeded on November 25 by former
FRA administrator
Joseph H. Boardman.
claims that inside sources indicate that Kummant did not in fact resign voluntarily, but was made to quit because of a dispute with the board of directors about debt restructuring.
In October 2012, Kummant was recruited by
QR National in Australia, becoming Executive Vice President Strategy.
See also
*
Amtrak
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
References
1942 births
Living people
Amtrak presidents
21st-century American railroad executives
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