Two executive vacancies have been filled by the UTU Board of Directors.
General Chairperson John Lesniewski (CSX, GO 049) was elected second alternate vice president – east, to fill a vacancy created by the retirement of now former General Chairperson Jim Huston (BNSF, GO 009).
Also, UTU Local 1422 (Los Angeles) Chairperson Robert Resendez was elected an alternate on the executive board, filling a vacancy created by the resignation of General Chairperson Troy Johnson (Union Pacific, GO 927).
Month: March 2011
Walt Barrows, secretary-treasurer of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen since 1999, has been nominated by President Obama to fill the labor chair on the three-member Railroad Retirement Board, succeeding Butch Speakman, who is retiring.
The nomination requires Senate confirmation.
Barrows began his railroad career as a signalman with Norfolk & Western Railway (now part of Norfolk Southern) in 1974.
Since 2004, Barrows has been the labor trustee of the National Railroad Retirement Investment Trust, a position earlier held by former UTU General Secretary and Treasurer Dan Johnson.
Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles has been elected a member of Norfolk Southern’s board of directors.
His name is most associated with President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, on which he served as co-chair with former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.).
Bowles twice lost bids to become a U.S. senator from North Carolina. In 2002, he lost a bid to succeed Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), losing to Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.); and in 2004, seeking the seat of John Edwards (D-N.C.), who had resigned, Bowles was defeated by Richard Burr (R-N.C.)
A retired president of the University of North Carolina, Bowles also serves on the boards of General Motors, the Wall Street firm of Morgan Stanley and a North Carolina insurance company.