Passenger Trains > Amtrak Management Structure

Can anyone provide the Management structure for Amtrak...I have a gut feeling it's extremely top heavy.

Find any corporation tha tisn't.


BKLYN Wrote:
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> Can anyone provide the Management structure for
> Amtrak...I have a gut feeling it's extremely top
> heavy.

this little piece of info is concerning one upper management person's hiring practices ... I remember when I was married my wife at the time attended a speaking engagement seminar and the speaker was a CEO of a company who's hiring practice was quite unique ...

i never forgot what she told me almost 3 decades later ... when a person was being considered for an upper management position with the company this particular CEO would take that individual out to dinner ... the 2 would put their dinner orders in ... here's the crazy part ... when food came out to the table he would carefully watch and see if the person would season their food first before they tasted it ... if they seasoned the food first before tasting it ... the CEO considered that individual a hiring risk because they assumed their food needed to be seasoned therefore in the mind of the CEO, the individual would rush judgement and would make important decisions not based on pertinent info and not gathering any and/or all important related info first and he would not hire them ...

so the lesson learned here boys and girls ...

When being considered for a management/superviory position, and the boss takes you to dinner first, always always always taste your food first before seasoning ... :-) ... HA !!!!

Posted from Android

The size of management is often a function of the business. Some companies have one manager for every 500 employees, others have one manager for every five employees. In some tech companies, you may have 90% of your company receiving manager level status (PhD, MD etc employees). 

I'd compare Amtrak to companies that are viewed as well run, effective firms. Union Pacific, BNSF, NS, etc. Compare with the best, not with the average.

 Adm Richover, the father of the US Nuclear Navy was known for firing officers who salted food before tasting it.

David

Perhaps there is an Amtrak organization chart out there somewhere?

What purpose would having a management structure chart serve?  I am not aware of any corporations that provide the organization charts to the public.  Why?  Corporate raiders, among other things.

As a contractor at numerous large and very large corporations in my career, I never saw, nor did my peers and managers at those companies, see an organization chart for other than their 'chain of command'.  On occassion, there'd be a high-level org chart, showing maybe the top 3 levels of management, but those were quite rare.  As a low-level manager at a US Steel manufacturer 35 years ago, even I didn't get a complete company org chart.  In short, what value would it be to me to know who the manager of some unrelated department of 10 people in a plant 100+ miles away?

My thinking is that because Amtrak is a quasi-government organization that information would be available to the public and GAO, perhaps without names but as a chart never-the-less.

Somewhere I have a copy of the proposed re-organization chart when Boardman was re-organizing
his re-organization (don't ask which time it was)...but it was barely legible and probably would not
survive a transfer and upload here.

And besides, I promised the source I would keep it confidential.

This was all I could locate online.  It only includes the Board and the first level below Boardman so
it is not very useful. More detail costs money for a membership.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/15 23:04 by GenePoon.

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Thanks for the peek.  I'm guessing that's a partial chart, since the CFO would likely also have Treasury, maybe Controller, and various other functions underneath. Same for Human Resources with multiple reports.

At the "C" level (chief Human Resources Officer, chief that) it's not unusual to have 6-10 direct reports each. And each of those reports might have several managers, who in turn have various departments, etc.  In Amtrak's case, managing Congress's questions and complaints may be a substantial number of people with enough status in the organization to get a quick response from operations or finance people.

One of the biggest challenges for any organization is resolving road blocks due to conflicting priorities.  IT wants this change, Operations needs to do it a different way, Labor Relations is concerned that the work changes might infringe a contract provision.Two weeks to get a meeting, then time to review the changes proposed, then another meeting. Sometimes you need managers who are motivated to get the work done accurately and with due speed.


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There's an article today in the Wall Street Journal about how eliminating titles and rank at Zappo's shoes has created a royal mess there.  Nobody knows who's in charge. people can do what they want, there's little sense of "here's what we need to do today, this week, this month", etc.  One manager has said she has little to do, so she now spends more time with the diversity team, and on the company's dance class program.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/15 05:48 by Lackawanna484.