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The Tracks Lead Back
Railroad executive times gift to ease students' financial burden
Like many who have lived in Emporia for any length of time, John McPherson (BSB 1969) fondly remembers hearing trains whistling through town.
Chances are the former railroad executive, who retired in 2007 as the president and COO
of Florida East Coast Railway, could hear them well from the campus of Kansas State Teachers College (now Emporia State University), where as a boy he would come to play basketball in the gym and swim in the pool. As a high schooler, McPherson accepted an invitation from the KSTC swimming coach to work out with the college’s team, and it earned him a swimming scholarship at the University of Kansas, where he studied for three years.
Meanwhile, McPherson’s career ambitions were honing in on the railroad. Each summer while in college, he was working full-time as a switchman and brakeman in Emporia’s train yards, learning the business in one of the busiest hubs for east-west traffic moving across the country, routinely riding trains to Arkansas City, Wellington and Newton. Knowing he wouldn’t become a professional swimmer, McPherson transferred from KU to KSTC for his last one and a half years of college, and the young man, already married, finished his bachelor’s degree in business administration while working part-time and weekends on the railroad.
Back in his hometown, McPherson’s academic experience was greatly enriched. He was treading the campus he came to know as a child, while in his business classes, he was taught by some professors who had known him for years. The personal connection made the student listen ever more intently, and he flourished; for him, the KSTC culture was the beginning of a journey to the top of the railroad industry.
“I think most of all was the quality of teachers,” McPherson said. “The education I got was first-hand learning. I felt instructors really cared about their students and were passionate about what they were teaching. It was a more intimate setting, and I learned more that way.”
Now McPherson and his wife, Ann, who reside in Ponte Vedra, Fla., are laying down the tracks for other ESU students to follow, through the McPherson Family Scholars Fund. In recognition of the national economic crisis and its impact on the finances of students and their families, the McPhersons stepped forward to pledge $20,000 for the 2009-2010 school year, providing 10 scholarships to Kansas residents studying at ESU in any academic discipline. Beyond that, the McPhersons are providing an additional $40,000 for scholarships in the 2010-2011 year.
“Emporia State offered me a lot of opportunity in my life and my career, so I’m ready to give back,” McPherson said. When John and Ann set up their family foundation, they knew they wanted to give to ESU – particularly for the university’s ability to educate Kansans, some of whom might be the first in their families to attend college. “There are a lot of young people in Kansas who maybe don’t have an opportunity to get that great education – but Emporia State is positioned so perfectly to meet that need,” McPherson said. “If I can be a little bit of help to share what I’ve learned, I’m glad to share.”
The result, like a train arriving right on time, is scholarship support for ESU students when they need it most.
“The foresight John and Ann have shown in creating this fund is remarkable,” said Linda Pease, chief development officer at the ESU Foundation. “Their goal was to help students stay in school during the current economic crisis so they will be prepared to enter the job market when it improves. John told me he hopes this program will enable many students to do so, and he also hopes to encourage others to give back in similar ways.”
The timing of the gift brings to mind the precision with which McPherson, as a 25-year-old trainmaster with Santa Fe Railroad, kept watch over a bustling railroad yard in Amarillo, Texas, supervising conductors, engineers, dispatchers and yardmasters old enough to be his father. Fresh out of college, the young man first moved to Chicago in 1969 for Santa Fe Railroad’s management training program. He spent 25 years with Santa Fe, and his scope of responsibility gradually increased. As a first-line supervisor in the operations side of the business, McPherson was learning how to manage people, how to closely investigate situations to determine the difference between an honest mistake and insubordination. His decisions then were more tactical, but as he rose in the management ranks, McPherson became an executive whose decisions were more strategic, focusing on team building, productivity, gaining market share, and finally, participating in mergers and acquisitions.
In 1993, he became the operating vice president for Illinois Central Railroad in Chicago, and was later promoted to CEO as the company was being purchased by Canadian National Railroad. When the post at Florida East Coast Railway opened up in 1999, McPherson had the option of moving north to Canada, or going to Florida – “and Chicago was as far north as I was willing to go!” he said. He retired in 2007.
Both John and Ann are avid players and fans of golf, and they live on a famous golf course. They’re also involved in the lives of their children, Melissa and Trey. Melissa started her career in radio as a marketing manager and became a regional marketing director for Simon Properties. She’s now a full-time mother, raising two boys with her husband in Virginia. Trey, a 1992 ESU graduate who lives in Hutchinson, is the vice president of Hutchinson Bag Corporation, a textile manufacturing company founded by Ann’s father.
Even in retirement, though, John’s mind for business is still there. He serves on the ESU School of Business Advisory Board, and in 2008 he joined the CSX Railroad Board of Directors. McPherson is still drawn to the fluidity of the railroad business. As a young trainmaster, he had to keep the tracks open and moving in all directions, every hour of every day. “Every day at the railroad was putting the puzzle together,” he said. Name most any consumer product, and most of what we see shipped in semi trucks on the interstate. Before those trucks, before the shopping aisles, U.S. goods are moved first by railroad. Anything arriving from overseas on either coast is shipped inland by train, and the trucks merely deliver products to the final destination. Cars from Detroit roll in on trains. Groceries, plastics, coal, grain from the heartland – all is moved first on the tracks. “We’re moving America,” McPherson said.
All through his career in moving America, McPherson was motivating himself. He holds a master’s degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has completed executive programs at the University of Southern California and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. It’s a drive he attributes to the early habits he acquired from Emporia State University and the nearby railroad yard. “Once you develop a basis, a background, the building blocks go from there,” he said.
Back at the Santa Fe yard in Amarillo, Texas, McPherson would work 15-hour days or longer, sometimes overnight or through the weekend, putting in the labor that he hopes today’s college students are prepared to contribute as they begin their careers. “There’s a lot of sweat equity in those first few years,” he said. Each night in Amarillo, a train carrying critical cargo would arrive late, and McPherson would often stick around to make sure it was swiftly pushed on to its next destination. One night, he called his wife with the forecast: “‘The train’ll be on time. I’ll be home about 1:30 a.m. Don’t wait up.’” The train did arrive on time, but the engineer asked McPherson if he wanted to ride along – “‘I’ll let you run the engine,’” the engineer told him – and at 5 a.m. in a New Mexico train yard, McPherson was wondering how he’d get back to Amarillo. “For me it was hard to leave work,” McPherson said.
And now the payoff of his dedication can be realized while launching the futures of Emporia State’s most deserving students. McPherson’s tracks have circled back to his alma mater, from the faint Emporia train whistles of his childhood to the top tier of the country’s most mobile industry.
- by Jesse Tuel
Last Updated July 29, 2009