Amtrak public Board Meeting (12/1/22)

[Qapla]

I signed up online before the deadline and after completing the form and indicating "virtual" it said I would "soon receive the information to connect" by email - that was the last I heard until I saw this thread just now ...

 

[Bob Dylan]

Food Cart Service on the NEC was new to me.

As for Superliner refurbishment, 60 Coaches are done. Sleeper work will begin after the holidays.

Acela 21 is now late 2023.

Following the New Viewliners finally making it into Revenue Service Years Late , I predict that we MAY see the Acela 21s in Service by 2024!!

 

[frequentflyer]

Apparently Amtrak had a board meeting a couple of days ago per TrainOrders.com. Some in attendance spoke of a Q&A session, in which the topic of LD trains came up. Did anyone here listen or watch the meeing? Could not find it on Youtube. Gardner handled himself very well from what I read.

 

[user 14106]

Apparently Amtrak had a board meeting a couple of days ago per TrainOrders.com. Some in attendance spoke of a Q&A session, in which the topic of LD trains came up. Did anyone here listen or watch the meeing? Could not find it on Youtube. Gardner handled himself very well from what I read.

Yes there is an existing thread on the topic in the advocacy section. A number of people on the board listened to it. Amtrak did record it - whether they will release it for public consumption or not I do not know.

 

[user 14106]

Did anyone else catch the second to last thing? One gentleman made a comment about the amenity situation on the Eagle - no SSL and traditional dining which no one responded to. While they totally ducked that one unfortunately the person kind of gave them an out by making it more as a declaratory statement/comment/suggestion rather than including an inquiry with the comment such as "Would Amtrak consider such improvements?" or "Does Amtrak plan to make such improvements?" If he had included that it would have made it a bit more difficult for them to avoid comment on it.

 

[AmtrakFlyer]

Was VP of LD Chester not in attendance? I watched it between other tasks. I didn’t see him but saw all the other division heads at the beginning.

 

[lrh442]

I would still like to know what attendance number would seem satisfactory. That would provide some indication of how realistic the expectations are. In my thinking 300 in a Board meeting is a pretty decent number. Would 600 be more acceptable? 6000?

Good question jis, I'll bite. Here are some of the questions that cross my mind when I think about attendance:

• Rail Passengers Association regularly draws 200 people to their monthly webinars. I think an Amtrak board meeting should draw considerably more than that.
• How many active users are on AU, jis? Would it be too optimistic to hope 20% of them would attend?
• There are 14,220 users registered with AU. Obviously they are not all active users but if only 5% of the total attended that would be 711 people from AU alone. And that doesn't include lurkers who aren't registered.
• How many discrete passengers did Amtrak carry in 2022 (not trips but individual people)? If it was 800K* (a SWAG) and one-tenth of one percent of them attended (0.001) that would be 800 people.
• On average 6 people per state attended.

So what's a good number? I don't know, but I think 300 indicates that we passenger rail advocates are not sufficiently energized (and/or maybe informed) to fulfill our potential to influence Amtrak, elected officials, and policy makers. Perhaps someone who is knowledgeable about advocacy efforts can jump in and provide some real world context on what kind of critical mass participation is needed to move the needle.

* Amtrak reported 12.2M riders in FY 2021. My estimates assume average LD rider makes 3 trips per year, avg. State Supported rider took 52 trips per year, and avg. NEC rider took 156 trips per year. I suspect I'm overestimating the avg # of trips per person, and thus underestimating the total discrete number of users.

 

[jis]

My experience with attending Board Meetings at large corporations suggest to me that you are generally overestimating the number of people who would attend a Board meeting by a lot. But hey that is just my WAG, based on attending Board Meetings of several large corporations, which held meetings attendable by phone. Heck at times it seemed that there was sometimes more Press than users!

 

[user 14106]

Was VP of LD Chester not in attendance? I watched it between other tasks. I didn’t see him but saw all the other division heads at the beginning.

I think he's technically not a division head. He's a couple of levels down. He might have been attending but didn't speak.

 

[jis]

Was VP of LD Chester not in attendance? I watched it between other tasks. I didn’t see him but saw all the other division heads at the beginning.

The name is Chestler with an 'l'. Larry Chestler.

I think he's technically not a division head. He's a couple of levels down. He might have been attending but didn't speak.

Generally the Executive Leadership Team consists of Executive VPs. At Amtrak currently, there is one exception and that is Bruno Maestri of Government Affairs who is not an Exec VP but just a VP. But in general just VPs who are not members of the Executive Team, would not be called upon by the CEO in a Board Meeting to help his presentation even if present.

 

[Ryan]

Wouldn't it have been great if Amtrak was forthcoming about this much earlier and mollify much of the criticism hurled at it? Transparency is your friend.

Wouldn’t it be even better if formers didn’t make incorrect “facts” up and then use those “facts” to impugn Amtrak management?

Sure, transparency is great, but not making $h!t up is better.

 

[jebr]

My experience with attending Board Meetings at large corporations suggest to me that you are generally overestimating the number of people who would attend a Board meeting by a lot. But hey that is just my WAG, based on attending Board Meetings of several large corporations, which held meetings attendable by phone. Heck at times it seemed that there was sometimes more Press than users!

Agreed. How many people attend the average Southwest Airlines or United Airlines board meeting? Or even Spirit? There's a lot more passengers with a lot more complaints, but my guess would be attendance would be well under 300.

The only board meeting I'm aware of that gets a lot of attendance is Berkshire Hathaway - and that's basically become a way for people to try and hear the latest words from Warren Buffett than the exact performance of the individual companies owned or controlled by Berkshire. No other company comes anywhere near that.

 

[MARC Rider]

The name is Chestler with an 'l'. Larry Chestler.

Generally the Executive Leadership Team consists of Executive VPs. At Amtrak currently, there is one exception and that is Bruno Maestri of Government Affairs who is not an Exec VP but just a VP. But in general just VPs who are not members of the Executive Team, would not be called upon by the CEO in a Board Meeting to help his presentation even if present.

Hmm... "Executive VPs," regular "VPs", a "president" and a "CEO." (I thought that a "president" was a "chief executive officer." Why does a company need two of them?))

Anyone get the idea that the top executive leadership of American corporations (not just picking on Amtrak) is a little top-heavy?

 

[Bob Dylan]

Hmm... "Executive VPs," regular "VPs", a "president" and a "CEO." (I thought that a "president" was a "chief executive officer." Why does a company need two of them?))

Anyone get the idea that the top executive leadership of American corporations (not just picking on Amtrak) is a little top-heavy?

And these " Suits" are the last to be Laid off when times get tough, with Workers that actually do the work bearing the brunt of the burden in downsizing!

Even though its not PC, there's an Old saying that seems appropriate here:
" Too many Chiefs,not enough Indians!"

 

[jis]

Hmm... "Executive VPs," regular "VPs", a "president" and a "CEO." (I thought that a "president" was a "chief executive officer." Why does a company need two of them?))

Anyone get the idea that the top executive leadership of American corporations (not just picking on Amtrak) is a little top-heavy?

You thought wrong. President and CEO are two separate roles usually specified in the Company bylaws. Often Boards prefer to have the same person hold both positions, but they can always be held by different persons and in many cases are.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Anyone get the idea that the top executive leadership of American corporations (not just picking on Amtrak) is a little top-heavy?

Well the company I work for has so many big titles positions it seem a bit top-heavy. Of course it just might be due to our very large international ownership. So they may expect people with fancy titles. My immediate parent company was recently sold to a bigger company for just under 1 billion.

So in Amtrak case is this real position or just a fancy title in exchange of a real paycheck?

 

[Palmland]

Trains magazine had this report of the board meeting.

Most of this has been reported but I hadn’t heard this:

“…..replaces the previous “ConnectsUS” corridor map [which at least for the moment is still available here].

The new map adds the former North Coast Hiawatha’s Fargo, N.D. to Spokane, Wash., route; a proposed Los Angeles-Las Vegas, Nev., Salt Lake City-Boise, Idaho, service; and a Dallas extension to the New York-New Orleans-Crescent.”

Of course lines on a map is a long way from starting service especially with the equipment shortage.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

If you make enough noise you get your own line on a map?

 

[Willbridge]

If you make enough noise you get your own line on a map?

It's amazing how much excitement may be generated by a line on a map. Check with Putin about that.

Seriously, there are trains and buses running now or that have run that began as lines drawn on a map. What the lines on a map don't show is how long it might take for the line on a map to become real.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Yes you need to start somewhere.

 

[Cal]

No matter how far it is in the future, I think it's good that they did include it, as it gives me some hope.

 

[railiner]

My experience with attending Board Meetings at large corporations suggest to me that you are generally overestimating the number of people who would attend a Board meeting by a lot. But hey that is just my WAG, based on attending Board Meetings of several large corporations, which held meetings attendable by phone. Heck at times it seemed that there was sometimes more Press than users!

I was curious about attending corporate board meetings...
I notice that in many, if not all, formal announcements or invitations to those meetings, they include the words: "....and discuss other matters that are properly bought before the board..."

I was wondering if they do that to control or limit questions from stockholders attending?

 

[jis]

I was curious about attending corporate board meetings...
I notice that in many, if not all, formal announcements or invitations to those meetings, they include the words: "....and discuss other matters that are properly bought before the board..."

I was wondering if they do that to control or limit questions from stockholders attending?

In general any matter discussed at a Board Meeting has to be on the Agenda which is adopted at the beginning of the meeting.

Many Boards have an open Q&A and Statements session built into the Agenda wherein anyone recognized from the floor by the Chair can make a statement typically for a short period of time like 3 minutes. Sometimes statements that will be made or questions that will me asked may have to be submitted before hand.

Properly bringing before the Board usually refers to following the procedure laid out to add a matter to the Agenda to be taken up by the Board. Of course the Board in session has a lot of freedom to do stuff like "Suspend the Rules" and pick up some matter that catches their fancy, or go into a "Committee of the Whole" session to deep dive into a matter beyond what is there in the Agenda. Things that disrupt the normal flow of the Agenda typically require super majority votes. You can get guidance on typical practices used in the US from the latest edition of "Robert's Rules of Order", though each Board can choose to make up whatever rules and procedures it wants. Public Corporate Boards have to do so within the guidelines laid down by the SEC. In the US in order to reduce the chances of litigation regarding the decision making process, organizations often use Robert's as the base and identify and document specific deviations from it that are used by the organization. Undocumented procedural hacks are an open invitation to making many lawyers quite rich.

 

[railiner]

In general any matter discussed at a Board Meeting has to be on the Agenda which is adopted at the beginning of the meeting.

Many Boards have an open Q&A and Statements session built into the Agenda wherein anyone recognized from the floor by the Chair can make a statement typically for a short period of time like 3 minutes. Sometimes statements that will be made or questions that will me asked may have to be submitted before hand.

Properly bringing before the Board usually refers to following the procedure laid out to add a matter to the Agenda to be taken up by the Board. Of course the Board in session has a lot of freedom to do stuff like "Suspend the Rules" and pick up some matter that catches their fancy, or go into a "Committee of the Whole" session to deep dive into a matter beyond what is there in the Agenda. Things that disrupt the normal flow of the Agenda typically require super majority votes. You can get guidance on typical practices used in the US from the latest edition of "Robert's Rules of Order", though each Board can choose to make up whatever rules and procedures it wants. Public Corporate Boards have to do so within the guidelines laid down by the SEC. In the US in order to reduce the chances of litigation regarding the decision making process, organizations often use Robert's as the base and identify specific deviations from it that are used by the organization.

Thanks...but I am still not clear, if the officer's can stifle any controversial issue someone in the audience may attempt to bring up at the meeting?

 

[jis]

Thanks...but I am still not clear, if the officer's can stifle any controversial issue someone in the audience may attempt to bring up at the meeting?

The Chair is in full control once the Agenda is adopted. The Board owns the Agenda, so they can modify it. All actions that take place has to be first recognized by the Chair. The Chair may choose to not recognize someone from the floor if the act is not in accordance with the agenda. For example in an Q&A session, if it is required to register to be recognized for making a statement then the chair is likely to not recognize someone who did not register. etc. OTOH the Board can overturn a Chair's ruling since it is the Board that own the Agenda, not the Chair.

In summary, you cannot just stand up randomly in a meeting and start making a statement. if you try, you will be hauled out and ejected by security.

Controversial matters can be placed on the agenda following procedures that are required by the SEC to be part of practices for conducting a Board meeting of a publicly traded corporation. As I understand it privately held corporations apparently are a different matter. Witness the circus that is Twitter which at present apparently does not even have a Board in a normal sense of usage of the term.

Similarly, organizations that claim tax exemption under 501 (RPA is one such) have to follow certain procedures in their Board Meetings. I have actually been a member of the Board of several 501(c)3 tax exempt organization and have even chaired a meeting or two as Chair pro-tem.

The Amtrak Board Session that we attended was a sort of a special session for sharing information and Q&A in which no other business was conducted.