Participants

Dr. Jeff Conklin is a senior independent software product development specialist and researcher. His experience in developing cutting-edge collaborative software systems spans over 30 years during which he has built unique commercially-oriented products. Dr. Conklin is the President and Founder of the CogNexus Group whose mission is to help gridlocked multi-stakeholder groups resolve the blocks and create robust results. Dr. Conklin pioneered the “Dialogue Mapping” technique, which he uses to guide clients safely through the ‘adult conversations’ that are essential to collaboration, and which he teaches in tutorials and workshops. He has designed and facilitated hundreds of successful meetings and online collaborations.

In his role with CogNexus, Dr. Conklin works with strategy and policy teams on confronting and managing wicked problems – situations involving disputed knowledge, divergent stakeholders, and, often, a history of failed solution attempts. By bringing new skills, tools, and theory to clients, it engages the whole system in the pursuit of shared understanding of the situation and a growing confidence in the power of lightly structured dialogue.

An important real-world example of Dr. Conkliin’s work is the Delta Dialogues, a multi-stakeholder, interest-based policy discussion about the complex issues in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The goal of the program is to break the policy gridlock that has impacted the region for more than 30 years. Previous efforts to address the Delta’s “wicked problem” have been stalemated by a failure of the key stakeholders to communicate effectively about issues. The Delta Dialogues project arose out of the willingness of the key stakeholders to engage in a process focused almost entirely on coming to a shared understanding of the issues and the stakeholder interests in them. After eight monthly meetings over 18 months the Dialogues project achieved a significant increase in trust and respect among the stakeholders, laying the foundation for creating robust solutions that have a chance to avoid being deadlocked in litigation while the Delta’s challenges grow more acute.

Dr. Conklin also developed the Dialogue Mapping™ facilitation technique, a radically inclusive approach to knowledge management that allows groups to capture and make sense of unstructured knowledge that is discussed during project meetings. He is the author of the book,Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems.

Dr. Barbara Gray is a Professor of Organizational Behavior and Director, Center for Research in Conflict and Negotiation, at The Pennsylvania State University. She holds the following degrees: B.S. in Chemistry (Magna Cum Laude), University of Dayton, Dayton, Ohio, 1968; Secondary Education Certificate, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio, 1973; and a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, 1979. Dr. Gray has held the following visiting positions: Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation during 1987-88, Visiting Faculty, the Katholicke Universiteit Leuven in 1997, TVA Fellow at The Darden School, University of Virginia in 1998, and Boer & Croon Chaired Professor at the TIAS Business School, Tilburg University in 2004. Dr. Gray is also a trained mediator and consults to organizations about conflict and collaboration.

Dr. Gray has published three books: Collaborating: Finding common ground for multiparty problems (Jossey-Bass, 1989); International Joint Ventures: Economic and organizational perspectives (with Kalyan Chatterjee, Kluwer, 1995), and Making Sense of Intractable Environmental Conflicts: Concepts and cases (with Roy Lewicki & Michael Elliott, Island Press, 2003). She has over 70 publications including work in Administrative Sciences Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Human Relations, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Journal of Management and Journal of Management Inquiry.

Dr. Gray’s research interests include interorganizational relations, multiparty collaborative alliances, organizational and environmental conflict, team dynamics and sensemaking. She is currently studying the impacts of repair of relationship conflict on organizations and investigating leadership functions in multiparty alliances including a project with the National Institutes of Health to study transdisciplinary teams.

Expertise

Conflict and Negotiation
Public/Private Partnerships
Cross-Sectoral Collaboration
Environmental and Diversity-Related Disputes
Interorganizational Relations
Team Conflict

Michael Sussman is the founder of OnTrackAmerica, serving as its President and Chairman. He has also been the president of Strategic Rail Finance since its inception in 1994. Mr. Sussman has created a comprehensive program for expanding private and public sector capitalization of rail and intermodal transportation projects. In the last twenty years, he has coordinated financing for projects in 35 states. During twelve years of work with the federal government, Michael has preserved the autonomy to speak and act in the best interests of the transportation industry and the country by self-funding all of Strategic Rail’s government relations activities in Washington and across the United States. Michael has convened two transportation industry briefings in the U.S. Capitol Building, most recently on December 11, 2008 with thirty industry and government leaders.

Transportation, Warehousing and Supply Chain Logistics professional, Vice President, Business Owner, President, Director, Family man, Father and Stepfather, Sibling and Grandparent to 5.

Randy began his career as a purchasing agent with The Coast Distribution System, Inc., an international and publicly held company.  During his 17 years with Coast, Randy quickly moved up the ladder to become the vice president and regional manager of all distribution, transportation, and sales operations for the Southern California distribution facility at the age of 26. The promotion that followed led Randy to the corporate office to become the vice president of customer service and operations for the U.S. and Canada.

With the desire and a growing passion to be in business for himself, Randy left Coast and partnered with two long-time business associates to purchase and grow Aladdin Transportation and Warehousing, Inc. This business provided that next step and arena to work within a trade and industry involved in international trade.

In his role as a business partner in Aladdin, Randy immediately became involved with local associations and industry trade groups, becoming a member of the Columbia River Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association in 2004. Randy was later invited by Louis Samenfink, executive director of U.S. Customs (ACE/TSN), to become a member of the TSN group (U.S. Customs/Trade Support Network) to provide his insight and expertise to the group as a multi modal operator including bonded transportation and facilities experience. After being recognized as a leader who is passionate about the transportation and supply chain industry, Randy was invited to become a member of the TLC group (U.S. Customs/Trade Leadership Council), a group of less than 30 members who are recognized as leaders in their specific areas of business related to international transportation and supply chain logistics.

After 10 years as a business owner, Randy and his partners successfully sold the Aladdin Transportation and Warehousing, Inc. business. Following some personal time to spend with family, Randy joined a long-standing family owned transportation business, Airport Drayage Co. as the Director of Development. Randy takes great pride in developing effective teams and building efficient and growth focused solutions within Airport Drayage to help transition and diversify the third-generation business onto a solid long-term sustainable path for years to come.

In addition to his primary responsibilities at Airport Drayage, Randy was asked to provide consultation services for the Oregon Port of Willamette (OPW) that was working on a state proposal to develop an inland intermodal port terminal. Randy provided those services as a contracted professional and was asked to extend the consulting agreement an additional 6 months providing input and guidance related primarily to trucking, container drayage and transloading operations.

Tom Erickson is a Rail Operations consultant for Strategic Rail Finance. Tom has 35 years’ experience working in nearly every aspect of the rail industry: sales and business development, project consultation, due diligence studies, and market research.

In 20 years of work with CSX and Conrail, Tom held diverse management positions. At Conrail, he managed market analysis and pricing for automotive and intermodal accounts, headed intermodal bulk marketing for Philadelphia operations, and personally led Conrail’s network of rail-truck transloading terminals. In this last position, he was responsible for the modernization and standardization of transloading assets and procedures, and oversaw a doubling of both tonnage and profits from the division.

As head of his own rail consulting firm, Rail Cents Enterprises, Tom focuses on advising Class II and III railroads and shippers in operations, market research, industrial development, network design, and commercial and right-of-way agreements. Tom has drafted feasibility studies for Amtrak, Canadian Pacific, and local government bodies, and has advised on rail privatization projects in Europe, Central America, and Africa.

Tom has been published in both Transportation Journal and the Journal of Transportation Law, Logistics and Policy, and also holds a patent on a railroad operating system.

Michael Koontz leads Strategic Rail Finance’s Social and Environmental Costs-Benefits practice, specializing in producing socioeconomic impact analyses to accompany USDOT TIGER, CMAQ, and RRIF funding applications. Mike managed the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) Program with the Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation from 2001 until 2014. As program manager, he implemented CMAQ, guiding an annual investment of more than $2 billion over three transportation authorizations. He also authored detailed program guidance and a number of legislative interpretations involving the $30-billion, 20-year program. Prior to his role as CMAQ manager, Mike was a transportation planner for the FHWA and served for six years as a transportation network capacity analyst.

David leads the freight market intelligence practice at OTNA and the Strategic Rail Group.  In this role, he advises major ports, public agencies, and leading beneficial cargo owners (BCO’s) on strategic new services, transportation, and logistics infrastructure projects.  His team employs multi-faceted, data-driven commercial studies to deliver investment-grade reporting that support new client initiatives.

David’s client advisory role is grounded in over 20+ years of direct operating experience in all areas of transportation and supply chain logistics. He founded, operated, and sold three successful transportation and logistics businesses in the past 15 years.

Most recently his Keystone Transportation Solutions (KTS) company was created to redesign logistics for the US logging and lumber export industry. Under David’s leadership, KTS developed an operating model which consolidated disparate wood products exporters and built several new logistics trade lanes, including new on-port operation which significantly reduced logistics costs and improved export volumes.  David also founded and served as President and COO of Certicell, a leading provider of supply chain services and 3rd party after-market asset management to the wireless device industry. David also founded Environmental Reclamation Services, Inc, which introduced a successful and innovative approach to reverse logistics to the after-market product and repair industry, a protocol which is now replicated across this sector.

In each of these leadership roles, David led high velocity start-up enterprises which realized significant revenue growth due largely to innovative service offerings. Each venture delivered sustainable bottom-line benefits for his customers and all three resulted in highly successful business exits to private equity and strategic buyers.

David received his Bachelor of Business Administration, Accounting in 1989 from Rider University.

Transport industry professional with international experience across multiple segments:

• Airlines (network planning, revenue management, PaxEx, alliances, industry structure and trends)
• Passenger Rail (revenue management, retail, ticketing, government policy, industry structure and global trends)
• Public Transit (multi-modal, multi operator, retail, marketing, ticketing, policy and global trends)
• Freight & Logistics (multi -modal market experience, industry structure and global trade policy and trends)

Andrew has a BSc honors degree in Transport Management from Aston University, the UK’s leading center for transportation studies, and is Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport (CMILT) in the United States. He has decades of experience working at, or advising, public transit, railway, airline and logistics companies across the globe.

Andrew’s three passions are international current affairs/business, transportation (primarily rail and airlines) and football (aka soccer).

Michael Sussman is the founder of OnTrackAmerica, serving as its President and Chairman. He has also been the president of Strategic Rail Finance since its inception in 1994. Mr. Sussman has created a comprehensive program for expanding private and public sector capitalization of rail and intermodal transportation projects. In the last twenty years, he has coordinated financing for projects in 35 states. During twelve years of work with the federal government, Michael has preserved the autonomy to speak and act in the best interests of the transportation industry and the country by self-funding all of Strategic Rail’s government relations activities in Washington and across the United States. Michael has convened two transportation industry briefings in the U.S. Capitol Building, most recently on December 11, 2008 with thirty industry and government leaders.

Transportation, Warehousing and Supply Chain Logistics professional, Vice President, Business Owner, President, Director, Family man, Father and Stepfather, Sibling and Grandparent to 5.

Randy began his career as a purchasing agent with The Coast Distribution System, Inc., an international and publicly held company.  During his 17 years with Coast, Randy quickly moved up the ladder to become the vice president and regional manager of all distribution, transportation, and sales operations for the Southern California distribution facility at the age of 26. The promotion that followed led Randy to the corporate office to become the vice president of customer service and operations for the U.S. and Canada.

With the desire and a growing passion to be in business for himself, Randy left Coast and partnered with two long-time business associates to purchase and grow Aladdin Transportation and Warehousing, Inc. This business provided that next step and arena to work within a trade and industry involved in international trade.

In his role as a business partner in Aladdin, Randy immediately became involved with local associations and industry trade groups, becoming a member of the Columbia River Customs Brokers and Forwarders Association in 2004. Randy was later invited by Louis Samenfink, executive director of U.S. Customs (ACE/TSN), to become a member of the TSN group (U.S. Customs/Trade Support Network) to provide his insight and expertise to the group as a multi modal operator including bonded transportation and facilities experience. After being recognized as a leader who is passionate about the transportation and supply chain industry, Randy was invited to become a member of the TLC group (U.S. Customs/Trade Leadership Council), a group of less than 30 members who are recognized as leaders in their specific areas of business related to international transportation and supply chain logistics.

After 10 years as a business owner, Randy and his partners successfully sold the Aladdin Transportation and Warehousing, Inc. business. Following some personal time to spend with family, Randy joined a long-standing family owned transportation business, Airport Drayage Co. as the Director of Development. Randy takes great pride in developing effective teams and building efficient and growth focused solutions within Airport Drayage to help transition and diversify the third-generation business onto a solid long-term sustainable path for years to come.

In addition to his primary responsibilities at Airport Drayage, Randy was asked to provide consultation services for the Oregon Port of Willamette (OPW) that was working on a state proposal to develop an inland intermodal port terminal. Randy provided those services as a contracted professional and was asked to extend the consulting agreement an additional 6 months providing input and guidance related primarily to trucking, container drayage and transloading operations.

Tom Erickson is a Rail Operations consultant for Strategic Rail Finance. Tom has 35 years’ experience working in nearly every aspect of the rail industry: sales and business development, project consultation, due diligence studies, and market research.

In 20 years of work with CSX and Conrail, Tom held diverse management positions. At Conrail, he managed market analysis and pricing for automotive and intermodal accounts, headed intermodal bulk marketing for Philadelphia operations, and personally led Conrail’s network of rail-truck transloading terminals. In this last position, he was responsible for the modernization and standardization of transloading assets and procedures, and oversaw a doubling of both tonnage and profits from the division.

As head of his own rail consulting firm, Rail Cents Enterprises, Tom focuses on advising Class II and III railroads and shippers in operations, market research, industrial development, network design, and commercial and right-of-way agreements. Tom has drafted feasibility studies for Amtrak, Canadian Pacific, and local government bodies, and has advised on rail privatization projects in Europe, Central America, and Africa.

Tom has been published in both Transportation Journal and the Journal of Transportation Law, Logistics and Policy, and also holds a patent on a railroad operating system.