CSX appoints new engineering leadership

CSX has appointed new engineering leaders following the announcement that John West, vice president-engineering, will retire on April 1 after 37 years of dedicated service to the railroad.

Ricky Johnson has been named vice president-engineering beginning April 1, reporting to Cindy Sanborn, executive vice president and chief operating officer.

“We are grateful for John’s leadership during a period of extraordinary technological advancement and for his background in technology systems that has been crucial to our company’s development and implementation of Positive Train Control and other technologies that support our safety, service and productivity goals,” Sanborn said. “Ricky is a strong leader with technical expertise and excellent working relationships across our operating departments and we look forward to the benefits of his broad perspective gained across engineering roles.”

Johnson joined CSX as a roadmaster in 2001 and has progressed through the engineering department, with roles as assistant division engineer of track, division engineer, assistant chief of system production and, most recently, as chief engineer maintenance of way north.

Moving into the role of chief engineer maintenance of way north is Greg Mellish, formerly chief engineer maintenance of way south. A 38-year CSX veteran, Mellish has significant field experience, including as assistant chief engineer and division engineer in Baltimore, Florence, Louisville, Nashville and Albany.

Lee Moss is named chief engineer maintenance of way south, after most recently serving as assistant chief engineer. Moss has 20 years of management experience with CSX following several years of additional railroad experience. He has progressed through several cross-functional operations leadership roles, including as director of network modeling and division engineer.

Moving into the role of assistant chief engineer is Eric Pachman, previously director of network modeling and analytics. Pachman joined CSX in 2011 after working in engineering at the Dow Chemical Company and ExxonMobil and in finance and analysis with Morgan Stanley and Korsant Partners, LLC. Pachman’s strategic perspective will help the Engineering Department leverage the multitude of available data to continue creating a more predictive and proactive network approach.