Railway Track & Structures Engineer of the Year for 2023: Brent Laing, VP Engineering, Canadian National

Brent Laing

Canadian National

ATLANTA – Brent Laing, Vice President of Engineering at Canadian National has been named Engineer of the Year for 2023 by Railway Track & Structures.

Railway Track & Structures bestows one industry leader with our Engineer of the Year award annually. Candidates for this prestigious award are judged on individual accomplishments, contributions to the rail industry, dedication to their company and the rail industry, and overall excellence. The 2023 Engineer of the Year, Brent Laing of CN, will be featured in the September issue of RT&S. 

Brent Laing is a professional engineer with extensive Class 1 heavy haul freight railway technical and management experience. 

Brent has served as Vice President of Engineering at CN since June 2022. He has the overall accountability of all engineering functions at CN including track maintenance, production, work equipment, signals & communications, bridges and structures, infrastructure design and construction 

A career railroader, Brent has served as President of a small engineering consulting firm and held various positions at Canadian Pacific. As well as engineering, he also lead corporate environmental teams as Director Environmental Affairs, locomotive and freight car repair teams as General Manager Mechanical Operation. He has developed and managed overall annual corporate capital replacement and maintenance budgets in excess of $1B CAD as General Manager Standards & Performance. 

He is a long-time member of American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Association and has been recently nominated to the AREMA Board of Governors and has been professional engineer for over 38 years.

Please join us in congratulating Brent for this award. The award will be presented to Brent just after the AREMA General Session at Railway Interchange, being held in Indianapolis October 1-4. Please check AREMA materials for the date and time of the opening session.