Having previously held a succession of finance leadership roles inside Chicago’s ever vibrant financial services sector, Vicki Dudley was perhaps more surprised than anyone to find herself accepting a CFO position with Yancey Bros. Co. of Atlanta, the oldest Caterpillar dealer in the country.
Nevertheless, the job hop drew Dudley into a world of opportunity that she credits with having helped to open the door to her latest career chapter as CFO of TTX, the largest railcar provider in North America.
Read More“That particular experience did help to prepare me for my current role. Not only did we have sales for Caterpillar and Blue Bird bus, but also we had leasing plus repair facilities across the state of Georgia,” remarks Dudley, who gives credits to Yancey for tasking her with the company’s process improvement function “and tying it to my toolkit.” –Jack Sweeney
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CFOTL: Tell us about TTX Company …
Dudley: Well, you probably have run across us when you see some of our yellow cars that are often covered with graffiti at a railroad crossing when you’re probably stopped when you need to be somewhere and you don’t have enough time to get there. TTX is the largest owner of railcars in North America. The bulk of our fleet is auto carrying flatcars, intermodal cars that carry either the containers that come across the ocean on ships or domestic containers—which are larger in size—or trailers from the back of tractor-trailers. We’re also very large in the boxcar market. We are a private company, so what I’m going to disclose you would be able to see on our website.
Read MoreWe’re also called the pooling experts, as we’re responsible for administrating the North American boxcar pool. This is a very large pool of boxcars that are owned by us and others; there’s also the reload, which is the automotive flatcar carrying pool in North America. We also have a pretty significant network of repair operations across the U.S. The maintenance specialists have been out there working hard throughout this entire pandemic, making sure that railcars are repaired and inspected to help to keep the goods that we all need flowing through the North American network.
We’re not really a leasing company. We’re owned by the largest North American railroads. We’re really here to make sure that they have an ample pool of well-maintained railcars at a low price. They are able to return the cars back to us if they don’t need them. This helps them to reduce empty miles, which helps with their fuel efficiency and carbon emissions. Because they’re not having to switch cars and pull back empty cars when they get to the end of their rail line, we’re able to help to maximize railroad efficiency and fluidity across North America.
jb
TTX Company | www.ttx.com | Chicago, IL