Joseph H. Boardman was appointed president and chief executive officer by Amtrak’s Board of Directors, effective November 26, 2008.

 

A native of Taberg, New York, Boardman was raised, the second of eight children, on a dairy farm in Oneida County.

 

In 1966, he volunteered for military service in the U.S. Air Force, serving in Vietnam in 1968-1969.

 

Upon receiving an honorable discharge from the Air Force, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture economics from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and a Master of Science degree in management science from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

 

In a sense, Boardman’s career in transportation began when he worked part-time as a bus driver while he was a student at Cornell. Eventually, he would spend more than 30 years either in city, county, state or federal government, or owning his own transportation management company.

 

He went to work for the city of Rome, New York, in 1975, and in 1980 he managed the Rome and Utica transit authorities. Boardman served as commissioner of public transportation in Broome County, New York, and then, in 1995, he founded Progressive Transportation Services, Inc. in Elmira, New York.

 

In July 1997, he became the commissioner of the New York State Department of Transportation after spending five months as acting commissioner.

 

Boardman was later appointed to the Amtrak board of directors, and in April 2005, became the administrator of U.S. Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) for the U.S. Department of Transportation. As administrator, Boardman was responsible for overseeing all aspects of operations for the organization. This included managing safety programs and regulatory initiatives; enforcement of FRA safety regulations; development and implementation of national freight and passenger rail policy; and oversight of research and development activities in support of railroad safety. Boardman implemented an emergency ban on unauthorized use of cell phones in locomotive cabs.

 

He is a former chairman of both the executive committee of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies (2005) and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Standing Committee on Rail Transportation (2000-2005).

 

Boardman and his wife, Joanne, have three children, Joe Jr., Emily, and Philip.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Joseph H. Boardman (Amtrak)

Father’s Advice Leads to Career in Transportation for Taberg Native (by Montanette Murphy, Utica Observer-Dispatch)

FRA’s Boardman to Head Amtrak (by Rick Johnson, United Transportation Union Local 202)