North Central Railcorp, Inc. was formed and incorporated as a short line railroad holding company. It is management’s goal to acquire short line freight railroads, terminal railroad operations and industrial switching opportunities primarily located in the Midwest and Central Plains States region of the United States.
Meet the Management Team
Tim Tennant serves as the company’s President/CEO and member of its Board of Directors. He has a degree in Transportation/Logistics Management and brings forty-one years of industrial transportation/logistics, short line railroad and tourist railway management expertise to the organization.
Mr. Tennant has worked for such corporations as Speed Queen Company, Pope & Talbot, Inc. and Champion International Corp where he was part of a $500 million Greenfield pulp mill start-up in Upper Michigan. He has also served in the role as President & General Manager for short line railroad properties totaling approximately 350 miles in the states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota.
These short line operations transported commodities such as wood products, clay, fertilizers, waste oil, corn, soybeans, wheat, dried distillers’ grain and ethanol. During management of these railroads, Mr. Tennant worked with operating and marketing personnel of connecting carriers which included BNSF, Union Pacific and Wisconsin Central. Tim has experience and is versed in various areas of rail transportation and industrial sector logistics.
Mr. Tennant has also spent time in tourist railway management where he has served as Vice-President & General Manager of the 64-mile Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad located in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. Further, he has served as President/CEO of the 2,500-member Friends of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad where he managed a $1.3 million rebuild of historic D&RGW steam locomotive #463 to fully operational status.
A member of the Board and Corporate Secretary is Judy Tennant. Ms. Tennant spent over twenty years at the Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad in Upper Michigan where she held the position of Manager of Car Accounting, Drug Testing and served as Dispatcher/Relief Station Agent. Her experience entailed daily contact with ELS customers and distribution of railcars for online industry. She also administrated the company’s drug testing program for all employees.
Judy was also employed for five years with Schneider National Carriers of Green Bay, Wisconsin in their rail intermodal department. There Ms. Tennant worked with the intermodal representatives of BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific daily pertaining to the logistics of Schneider equipment moving via these class I railroads.
Elizabeth Fichte will serve as Vice President of Customer Service, Revenue Accounting & Administration, based in the Company’s San Angelo, TX Customer Service Center. She is the prior owner of Iron Spike Consulting which provided consulting services to short line railroads plus train employees to maximize their skills in capacities such as Yardmaster, Clerk and Accountants. She has utilized a self-authored comprehensive training manual to assist employees using the RMI/TMS system. Her company also provided consulting in the areas of operations, marketing/sales and accounting to optimize revenues and productivity.
Elizabeth has managed a 47-mile short line in New Mexico that moved approximately 8,000 carloads annually including such commodities as wind turbine construction materials, hazmat such as sulphuric acid, grain and copper mining products. Shippers served were Phelps-Dodge and Freeport-McMoRan, Inc. She also managed train crews working unit coal trains to the Arizona Electric Power generation plant in Cochise, AZ. These trains interchanged with BNSF and UP. She has worked with the FRA to enforce rules and maintain compliance.
Further, Elizabeth worked for a 376-mile regional railroad in Texas that transported such commodities as frac-sand, crude oil, grains, generators, pipe, and wind turbine materials. She’s trained Yardmasters and clerical positions plus as head of Car Accounting trained employees on revenue invoicing, disputed claims, and accounts in arrears. She also worked with department heads in Operations, Marketing/Sales and Accounting to optimize revenue.
She was also part of the management team for three short line railroads in Kansas, Texas and New Mexico which totaled 366 miles. This railroad hauled 20,000 carloads annually consisting of wheat, corn, milo, molasses, sulphuric acid, copper products, and carbon black. Along with supporting management in compliance with FRA rules/regulations Elizabeth assisted in the formation of training materials for team members in the RMI/TMS system along with manuals for locomotive engineers and conductors.
Prior to her railroad career, she was CEO of Clough Marketing Services, Inc. and for 10 years specialized in the marketing and sales of a computer imaging system for public court records for county clerks nationwide with a total of twenty million dollars in sales before selling the company in 2005.