Technology is a central focus for BNSF Railway Co. The railway subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp covers 32,000 route miles in twenty-eight states. There are good opportunities for techies working on the railroad, says Edward McFalls, AVP of HR and diversity.
"The technology is very extensive here, from our locomotives to the signaling and routing on our tracks to GPS systems. A person who is interested in technology will find it here, no question about it," McFalls declares.
Ethnically diverse people and women are climbing on board, he says. Since 2002 BNSF has hired more than 16,000 people, nearly 20 percent of them people of color and 6.5 percent women.
In an industry that has historically leaned toward white males, the strides BNSF has made are significant. "By the year 2010, we want to move our workforce demographics for people of color to 24 percent and increase the female population too," McFalls says.
To recruit new diverse talent, the company has found success targeting colleges with diverse study bodies. At several schools, BNSF has arranged to provide scholarships to diverse students as well as the general student population.
"We're also looking at internships so that an individual can come in here and earn some money. The intent is to convert most of them to full-time employees," McFalls says.
BNSF's technology services organization is the centralized information and telecommunications support group for the railroad, explains Jeffrey McIntyre, AVP for technology services.
"We have a very large technology footprint, including multiple mainframes, some 800 servers and about 17,000 intelligent workstations for 40,000 users," he says.
The tech services group runs an extensive telecom network to support BNSF's voice data and signaling. "We are larger than some telephone companies," McIntyre says.
The technology group has always been diverse, with "people from all over the world." Of the 500 non-union employees, 18 percent are minorities and 26 percent are women. Four of the six people on the group's executive team are women.
BNSF's "Transportation Support System," the railway's core operating system, is proprietary. Using a DB2 database, it handles 16 million transactions a day. Developed in the mid-1990s, "It's probably the youngest transportation system in the North American rail industry," McIntyre notes. It's so good that the Canadian National railroad bought the right to use it.
The BNSF IS group has about 400 employees. About 275 are in the applications area; the others handle infrastructure and support. BNSF also uses offshore resources for its development projects, McIntyre says.
The telecom organization has about sixty salaried employees, plus some 450 hourly technicians who work with routers, hubs and trackside devices. BNSF railcars have automatic equipment ID tags, and "We're now putting wireless access points on our major locations." Of course a corps of CEs and EEs also work for the railroad.
Like most corporations, BNSF is facing a retirement wave, and folks in the technology field sometimes move on to the marketing, engineering or mechanical departments, or become hourly front-line supervisors. Replacing these posts drives staffing needs in the technology group. McFalls notes that safety is a vital issue for the railroad, and new hires get a lot of training.
The BNSF has a number of affinity groups focusing on professional development and attracting and retaining talent. McIntyre is a member of the Native American group, since he's one-quarter Cherokee through his mother's father. There are also African American, Hispanic, Asian American and women's groups. The operations side of the railroad has fifteen diversity councils, small grassroots groups for both union and nonunion workers.
BNSF has an executive diversity council made up of top company leaders. It meets three or four times a year to review initiatives and provide direction to the diversity councils and affinity groups.
One recently-launched initiative is a partnership with BrightLine Compliance, a company that provides e-learning courses aimed at preventing workplace harassment. Over the next three years all 5,000 exempt employees will take this computer-based training.
The company offers an array of benefits and career-building opportunities. They include tuition aid, onsite childcare at campus HQ, part-time options, telecommuting and flex-time scheduling. "We're not your father's railroad!" McIntyre concludes.
D/C
BNSF Railway Co
www.bnsf.com
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Headquarters: |
Ft. Worth, TX |
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Employees: |
42,000 (5,000 nonunion) |
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Revenues: |
$13 billion in 2005 |
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Business: |
Railway transportation |
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