NARP Head Ross Capon Leaves

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PRR 60

PRR 60

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Per a post by Gene Poon at Trainorders, Ross Capon, the CEO of the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP), has left that post. He is remaining at NARP in a short-term, temporary "advisory" roll prior to fully severing ties. Larry Scott will be Acting President while a search is made for a replacement.

I may be wrong, but this does not sound like a planned departure.
 
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Ross is retirement age. I don't agree with every position that NARP has taken, and I have had my occasional concerns about how the organization has been run. That said, being the President, CEO, Executive Director, or whatever the title is at NARP has not been a particularly easy job, nor has it made its holder a rich man. I thank him for his service to the organization and the traveling public.
 
I've been chewing this over. If it was a planned departure, it would likely not have been so sudden, so we're to something going haywire in the organization. The best guesses I have are either (A) the consultant somehow turned on Ross amid the shakeups (i.e. he ended up on the receiving end of a shakeup) or (B) the board turned on the changes the consultant was pushing and Ross went out the door with the consultant.
 
From a member of the NARP Council:

Ross sent out an email to the council yesterday that he is retiring after 39+ years at NARP. I hardly call that a firing....

It was a surprise to me. There will be a search committee and we hope to have a new president in place by the end of Sept.
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Frankly, NARP did a terrible job of managing the news. They should have sent out a public notice immediately, rather than let it leak out the way it did. In this day of instant communication on social media, they goofed.
 
Several of us are planning to attend the NARP spring meeting in Silver Spring, MD at the end of April. (details here) I would encourage all NARP members to attend, since this may be an unparalleled opportunity to help guide the future direction of rail advocacy.
 
Not to many long time employees routinely retire giving one day's notice. He may administratively be "retiring," but I'm betting it's a bit more complicated than that.
 
I agree. What seems strangest to me is that he's not retaining the title of "President" through his departure, which implies a (rather sudden) removal of responsibilities. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it would seem more "normal" for him to have announced his intention to retire upon the selection of a successor but retained his role and responsibilities until then, and then maybe to have remained in an advisory position for a few months so as to aid in the transition...but not to have left the position "prematurely" like this. The other thing is the dearth of rumors about his impending retirement...either he did an astounding job of keeping it under wraps or this was unexpected.

Something doesn't add up...the least malicious possibility is a health concern of some sort, but something is off about how this played out.
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (#14-03)

Contact: Sean Jeans-Gail

202-408-8362

February 27, 2014

Ross Capon Transitions from His 39-Year Tenure at National Association of Railroad Passengers

Dr. Larry Scott to Take Over as Acting President

Washington, D.C.—The National Association of Railroad Passengers announced this week that Ross Capon will be transitioning from his 39-year career with the organization. Dr. Larry Scott will take over as Acting President.

Capon has worked for NARP since 1975, becoming Executive Director in 1976. He has been a tireless advocate for national passenger rail system that provides America’s passengers with a safe, reliable, convenient travel choice.

“Ross has served America’s passengers with great distinction during his 39 year tenure,” said NARP Chairman Bob Stewart. “During Ross’s time at NARP, the Association’s recognition and influence significantly increased. That’s reflected not only in the recognition he has received in the industry, but in the growth of passenger rail across the nation.”

“I am confident that the top-notch staff I have assembled will continue to strengthen the Association’s ability to press for the improvement and growth of our nation’s passenger train network and to grow membership,” said Capon. “I will be working closely with Acting President Larry Scott, and I’m pleased to be able to assist Larry in ensuring the smoothest possible transition in leadership and the continued growth of NARP.”

For his longstanding support of trains, Capon has been recognized with the Robert K. Pattison Partnership Award from the Intermodal Passenger Institute in 2000, and the W. Graham Claytor Jr. Award for Distinguished Service to Passenger Transportation from Railway Age Magazine in 2007. In addition, Capon received NARP’s own Golden Spike Award in 1985.

About the National Association of Railroad Passengers

NARP is the only national organization in the U.S. speaking for the users of passenger trains and rail transit. We have worked since 1967 to expand the quality and quantity of passenger rail in the U.S. Our mission is to work towards a modern, customer-focused national passenger train network that provides a travel choice Americans want. Our work is supported by over 22,000 individual members.

###
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jimhudson said:
Green Maned Lion said:
Thank god. Now maybe somebody can come in and fix NARP. I nominate Dr. Jishnu Mukerji.
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Second!!!!
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Thank you for your confidence in me, but regretfully I must decline. :p
From what I hear the NARP Board is at least as dysfunctional as Amtrak's and possibly considerably worse. Over the last three years, each year I have been progressively more disgusted and ever closer within inches of not renewing my NARP membership and this year might finally just push me across the threshold.

Anyhow, for me passenger train advocacy will remain a very part time low priority hobby. My real passions lie elsewhere.

Yeah, if I am still a member of NARP by April, I will be at the NARP shindig, but as I said, we'll see about the membership renewal bit.
 
Being the head of NARP since 1976 is, IMHO, a bit troubling, though the lack of turnover at rail advocacy organizations seems almost universal. Just very very odd no one ever was considered better potential or new directions in advocacy.
 
Paulus said:
Being the head of NARP since 1976 is, IMHO, a bit troubling, though the lack of turnover at rail advocacy organizations seems almost universal. Just very very odd no one ever was considered better potential or new directions in advocacy.
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It's not just rail groups. The Heritage Foundation was headed by Ed Feulner from 1977-2013. I get a feeling that this is often the case with non-profits, since there's often no mechanism save a donor walkout to force a change in the board ("membership" often doesn't even convey a vote on an advisory council), and since the board tends to be self-perpetuating you get into a cycle of friends/allies putting their own friends/allies on the board. In Feulner's case, my understanding is that he was only packed off after some major internal miscalculations surrounding "Heritage Action" (intended as a more lobbying-heavy group) left another faction functionally in charge and with control over the donor lists. Had that not happened, Feulner might have been in charge for another decade.

This can happen in businesses as well, since it is quite rare to see a board even get into a contested proxy fight (which is often expensive to even trigger, and hard to win since a lot of institutional shareholders will usually side with the board unless something is sorely wrong in the organization. There, raw profit motive often triggers a bit of discretion, and interpersonal ties seem less likely to get in the way.
 
Advocacy groups of all sorts can get complacent, simply because it's easy to fall into a mindset where the original mission starts to take second place to the survival of the organization itself. Such groups may start thinking that "growing the membership" is more important than success in whatever policy goals they started with.

This is hardly surprising: after all, they need to pay salaries and rent. And as Anderson said, governing boards tend to be self-perpetuating unless some major catastrophe wakes anti-incumbent feeling among the membership.

I think that it's way too soon to tell where NARP goes now. And I don't blame jis for his disillusion. In addition to whatever internal dysfunction may be going on within NARP (I just don't know), it's surely discouraging to look at where passenger rail has been, and wonder where it's going. Yes, there have been some victories, but on the whole, America has been content to let its trains slowly fade away. Whether we can reverse that is a very open question.
 
CHamilton said:
I think that it's way too soon to tell where NARP goes now. And I don't blame jis for his disillusion. In addition to whatever internal dysfunction may be going on within NARP (I just don't know), it's surely discouraging to look at where passenger rail has been, and wonder where it's going. Yes, there have been some victories, but on the whole, America has been content to let its trains slowly fade away. Whether we can reverse that is a very open question.
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BTW, my discomfort is with the aimless meanderings of the NARP Board of Directors, and not about Ross at all. I thought Ross tended to be a stabilizing influence on the Board, which makes this change particularly disturbing. Specially since off late the Board has apparently forced the meandering of NARP into Canadian passenger rail and all sorts of other malarchy. Also I find the seemingly anti-NEC tone of things emanating from NARP of late quite disturbing and leaves me wondering why I should care funding something that bad mouths things that I consider terribly important, just because they can't figure out how to run the LD network profitably.
I have been a member since sometime in the '80s, and back them it sure felt much more coherent and relevant than it does not somehow.
 
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I've testified b4 congress with Ross at my side, "known" him to be a treless advocate, in a thankless job, (back in the day, virtually no support, and very little funding) personally, I cannot believe that Ross has stayed on board, and got as much as he has got done, over all these years. I think replacing Ross will be an enormous task: To find someone who will put the same number of hours in, with the same connections, and compensation that does not match the task at hand.

He has had to walk a fine line over many many years, transforming NARP, from BEING SEEN AS A foamer group into a real advocacy group. He has done in my mind, a great job.

I too, have not always agreed with every decision or direction in which Ross has pointed the organization, but, passenger rail advocates are far better off having had Ross at the helm for 39 years, then not.

I am sure Ross, via NARP, would appreciate emails from those who feel similar to me.

EDIT: I "Russed" Ross. Getting old sux......
 
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I just received the July "News Briefs" email from AAPRCO. Interestingly, it includes a lengthy "Washington Update" signed by Ross Capon, Legislative Liaison. And I have confirmed elsewhere that he is indeed working for the private railcar owner group now.
 

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