Representative Experience
Counsel for numerous electric utilities on coal supply and railroad transportation regulatory and contracting matters.  Duties have entailed taking a lead role in the development and execution of strategies to reduce clients’ overall operating costs by millions of dollars per year through transportation cost reductions.  Recent matters have included advice and counseling concerning the ability to challenge railroad fuel surcharges and the legal effect of the attempts by Class I railroads to shift risk onto their customers in the areas of rail safety and environmental liability

Lead counsel in four stand-alone cost coal rate cases before the Surface Transportation Board over the reasonableness of railroad rates, one of which – Xcel Energy v. BNSF Railway – was the last case in which a shipper received rate relief and past damages

Counsel for Midwestern utility in multimillion dollar state court contract litigation with Class I western railroad arising out of the 2005 service meltdown in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming

Lead counsel for several electric utilities on strategic plans to lower overall costs by constructing lines of railroad to create rail-to-rail competition.  Projects resulted in annual cost savings in the tens of millions of dollars

Lead transportation counsel to owner and developer of a 100 million gallon corn-to-ethanol plant being constructed in Georgia, providing contract negotiation and interpretation, railroad regulatory and litigation services

Lead transportation counsel to group of rail shippers in Mississippi seeking to improve service and rates from a short line railroad

Lead transportation counsel to Western electric utility proposing to construct a new coal-fired generating facility; services have included STB jurisdictional issues, development of rail operating plans, development of rail transportation agreements, review and analysis of potential regulatory relief, and interfacing with state public utility commission

Lead transportation counsel for large multi-national corporation on transportation matters arising out of the largest Superfund cases in history, involving the removal and disposal of millions of tons of contaminated PCB soils from the Upper Hudson River in New York

Recent Presentations 
Burdens Without the Benefits - Shippers Becoming Railroads and Other Laments, National Coal Transportation Association, Spring Annual Meeting, April 22, 2008

Recent Events Affecting Coal Shippers – And Leadership Issues, National Coal Transportation Association, Fall Annual Meeting, September 12, 2006 

Oral Testimony before the Surface Transportation Board Ex Parte No, 661, Review of Rail Fuel Surcharges, May 10, 2006

Will there be More Coal Rate Cases at the STB? Association of Transportation Law Professionals, Hot Topics in Transportation, March 20, 2006

Other 
Married, father of three girls
Finisher, Ford Ironman Triathlon, Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, - 2008
Finisher, Ford Ironman Triathlon, Madison, Wisconsin - 2005
Finisher, Eagleman ½ Ironman Triathlon, Cambridge, Maryland - 2004, 2005, 2007