Katie Farmer ’92 (MBA ’96) made history with the announcement that she would be the next chief executive officer for Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), effective Jan. 1, 2021. As featured in the Dallas Morning News and numerous other publications, she will be the first woman in nearly 200 years of railroading to lead a Class I railroad.
Farmer currently serves as executive vice president of operations, a role she has held since September 2018, but has spent the entirety of her 28-year railroading career with BNSF. She joined Burlington Northern in 1992 as a management trainee and held multiple leadership positions within BNSF’s operations throughout her career.
Farmer will succeed the current president and CEO, Carl Ice, who is set to retire after a 42-year railroading career, which included the 1995 merger of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe. BNSF is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, and employs approximately 36,000 with rail routes in 28 states and three Canadian provinces.