On August 14, Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw sat down with Katie Kirkpatrick, President and CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber, at the Rotary Club of Atlanta’s weekly meeting.

Speaking to industry leaders from across the city, Shaw discussed his philosophy on “leading for the long term.” He also spoke about Norfolk Southern's decision to move its headquarters to Atlanta, progress in East Palestine, and where Norfolk Southern is heading in the future.

Norfolk Southern’s Journey to Atlanta

Shaw discussed Atlanta’s deep ties to the railroad industry and, by extension, Norfolk Southern. Transportation is an economic driver of growth for the city – and one of the reasons it would become the headquarters for Norfolk Southern.

“Atlanta has its roots deep in rail, we have our roots deep in Atlanta. We understand our role here,” said Shaw. “As I think about our long-term vision, we’re investing in our infrastructure, we’re investing in our people and we’re investing in our communities.”

He also praised Atlanta’s role as a vital hub for the region.

“Atlanta certainly is the cultural, the economic and the educational hub of the Southeast, which is frankly one of the strengths of our franchise,” Shaw said. We're really proud to continue to expand our presence in Atlanta.”

He said Atlanta will play an important role in developing the kind of workforce Norfolk Sothern needs to be successful.

“We're transforming more to a customer-centric, consumer-oriented truck competitive market, and Atlanta really brings wonderful access to the technologically savvy, diverse workforce that can really help us innovate and inspire our competitive effort.”

Norfolk Southern’s Commitment to East Palestine

Following the February derailment in East Palestine, Shaw recalled sitting with residents in their businesses, homes, and churches to hear first-hand how they were affected and what Norfolk Southern could do to make things right.

Shaw underscored how every effort made has been aligned with the company’s core values.

“Our response was perfectly in line with our North Star of doing the right things for our customers, our employees, our shareholders and the communities we serve,” Shaw said. “On any given day we have around 300 NS employees or contractors who are in East Palestine either working on the environmental remediation, the community recovery, or investing in the long-term health of the community.”

In addition to fully remediating the site, Shaw noted Norfolk Southern has committed over $68 million to the community, including hiring an East Palestine-based employee to serve as a community liaison, reporting directly to Shaw and empowered to manage a $1 million community fund.

Other community investments include:

• Funding a $25 million renovation project of upgrades and improvements to the East Palestine City Park.
• Hiring an economic development firm to council local businesses.
• Donating and restoring a historic train depot that is rooted in the village’s history.

He also affirmed the desire for Norfolk Southern employees to be proud of what they are doing to make things right for the long term in the Village.

“We brought the team together in the immediate aftermath and said we're going to do more than less here. We're going to do what's right and we're going to come up with a solution so that five years from now, 10 years from, now we can look back on this and be really proud of what we've done,” Shaw said. “More importantly, we want the citizens of East Palestine to look back at this five years from now, 10 years from now and be really proud of what we've done.”

Norfolk Southern’s Future

Shaw also explained his vision to transform Norfolk Southern into a customer-centric, operations-driven service organization to serve a changing market and the demand for e-commerce goods.

“Fifteen years ago, 35 percent of our revenue came from coal. We were a big steel-hauling, big coal-hauling railroad, which was great then, but that's not the way the markets are headed right now,” said Shaw.  

Shaw emphasized that rail is the green alternative to trucks – three-to-four times more carbon efficient. Over the past five years, he said customers have become more interested in reducing their transportation emissions and they know they can do that by shifting more business from truck to rail.

“Just in the state of Georgia, we estimate we save about 900,000 metric tons of carbon by taking trucks off the highway. So, Norfolk Southern is proud to be a sustainable solution. That's part of our growth story going forward.”

Watch the full interview.

Alan Shaw’s quotes have been lightly edited for conciseness and clarity.