The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. announced the election of Patrick J. Ottensmeyer to the Company’s Board of Directors. The election of Ottensmeyer increases Greenbrier’s Board from 10 to 11 members, nine of whom are independent directors. Ottensmeyer served as President and CEO of Kansas City Southern (KCS), a Class I railroad, from 2015 to 2023 until the completion of the merger creating Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) in 2023.

From 2008 to 2015, he was Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing at KCS. Earlier, from 2006 to 2008, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at the railroad. Ottensmeyer is the U.S. Chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s U.S.-Mexico Economic Council (USMXECO).

In this role, he presides over the U.S.-Mexico CEO Dialogue, which occurs twice annually. He oversees the Council’s extensive agenda of engagement with public- and private-sector leaders in the U.S. and Mexico to strengthen bilateral commercial ties. As leader of the U.S.-Mexico CEO Dialogue, Ottensmeyer was instrumental in representing business interests during the formation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) from 2017-2020.

Ottensmeyer is the Co-Chair of the Brookings Institute USMCA Initiative, a group focused on building more integrated and resilient supply chains. He serves as Chair of the Truman Library Institute, the member-supported, nonprofit partner of the President Harry S. Truman Library & Museum. In 2023, Ottensmeyer received the NARS Edward R. Hamberger Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2022, he was the recipient of Ingram’s Executive of the Year Award.

Also in 2022, he and Keith Creel won Railway Age’s Co-Railroaders of the Year Award, in connection with the CP and KCS merger. He received the Railway Age Railroader of the Year recognition for the first time in 2020 and in 2019 he was the recipient of Progressive Railroading’s Railroad Innovator Award.