Rail Passengers Welcomes Its First New Volunteer Class

by Jim Mathews / President & CEO

Your Association’s new volunteer staff program is going like gangbusters, and we’re excited this week to welcome our first cohort of 16 volunteers to the team!

With the five-year policy law around Amtrak and rail expiring this year, the potential for an unprecedented merger of two freight-rail giants that would affect more than half of Amtrak’s ridership, funding disputes that could lead to another government shutdown, and of course a looming election, our work this year will take on much more urgency.

That’s why we’re so glad to have these dedicated members come aboard and help us in what will be a very challenging, but very exciting, 2026!

In the coming days you’ll get to meet this incredible group of members, but I’d like to say right now that we were extraordinarily lucky to have such a strong and qualified group of candidates to choose from. There are so many wonderful people joining the team, that I can’t go through all of them here in this post. Watch the website and our blogs for more on some of these great new additions to the Association Staff!

However, we’re especially pleased to report that we’ve filled two key leadership roles: Chief Technology Officer and Director of Consumer Affairs.

Our incoming volunteer CTO Eric Langer is a long-time member of our Association and currently works as a program manager in automation and software development. A leader in technology and operations, Eric brings more than two decades of business and management experience to this role, a strong record of accomplishment across many businesses and clients, and a host of certifications, including Project Management Professional (PMP) and Microsoft certifications in Azure, Microsoft 365, and system administrator credentials.

One of Eric’s first tasks will be to help pull together our other four technology volunteers to help us address some big challenges we’re facing right now in our Office 365 cloud, our website handling, and re-assessing our technology stack.

Meanwhile, the new volunteer Director of Consumer Affairs is no stranger to customer-care and call center operations -- Bill Sievers, who is joining our team from Florida, began his career at Amtrak in the Philadelphia Call Center! Bill spent 16 years at Amtrak rising through increasingly responsible positions, and when he left Amtrak he headed what was then Amtrak’s largest call center in Fort Washington, Penn. Paul Allen, Microsoft’s billionaire co-founder, recruited Bill to consolidate call center operations for 13 cable companies that Allen had acquired, which eventually became Charter (Spectrum).

Bill will have a strong team of three other extremely well-qualified volunteers as we build this brand-new Consumer Affairs capability within the Association, including an exceptional Deputy Director in Larry Gould, a long-time member who brings decades of transportation and transit-planning experience at New York's MTA and Nelson/Nygaard Consulting, along with stellar volunteer service on the Board of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Bill, Larry, and their colleagues will establish and manage a program to handle passenger complaints involving rail operators, whether Amtrak or private, truly fulfilling Rail Passengers’ role as the national “Voice of the Passenger.” Everything from cleanliness and facilities to on-time performance and food and beverage and fares will be on the table. But it’s not just complaints. Crucially, we’ll also use this function as a way to make sure that customer kudos for those great crews get the focus they deserve.

Research gets a strong shot in the arm, too. With the addition of six new data analysts, our research and data team will now boast eight volunteers, tackling everything from ridership fact sheets and database research to GIS mapping and original research into trends shaping U.S. passenger rail policy. They’ll be under the leadership of our own Dr. John Christoph, a phenomenal researcher and data-scientist who has been volunteering all year with us in the D.C. office.

And this is just a taste of the great team we’re building. We’re still accepting resumes and applications for some of the marketing, fundraising/development, and routes spokesperson roles. And we’re still actively recruiting for a volunteer Director of Marketing, PR, and Communications. If you’ve been on the fence, please think about raising your hand for one of these positions. You can learn more by visiting our Volunteer page at this link. It’s never been a more exciting time to get aboard!