10 May 2007
Roanoker Accepts Executive Post with CP Rail
Canada's second largest railroad has hired a Roanoke native to
run its daily operations, in which 1,500 locomotives haul grain, coal, and consumer goods along 13,000 miles of track in southern
Canada and parts of the northern United States.
Kathryn McQuade, who comes from a well-known Roanoke Valley family, the Bovas, has climbed the rail-industry
ladder to its highest rungs since Norfolk & Western Railway Co. in downtown Roanoke gave her an accountant's job in 1980.
Now executive vice president and chief information officer at Norfolk Southern Corp., she will become chief operating officer of
Canadian Pacific Railway on 1 Jun 2007.
McQuade will work and live in Calgary, a western center of the petroleum industry with a view of the Canadian Rockies and stunning
displays of the northern lights.
More than 1 million Calgarians enjoy a dry, cool climate, professional sports, winter sports, fly fishing, golf, and country music.
Calgary's nickname is "Nashville of the North."
"It will be an exciting time," said McQuade, 50, who has obtained a renewable work visa to be employed in Canada without
becoming a Canadian citizen.
McQuade's grandfather started Quality Produce on the City Market in the 1920s. The produce-distribution company, now known
as Produce Sources, is still in the family with her brothers Eddy and David Bova in charge. She has a sister, Carol Hill, in North
Carolina. Her mother, Mary Jane Bova, lives in Roanoke.
McQuade earned an accounting degree from the College of William and Mary. She worked for two years at an accounting firm before joining
N&W, which merged with Southern Railway in 1982 to form Norfolk Southern, based in Norfolk.
Ten years later McQuade entered senior management at NS as vice president over internal audits. She ascended through such jobs as vice
president of financial planning and vice president of finance, ending up as executive vice president in charge of planning and chief
information officer, posts she has held since late 2004.
McQuade said David Goode nurtured her career with new opportunities along with new responsibilities during his tenure as chief
executive officer at NS, from which he has retired. Because of those exposures, she has been able to take on ever broader roles, she
said.
In her new job, she will be responsible for Canadian Pacific's train operations under chief executive Fred Green. CP is looking for
McQuade to improve its operations in part by instilling practices that were successful at NS.
She said she will be the first woman to preside over operations at a railroad in the largest size category. She has been the
highest-ranking female at NS, too, though other women have held rail executive positions, such as Ellen Fitzsimmons,
general counsel at CSX Corp.
"I'm excited but scared," McQuade said. "It's exhilarating but it's also an awesome responsibility and I'm really
looking forward to it. I will miss the East Coast, too."
( Editor's note: Bring a parka. )
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