CSX Corp. Realigns Its Senior Management

CSX Corp., which has recently expanded beyond its transportation base into natural resources and telecommunications, Wednesday announced a major realignment of senior management.

The Richmond, Va.-based company, which was formed through the 1980 merger of the Chessie System railroad and Seaboard Coast Line Industries, has made some significant acquisitions that present the company with the need to review operations, a statement said.

“It is . . . time to decide the optimum CSX organization for the future,” said Hays T. Watkins, chairman and chief executive.

Since 1980, he noted, “CSX acquired a major natural resource company and the nation’s largest barge line. It established a nationwide trucking subsidiary. At the same time, the transportation industry has been dramatically altered by deregulation, and our marketplace is now international.”

The company said the realignment is designed to broaden top management’s involvement in day-to-day operations at major subsidiaries, expand strategic planning and create a study group to examine railroad operations. The changes, effective March 1, are as follows:

John Collinson, 59, president and chief executive of the Chessie System, has been promoted to chairman of Chessie and CSX’s other major transportation company, Seaboard System railroad.

John W. Snow, 45, currently a CSX executive vice president, will take over as president of Chessie.

Richard Leatherwood, 45, president and chief executive of Texas Gas Resources, which CSX acquired in 1983 for $1.1 billion, becomes a corporate vice chairman.

Leatherwood will be succeeded at Texas Gas Resources by Robert L. Hintz, 54, currently CSX’s chief financial officer. Hintz will remain a corporate executive vice president.

Alex Mandl, 41, senior vice president-finance and corporate planning at Seaboard System, becomes CSX senior vice president-corporate development, a new position.