- John M. Budd
John Marston Budd was
chairman andchief executive officer ofBurlington Northern Railroad from 1970 to 1971, chairman from 1971 to 1972, and a director from 1970 to 1977.Family
Budd was born November 2, 1907, in
Des Moines, Iowa . He was the son ofRalph Budd and Georianna Marshall Budd. He married Frances Bullard, January 31, 1931. They had two children: John M. Budd, Jr., and William B. Budd.Education
Budd graduated from
Yale University with a Bachelor's of Science inCivil Engineering in 1930.Career
Budd joined the
Great Northern Railway on his summers away from Yale in 1925 and 1926. Following graduation, he joined the Great Northern as assistant to the electrical engineer, a position he held from 1930 to 1932.In 1933 he was appointed assistant trainmaster at
Willmar, Minnesota . From 1933 to 1940 he was assistant trainmaster and then trainmaster atSioux City, South Dakota ,Wenatchee, Washington , andSpokane, Washington .From 1940 to 1942 he served as division superintendent at
Klamath Falls, Oregon , thenWhitefish, Montana .From November, 1945, to May, 1947, Budd was assistant general manager for Lines East of
Williston, North Dakota , on the Great Northern.In June, 1947, he joined theChicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad as its president, a position he held until May, 1949. In this capacity he was the youngest president of any U.S. Class I railroad.He returned to the Great Northern in May, 1949, following the death of Thomas F. Dixon to become the Great Northern's vice-president in charge of operations. He held this position until May, 1951, when he was named president, succeeding
Francis J. Gavin who had been in office since 1939. John Budd's father,Ralph Budd , another civil engineer, was president of the Great Northern from 1919 to 1930, and president of theChicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad , a company half-owned by the Great Northern in cooperation with theNorthern Pacific Railway , from 1930 until his retirement in 1949.In 1955, Budd entered discussions with
Robert Stetson Macfarlane , president of the Northern Pacific, about merger of the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and the Burlington. The companies continued to theInterstate Commerce Commission and theU.S. Supreme Court , which resulted in the creation of theBurlington Northern Railroad in March, 1970.He died at the age of seventy-one on October 25, 1979.
Military Service
In 1942 Budd was commissioned a major in the
U.S. Army 'sMilitary Railway Service . He served inAlgeria ,Italy ,France andGermany . Promoted to lieutenant colonel, he commanded the 727th Railway Operating Battalion. He was discharged in November, 1945.Other Service
Member of the American Association of Railroad Superintendents;
Boy Scouts of America ;Hamline University .Notability
John M. Budd planned and led one of the largest railroad mergers (Burlington Northern) in the United States to 1970. This is in marked contrast with the attempted merger and subsequent bankruptcy of
Penn Central Transportation between 1968 and 1970, which became the largest corporate bankruptcy in the United States to that time.Sources
"John Budd Goes to GN; Roddewig Heads C&EI," "Railway Age," 126 (May 28, 1949): 41-42.
"John M. Budd, New President of the C&EI," "Railway Age," 122 (May 24, 1947): 1081.
Moore, Russell F., editor. "Who’s Who in Railroading in North America. New York: Simmons-Boardman," 1964, p. 69.
White, W. Thomas III. "John M. Budd." "Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography; Railroads in the Age of Regulation, 1900-1980." New York: Facts On File, 1988, pp. 53-55.
Persondata
NAME= Budd, John M.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=railroad executive
DATE OF BIRTH=1907-11-02
PLACE OF BIRTH=Des Moines, Iowa
DATE OF DEATH=1979-10-25
PLACE OF DEATH=
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