With more than 32 years at the organization, Mr. Free has equipped himself with an extraordinary grasp of rail operations, planning, and customers. He built his career from the ground up, starting with the railroad as a Station Cleaner and later moving up to a variety of mission-critical roles, including management.

As Chief Transportation Officer, he was responsible for over 2,000 employees and maintaining efficient systemwide train operations. His ability to fix numerous track outages allowed significant projects such as the Ronkonkoma Branch Double Track and State of Good Repair maintenance to progress. As Senior Vice President, he was responsible for over 7,000 employees in Rolling Stock Maintenance, Train Movement, Maintenance of Way, Service Planning, Security and Station Operations.

Mr. Free led operations through the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring train service for essential workers, and also helped advance the railroad’s epic Capital Program, which included megaprojects such as the Main Line Third Track and Grand Central Madison. He also oversaw the projects’ operations and service planning, staffing, and maintenance, which, upon the successful launch of these projects, resulted in an astounding
40% increase in train service.