The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. has announced organizational changes in anticipation of the previously disclosed retirement of Executive Vice President and President of Greenbrier Leasing Corporation (GLC) James T. Sharp. Sharp, who retires at the end of December, will continue in an advisory role and assist with transition and special projects through 2016 and beyond.
Sharp’s duties will be assumed by Executive Vice President, Commercial & Leasing Mark J. Rittenbaum, further integrating Greenbrier's leasing and management services businesses with its commercial activities. Rittenbaum will be responsible for all commercial and leasing activities in North America and Latin America, with particular emphasis on new railcar sales, leasing and enhancement of customer service design.
“Greenbrier is becoming more global, leveraging our scale, and moving closer to our customers. We have a focused 'go to market strategy' that serves our integrated business model and reflects our expanded worldwide activities,” said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer William A. Furman.
“Thanks to the talents and vision of Jim Sharp, we have grown a small railcar leasing company into a very successful asset-light leasing and asset management business that manages over 268,000 railcars and originates almost $1 billion of railcar leases annually. Most of this product is syndicated and sold to institutional partners with underlying assets managed by Greenbrier over the life of the equipment. I greatly appreciate Jim's 20 years of service to Greenbrier,” added Furman.
As announced previously, President of Greenbrier International Jim Cowan will oversee commercial activities in all railcar markets outside the Americas, while continuing as CEO of GBW Railcar Services, LLC, Greenbrier's railcar repair and refurbishment joint venture with Watco Companies, LLC.
Alejandro Centurion continues as president of Greenbrier's Global Manufacturing Operations (GMO) and is credited with implementing Greenbrier's global manufacturing and engineering system for new railcar manufacturing. Currently, GMO's global output accounts for approximately 75% of Greenbrier's annual worldwide revenue.
GLC will continue to align its leasing and management services businesses to emphasize lease underwriting, lease syndication and asset management services (GMS). Lease underwriting will be led by Larry Stanley, senior vice president GLC Finance; lease syndication will be led by Brian Conn, managing director structured financial products; and Dan Weiler will lead GMS as senior vice president asset management. All three will now report to Rittenbaum.
Greenbrier's commercial organization includes Greenbrier's field sales operations and commercial administration headed by Brian Comstock, senior vice president and general manager commercial, Americas region, and Tom Jackson, vice president marketing.
Rittenbaum said, “We have a deep pool of talented people and highly capable teams in place within our Leasing, Management Services and Commercial organizations. I know that the current high levels of integration and coordinated effort will only grow as we continue to collaborate within this new organizational structure. My goal is to build on the platforms created by Jim and the GLC team, along with our Commercial organization.”