thoughtleaders
He’s stared down the
Russians and Vietnamese
during face-to-face market-
opening negotiations.
Now, Bruce Carlton faces
the comparatively easy
challenge of steering NITL
through some rough
economic seas.
BY MITCH MAC DONALD, GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
THE DC VELOCITY Q&A
fearless leader
interview with Bruce Carlton
WHEN HE TOOK THE REINS OF THE NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL TRANSPORTATION LEAGUE
last June, Bruce Carlton probably figured that his biggest challenge would be persuading lawmakers to
fund urgently needed infrastructure improvements. Yet within four months, the whole game changed.
The economy fell off a cliff—or as Carlton likes to say, fell through a trap door—and suddenly, nothing else seemed to matter. Right now, he says, “Job One for us and for everybody else … is a robust
economic recovery.”
But Carlton hasn’t let the turmoil distract him from his main task as NITL’s leader: advancing the
freight transportation community’s economic and political interests. That’s been the league’s core
mission for 101 years, he says, and it will take more than a global economic meltdown to change that.
Before taking over as the president and CEO of NITL, Carlton worked at the U.S. Department of
Transportation, where he served as the assistant administrator of the Maritime Administration. As the
ranking senior executive service (SES) career official in the Maritime Administration, he was responsible for international activities, policy development and implementation, legislation, economic analysis, and strategic planning. During his tenure at MarAd, he successfully negotiated market-opening
bilateral agreements with China, Russia, Brazil, Vietnam, Japan, and Ukraine.
