Robert Gallamore is not kidding when he calls himself a “transportation nut from way back.”
He helped deregulate the railroad industry during the Carter administration as deputy federal railroad administrator. And he negotiated mergers for the multibillion-dollar Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha, Neb.
Now Gallamore is applying that professional experience to his new academic post as director of Northwestern’s Transportation Center, a position he assumed Aug. 1.
“I’ve always loved the academic community,” said Gallamore, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and a master’s degree and doctorate from Harvard University. “I’m a strong believer in the academic values of free speech, debate and resolution of problems.”
Gallamore takes over at a busy time for the center, one of only 12 at universities nationwide.
The center recently helped launch an interdisciplinary transportation and logistics minor for undergraduate students.
The center, which opened in 1954 and moved to a new building at 600 Foster St. in 1999, already offers six graduate programs in conjunction with the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Gallamore said he has tried to create unity between the various departments the Transportation Center works with, including disciplines in McCormick, Kellogg and the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
“The idea of a center is to draw on these different disciplines and apply them to issues that are important,” he said.
The center is working on several research projects that bring together various disciplines at NU, including a collaboration with the Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology that explores the the sleep rhythms of truck and train drivers.
Gallamore said the issue is especially important because of the increase in train use following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. He also cited the significance of another project looking to increase the stability of infrastructure at U.S. airports.
“When you make something more secure, how do you do that without messing up the flow of people through the facility?” he asked.
Diana Marek, assistant director of the Transportation Center, said Gallamore has succeeded in expanding the breadth of the center.
“He’s done an outstanding job of bringing together all the various groups on campus – and on the outside as well that relate to us,” she said. “It’s a big challenge for someone to step into it.”
Gallamore is used to challenges. He helped combat the high inflation rates in the late 1970s when serving in the Carter administration. And he was part of a team that proposed the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, which removed the railroad industry from governmental control.
At the time, some detractors said the proposal would destroy the railroads.
“Just the reverse has happened,” Gallamore said. “The industry has not only spared itself from bankruptcy and collapse, but has managed to lower its (prices).”
After working for the White House from 1977 to 1981, he worked as a strategic-planning executive for at Union Pacific for 20 years, where he applied his prior knowledge of railroads to other types of transport.
“It’s interesting how these experiences fade over into other modes of transportation,” Gallamore said. “I learned a lot about trucks in the merger and acquisition business.”
Gallamore originally became interested in transportation while earning his doctorate at Harvard. He has worked with his doctoral mentor for the past four years on a book about the history of the railroad industry.
Civil engineering Prof. Joseph Schofer, who was on the search committee that picked Gallamore, said the doctorate lends credibility to Gallamore’s resume.
“Faculty can really respect that he did the work,” he said. “He’s been on both sides of the street, he knows people in the field and he’s known in the academic community as well.”
Although Gallamore said he had hoped to get back into academics for a “long, long time,” interviewing at NU in December created an unexpected problem for him.
“I do root for the (University of Nebraska Corn) Huskers,” he said. “I was a little conflicted in the Alamo Bowl last year.”
