Meet Donald Trump's Pick To Oversee The Railroads

Forbes

The president-elect’s nominee to lead the Federal Railroad Administration has longstanding business ties to an heir of the Mellon banking fortune.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/12/24/donald-trump-david-fink-timothy-mellon-federal-railroad-administration-pan-am-railways/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now

00:06is my Forbes colleague, staff writer Zach Everson. Zach, thanks so much for joining

00:10me.

00:11Thanks for having me, Brittany.

00:14This month, Donald Trump will officially be reentering the White House, and you have some

00:18news on someone he's picking for a key role in his administration. This is your headline,

00:23that Trump picked a business associate of mega-donor Timothy Mellon to lead the Federal

00:27Railroad Administration. So first of all, the person that we're talking about is David

00:31Fink. So to start off the conversation, who is he?

00:35So Fink is a fifth-generation railroader. He was Donald Trump's pick to lead the Federal

00:40Railroad Administration, which is an agency within the Department of Transportation responsible

00:45for rail safety and infrastructure funding. And he has worked with Mellon going back decades.

00:52And before he worked with Mellon, his father, who's also named David Fink, also worked with

00:56Mellon. So talk to us about how that partnership came to be, and what's the relationship with

01:02the patriarch David Fink to Timothy Mellon?

01:05Sure. So the elder Fink, Mellon met the elder Fink back in the 70s, according to Mellon

01:11wrote in his memoir. At the time, Fink was a manager at the Penn Central Railroad, and

01:17Mellon was kind of in between jobs, which is something you can do when you're an heir

01:21to that fortune. He had just recently gotten out of the computer business and was working

01:26with his nonprofit at the time, which was a group called the Sajam Fund. Now, one of

01:29the things he was interested in doing with that foundation was repairing a bridge in

01:35Poughkeepsie, New York. And it just turned out that Fink was kind of partially in charge

01:41of that bridge. So he says that by chance he met Fink at a League of Women Voters event,

01:46and they ended up discussing working on this bridge together. That project went nowhere.

01:50But then afterwards, they did start working together and founded a company together that

01:54made railroad ties. And Fink, the father you're reporting, and Mellon's efficiency-minded

02:00approach had some pros and cons. So can you talk to us a little bit about those?

02:05Yeah. So they were really not well received by industry. They cut back a lot on employees,

02:13I think, going from like five people to run a train down to three. They were really focused

02:17on efficiency there. They busted strikes. And it was it was really, you know, not they

02:24were not beloved by the railroad industry. However, a lot of that efficiency mindedness

02:29did eventually become commonplace in the industry.

02:32So then how did David Fink, the one who Trump nominated to run the FRA, how did he get into

02:38the fold? So he joined in September of 1998. He joined his father and Mellon at the company that

02:46made the railroad ties. And then later, he became an executive vice president of the Guilford Rail

02:52System, which is one of the rail systems that Fink and Mellon, the elder Fink and Mellon owned at

02:59that time. And you're reporting that when Fink then became the president of Pan Am Railways,

03:05the Federal Railroad Administration audited the company. So talk to us about that time.

03:10So the elder Fink and Mellon bought the old Pan Am brand. They did try to launch an airline with it.

03:16It didn't stick, but they used it kind of as an umbrella brand for their railroads that they

03:21had purchased. And Fink became the president after that. His father had been the president.

03:26There was somebody in between. And then the younger Fink took over. And yeah, they had been

03:30the FRA had audited them in twenty twenty one in the wake of two fatal accidents and found that

03:37Pan Am's leadership failed to take action to develop a positive safety culture throughout

03:41the organization. So here you have an example of a former leader in this company who was chastised

03:51by a government watchdog is now going to head that same government watchdog.

03:56Is that a theme, do you think, based on your reporting, based on what you're seeing

04:00of Donald Trump's cabinet and administration picks?

04:04I think it's a theme of the United States government going back as far as I am aware.

04:09You know, that's that's certainly some regulatory capture is a phrase that is, you know, well,

04:14well used around the beltway to describe when, you know, industry people come in and leave the

04:19departments that were once regulating them, which to a certain extent makes sense because these are

04:23the people who build that industry. You know, if you were to pick somebody with no railroad

04:27You know, if you were to pick somebody with no railroad experience out there to head the FRA,

04:32you know, they probably wouldn't do a great job. So, you know, you are getting somebody

04:36with experience in railroads, but you're also getting somebody who may not have

04:40the experience that the American people would best benefit from serving in that role.

04:45I do not want to turn to Timothy Mellon, who you characterize as a Trump mega donor.

04:49So let's talk numbers here. Just how much has he donated Donald Trump?

04:54At least one hundred and fifty million dollars. He has spent backing Trump's 2024 campaign,

05:01which puts him to be one of the top donors out there that we know of.

05:05You know, off the top of my head, the only person who best him is Elon Musk.

05:10Huge sum of money there. Has David Fink donated to Donald Trump at all?

05:15Not that I can tell. I did. I did look for that. And there was there was no evidence

05:18of any donations in the FEC records. So now that Fink is nominated,

05:24what's next on his journey to become administrator of the FRA?

05:28So it is a position that does require congressional approval. So there will be

05:33a confirmation hearings with the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

05:38Date has yet to be scheduled. You know, this is the first day right now that the Congress

05:42is assembled. So, you know, we expect to have a date for his confirmation hearing,

05:46probably not in the next week or so. Zach, as you and I have discussed,

05:50Donald Trump has had some controversial cabinet picks,

05:53controversial picks in his administration. Is this one of them?

06:00You know, there's been a little bit of of people complaining online, but it's so small. I mean,

06:05it's this this is standard industry person here getting a government job. You know,

06:10it's nothing compared to what you're looking about with the cash patel or,

06:14you know, what Gates was going through or Hegseth like it's nowhere near that.

06:17So I don't think it's anything that would derail the nomination. And please apologize for that

06:22horrible, horrible pun that I did not realize I was saying until after it came out of my mouth.

06:26Well, first pun of 2025, Zach Everson, per usual, thank you so much for your reporting.

06:32I'm looking forward to many more. My pleasure. Happy New Year.

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Transcript

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