Pacer International announced today, Nov. 16, that Michael E. Uremovich has been appointed chairman and chief executive officer. He succeeds Don Orris, who will continue to serve as member of the board and in a senior executive capacity through March 31 to facilitate a smooth transition.
Uremovich has served as the Concord, Calif.-based company’s vice chairman since October 2003, focusing primarily on corporate strategy, external affairs and a variety of commercial activities, as well as having had direct operating responsibility for the company’s international, supply chain services, and warehousing and distribution business units.
“Mike Uremovich has been providing strategic, commercial and operational direction and support to Pacer International for many years, first as consultant and for the last three years as a leader on our senior management team,” Orris says. “He brings a wide range of transportation and logistics knowledge and experience to virtually all of our businesses, including double-stack rail transportation for containerized freight, intermodal marketing, highway services, logistics management and international services. He is a solid choice to lead our senior management team and our company into the future.”
Orris added that Tom Shurstad, who was named president of Pacer International in June, will continue to serve the company in that capacity. “Tom Shurstad is one of the industry’s foremost leaders in intermodal transportation,” Orris says. “We are extremely pleased with the overall strength of our senior management team.”
Prior to joining Pacer, Uremovich was a partner in the San Francisco-based consulting firm Manalytics International. Prior to his association with Manalytics, he served in senior marketing positions for Southern Pacific Railroad, APL Ltd. (then American President Companies) and Lee Way Motor Freight. He was instrumental in the early commercial development of double-stack rail transportation, and in the development of logistics services for these transportation companies. Uremovich also has managed major components of the transportation practices at Booz Allen and Hamilton and Coopers & Lybrand.
Orris, who founded Pacer in March 1997 with the acquisition of a small intermodal marketing and trucking company, announced in October his desire to retire upon the board’s appointment of his successor, in order to spend more time with his family.
