Hatfield at the helm.

• Position: Robert Hatfield of Alaska Railroad Corp. plans to improve the company's customer service

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Robert Hatfield Sr. paid his way at Hobart College in Geneva, N.Y., from income earned loading and unloading mail trucks for the U.S. Postal Service. Now knowledge gained by the new president and chief executive of the Alaska Railroad Corp. during his part-time job 20 years ago could improve the railroad's freight service and attract customers.

"I would like to see the railroad become a fully integrated transportation company for the state. In the past, it has relied on hook-and-haul-type service. I'd like to see us go door-to-door - pick up the goods at the customer's door and deposit the goods at the receiver's door," Hatfield says.

The former Southern Pacific Transportation Co. executive took the throttle of Alaska Railroad in January. Hatfield was the product of a search conducted by the railroad's board of directors that ended with a telephone call to Hatfield last last summer.

When he answered that call, Hatfield was employed as Southern Pacific's assistant vice president of marketing and sales in Potomac, Md. He had joined the railroad in 1973, when he parlayed a bachelor of arts degree in economics into an entry-level position as a transportation assistant. According to Hatfield's resume, his development of a domestic and international shipping container business and joint business ventures with other eastern railroads netted Southern Pacific $400 million in revenue during his final two years with the company.

Aside from expanding the freight service operation, Hatfield says there is "precious little" he would change at Alaska Railroad. He says he is satisfied with the state-owned railroad's financial record over the past five years: The Alaska Railroad Corp. averaged $3.7 million in income.

Hatfield notes his admiration for work of the railroad employees, who must cope with hazards created by Alaska's frigid climate. "I can only imagine the response I would get from a brakeman in Los Angeles if I asked him to pull a moose carcass from underneath a locomotive when the temperature is 40 below zero."

Hatfield says that over the next five years his focus will be to improve customer service by allying Alaska Railroad with an existing trucking firm to haul freight in containers or trailers from the customer to the nearest railroad station. There the containers or trailers can be loaded onto flatcars and transported to a destination from which another truck could haul goods to the client.

Last year Alaska Railroad hauled 12,000...