David Dech was hired Monday as the third president and general manager of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, effective March 16.
“Today is a very historic day in the history of the South Shore Line,” board attorney Chuck Lukmann told the NICTD board.
The agency, created in 1977, has had only two presidents, Jerry Hanas and Mike Noland, in its 48-year history.
Dech is currently executive director of the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, serving three counties in the Miami area.
Sunday, he rode a South Shore train. “I can tell you it was a much better first impression” than when he first rode a South Florida RTA train, Dech said.
Prior to South Florida, Dech was head of a similar agency in Austin, Texas.
He’s familiar with Northwest Indiana from his days with CSX, when he was an engineer running trains through the region from Ohio to the Chicago area.
“It is really going to be just a fantastic experience” to build on things here, Dech told the board.
“Good people trump good weather. I did lose 100 degrees coming up here,” he said in the comfortable boardroom while the wind chill outside was -3 degrees. When he interviewed with CSX in 1994, it was a polar vortex then, too.
He and his wife are happy to return to the Midwest. “We haven’t been truly happy since we left the Midwest,” Dech said.
“I can’t wait to get started and work with every one of you,” he said.
“I’m a little bit intimidated by the enormous pair of shoes that I’m going to try and fill,” Dech said.
The strong state support for the South Shore Line is ideal, he said. “The sky’s the limit after that.”
Dech comes after completion of the Double Track NWI project to speed travel along the east-west Lakeshore Corridor and as the West Lake Corridor, now dubbed the Monon Corridor, prepares to begin service between Hammond and Dyer.
Dech said he has some ideas to boost ridership, which, like other commuter rail lines, hasn’t fully recovered from the pandemic.
“Leaving this job is difficult,” Noland said, but knowing Dech will succeed him makes him happy. “I’ll have the confidence to sleep at night knowing the railroad is in great hands.”
“It’s now positioned to grow and change direction, whatever you want it to do,” Noland said. “I’ve enjoyed every step of it along the way,”
Noland originally expected to retire last May but postponed it because of delays with the West Lake Corridor project.
Noland is chairman emeritus of the Commuter Rail Coalition, of which Dech is vice chairman. “You can figure out that Dave is now referred to as Mr. High Speed Rail,” Noland said, because of his agency’s proximity to a high-speed rail line and congressional testimony about the industry.
NICTD board chair Lindsay Quist thanked Noland for his service and said she is excited to have Dech come on board.
“A good process will yield a great result,” Valparaiso Mayor and NICTD board member Jon Costas said.
“We have certainly been blessed, Northwest Indiana, with two really great leaders,” he said, and Dech exhibits that same kind of leadership.
St. Joseph County Commissioner and NICTD board member Carl Baxmeyer praised Noland. “The thing that struck me from Day 1 is your organization and your leadership,” he said.
Baxmeyer has been here since just after Hanas was hired, he said. “This organization has been tremendous since the beginning.”
To Dech, Baxmeyer said, “A lot of times you were sent in to repair problems,” but now he gets to build something.
Gary Mayor Eddie Melton, also a NICTD board member, said former U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky taught him not to try to master all subjects but to find experts in each field. He’s looking forward to working with Dech.
“This is one of the most crown jewel assets in the region that I think is really going to take us to the next level,” as people across the country look to relocate here, Melton said.
“You have a tremendous legacy that you’re leaving behind,” he told Noland,
Board member Jim Arnold, who grew up in Michigan City, said he used to cross that track every day, wondering where all those riders were going.
Arnold was serving in the Indiana Senate when he met Noland. “I knew at that time I met a special individual.”
Having just two leaders in almost 50 years shows the railroad’s success, he said.
“Listening to you has reminded me a lot of Mike,” Arnold told Dech.
“You do get to blame me with all the decisions I’ve made,” Noland quipped in addressing Dech. Noland will stay on as an adviser until June 30, after his term as president and general manager ends March 16.
Lukmann said the search began 10 months ago. The initial 28 candidates were narrowed to six last fall, four internal and two external, then narrowed even further until Dech was hired.
“There are only 31 commuter rail districts in this country, plus Amtrak,” Lukmann said.
The South Shore Line will be Dech’s first railroad running on electricity, not diesel.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
