Industry & Services >> CEO Interviews >> September 23, 2002
DONALD C. ORRIS is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pacer
International, Inc., a leading non-asset based North American
third-party logistics and transportation provider. The company,
based in Concord, California, provides a broad array of services
to facilitate the movement of freight from origin to destination.
Mr. Orris led a management group that acquired Pacer's
predecessor company from Union Pacific in 1997 following the UP-
SP merger, and began building it into a full-scale supplier of
logistics and intermodal services for manufacturers and
retailers. Pacer has grown rapidly, having completed several
mergers and acquisitions since it came under its present
management. As a result of one of those acquisitions, Pacer
operates Pacer Stacktrain, the industry's most extensive double-
stack rail network for containerized international and domestic
cargo ' a network Mr. Orris helped establish in 1984. The
stacktrain business is a wholesale operation serving third-party
logistics providers. Pacer Global Logistics, which operates as an
independent sister company to Pacer Stacktrain, is based in
Dublin, Ohio. It provides a full range of intermodal marketing,
specialized trucking, consolidation, warehousing, truck
brokerage, LTL, cartage, international freight forwarding and
other logistics and supply-chain management services. Mr. Orris
was associated with Southern Pacific Railroad from 1990-1996,
attaining the position of President and COO, which he held until
the company's merger with UP. From 1977-1990, he was with APL,
the global container operator, where he served as President of
both its stacktrain and domestic transportation brokerage units.
Prior to that, he was associated with Denver & Rio Grande Western
Railroad. Mr. Orris has been recognized as an Intermodal Founding
Father by Denver University's Intermodal Transportation
Institute. Profile
International?
Mr. Orris: We created the company in 1997, so it has a short but
deliberate history. The idea behind the company was
