When he was the subject of an Off the Cuff profile in the August 2021 issue of this magazine, Bill O’Leary revealed that he enjoys cooking in his free time and, in fact, Thug Kitchen was in his reading queue. Since then, O’Leary has become the longest-serving president and CEO of the Alaska Railroad Corporation, a job he was promoted to from COO and CFO in 2013.
Well, technically, Otto F. Ohlson ran the railroad longer, when it was under federal ownership and the boss was called “general manager.” Starting in 1928, Ohlson was arguably more influential during his seventeen years than the territorial governor; his salary was twice as big, at least. A decade later, Ohlson presided over the railroad’s first profitable year. The corporation is still chugging along in the black, a fact which O’Leary, an accountant by trade, can be proud of.
