From the Editor: G&W's Michael Miller to receive the 2026 Railroad Innovator Award at RailTrends 

For years, Michael Miller has been a must-hear speaker at our annual RailTrends® summit. The forthright CEO of Genesee & Wyoming Inc. has consistently shined a light on essence issues, urging colleagues and counterparts to look in the mirror, view rail as an ecosystem, embrace change and move the industry forward accordingly.

This year, we’re diverting the spotlight and shining it on Miller.

Last month, Progressive Railroading and RailTrends named him the 2026 recipient of the Railroad Innovator Award, which recognizes an individual’s outstanding achievement in the rail industry.

Miller joined G&W in 2010, serving as chief commercial officer for eight years and president of North American operations for five before being named CEO of G&W — which owns more than 100 regionals and short lines in North America — in September 2023. Earlier in his career, Miller was general manager of Norfolk Southern Corp.’s Modalgistics Supply Chain Solutions and served as Derivion’s vice president of strategic development. He also held logistics-related positions at Georgia-Pacific and Roadway Express.

“Michael Miller speaks truth to power as an advocate for change and collaboration in the railroad industry, and he has proven it is not just words, as a founding member of RailPulse,” says independent transportation analyst Tony Hatch, co-founder and program manager of RailTrends. “And G&W continues to test new technologies, from working with Railspire on a project involving locomotive automation to working with Parallel Systems on a pilot involving battery-electric rail vehicles for autonomous container movements. And those are just a couple of examples.”

Yes, there are more.

At Railway Interchange 2026 in Omaha, Nebraska, early last month, G&W was name-checked without prompting multiple times in conversations I had with cutting-edge technology providers, whether it was in reference to Miller’s company co-piloting a new solution or partnering with a supplier to apply for a federal grant to test same.

Miller’s unwavering focus on the essence stuff — from his call for every constituent in the rail ecosystem to play a role in moving the industry forward to his capacity to think now and next — makes him a particularly effective leader (and innovator) for these times. A call to collaborative action from a walk-the-talk leader in a connected, but not always so collaborative, industry? I’m in.

I look forward to presenting Miller with the award during RailTrends 2026, which will be held Nov. 19-20 at the New York Marriott Downtown in New York City. I also can’t wait to hear what he’s thinking about, change-wise and otherwise, in the words he’ll share after accepting the award ‘neath the spotlight we’ll be shining on him.

For more information about this year’s event, log onto RailTrends.com. See you there.