Description:

When: Thursday, June 19, 2025 @ 3pm CDT

Where: via Zoom Meeting

Topic: Robert Granatelli’s presentation will be a tutorial on the decision-making process of deciding if a new facility will be served by rail, truck or both means of shipping. You will learn the significant difference in doing business with rail and trucking transportation.  

Speaker Biographies:

Robert Granatelli

Bob Granatelli has 49 years of management experience in the management of transportation and logistics. Between 1976 and 2008 he had senior management positions in the forest products and chemical industries. He negotiated rates and terms of service, evaluated carrier performance, testified before Congress on rail and internation shipping deregulation and is qualified to practice before the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Surface Transportation Board. Since 2008 Bob has been an independent consultant retained as an expert witness and most recently retained by the STB as an advisor on railroad matters. He educates his clients on emerging issues and advising on negotiation strategy and execution.

Martin J. Oberman

Former STB Chairman Martin J. Oberman retired from the Board on May 10, 2024. Marty was designated Chairman of the STB by President Biden on January 21, 2021, and was sworn in as a Board member on January 22, 2019.

Marty has had an extensive career in both the public and private sectors. His first public position was serving as the first General Counsel to the Illinois Racing Board from 1973 to 1974, where he worked closely with the Board’s chairman to bring long needed reforms to the Illinois horse racing industry. From 1975-1987, Marty served on the Chicago City Council as Alderman of the City’s 43rd Ward where he earned a reputation as a reform leader, committed to promoting transparency in key governing processes while also working to reduce government corruption and profligate spending. Following his departure from the Council, the Mayor of Chicago appointed Marty as Chairman of a special commission to fix Chicago”s eroding shoreline, which required collaboration with an extensive set of stakeholders, and resulted in the publication of formal recommendations, many of which have since been implemented.

In 2013, Marty was appointed to the board of Metra, the Chicago region’s commuter railroad, the second largest in the U.S. In 2014, he was unanimously elected Metra chairman and served until the end of 2016. While at Metra, he gained approval for the agency’s first long term fare program aimed at tackling the agency’s multi-billion dollar state-of-good-repair backlog, and led the Board’s effort to institute transparency and professional management in an effort to overcome an historic culture of politics and patronage abuses at the railroad.

Since 1975, Marty also maintained a successful practice in Chicago as both a trial and appellate lawyer.

Marty graduated from Yale University and the University of Wisconsin Law School, cum laude, and served as a Note Editor of the Wisconsin Law Review. He has been married to his wife, Bonnie, since 1971, and has two children, and three grandchildren. Marty is a native of Springfield, Illinois.