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About STB > Board Members
The Board is authorized to have three members, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, each with a five-year term of office.
Current Members:
Chairman Daniel R. Elliott III
Chairman Daniel R. Elliott III was sworn in as the fifth chairman of the Surface Transportation Board on Aug. 13, 2009. He was nominated to the Board by President Barack Obama on July 20, 2009 for a four-year term expiring Dec. 31, 2013. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Aug. 7, 2009.
Chairman Elliott brings to the Board two decades of experience as an attorney including 16 years litigating in the transportation field. Since coming to the Board, Elliott has moved quickly to bring more openness to the Board. He has begun holding public oral arguments on important cases and is following through on President Obama’s push for government transparency by transforming the Board’s Web site in order to make it easier for the public to follow Board proceedings. Chairman Elliott has worked closely with Members of Congress and has met with a wide variety of stakeholders, including local elected and community leaders affected by Board decisions.
Chairman Elliott is also trying to bring more harmony to the relationship between shippers and railroads by breathing new life into the STB’s dormant arbitration system and bolstering the Board’s informal dispute resolution process.
Since 1993, Chairman Elliott served as associate general counsel to the United Transportation Union. At the UTU, he practiced before the Surface Transportation Board, where he was involved in a variety of cases. He also practiced before the National Mediation Board and the National Labor Relations Board. Earlier, Chairman Elliott worked in private practice in Cleveland and Washington, D.C. handling a variety of litigation matters.
Chairman Elliott was born in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1962 and grew up in Cleveland. He graduated from the University of Michigan in 1985 with a degree in political science and earned a law degree from Ohio State College of Law in 1989.
Vice Chairman Francis P. Mulvey
Dr. Mulvey was nominated to the agency as a Commissioner by President George W. Bush on November 17, 2003, and was confirmed by the Senate on May 21, 2004, for a term of office ending December 31, 2007. President Bush nominated him to a second term as a Commissioner on November 30, 2007, and he was confirmed by the Senate on December 19, 2007, for a term ending December 31, 2012. Dr. Mulvey was designated the Board’s Acting Chairman on March 12, 2009, by President Barack Obama, and he served in that capacity until August 13, 2009. He most recently served as the Board's Vice Chairman from January 5, 2010 to January 4, 2011. He also oversees the Board’s review of the agency’s Uniform Rail Costing System.
Prior to joining the Board, Dr. Mulvey was Staff Director, Railroad Subcommittee, and Staff Director, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, for the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. In those positions, he was responsible for all railroad legislative matters for the Ranking Democratic Member of the Committee and served as advisor to the Ranking Member on overall transportation-policy issues.
Other positions he has held were Deputy Assistant Inspector General for Rail, Transit, and Special Programs, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation; Assistant Director for Social Security and Pension Issues at the U.S. General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office); Assistant Director for Competition, Economic and Regulatory Analyses in the Transportation Issues Area, U.S. GAO; Director of Economic Research for the New York State Legislative Commission on Solid Waste Management; Programs Manager, National Academy of Sciences’ Transportation Research Board; and Vice President for Research at the American Bus Association.
Additionally, he served as an Adjunct Faculty member at the R. H. Smith School of Business Administration at the University of Maryland for nearly a decade before joining the Board. He also taught economics and statistics at Northeastern University, Wheaton College and Bowling Green State University.
The Vice Chairman holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Washington State University (1974); a B.S. in Economics from New York University (1966); and an M.A. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley (1968). He and his wife, Petra, live in Maryland. They have one son, Conor, who resides in Silver Spring, MD.
Ann D. Begeman was sworn in May 2, 2011, as a member of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, bringing two decades of experience in transportation policy to the Board.
Ms. Begeman has served as a senior aide on Capitol Hill for 21 years, playing a key role in the crafting of major transportation legislation, including the ICC Termination Act, which created the STB.
Immediately prior to joining the Board, Ann served as Republican Staff Director for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. She has also served as Acting Chief of Staff and Legislative Director for Senator John McCain and as a Legislative Assistant to Senator Larry Pressler. Ms. Begeman has also worked in the private sector, serving as a benefits specialist for First American Bankshares, Inc. She earned a B.S. in business administration from the University of South Dakota.
Ms. Begeman was first nominated by President Obama on December 20, 2010. She was also nominated on January 5, 2011 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on April 14, 2011, for a term that expires Dec. 31, 2015. She served as the Board’s Vice Chairman from May 2, 2011, to January 3, 2012.
