Director of Economics

Summary

The Surface Transportation Board (STB) is the federal agency charged with the economic regulation of various modes of surface transportation, primarily freight rail. The agency has jurisdiction over railroad rate, practice, and service issues and rail restructuring transactions, including mergers, line sales, line construction, and line abandonments.

Position Overview

This position serves as the Director of the Office of Economics (OE) of the Surface Transportation Board. The individual provides overall management and leadership to ensure that OE operates effectively and efficiently in support of the Board's mission.

Key Responsibilities

• Leads and oversees the development of highly complex economic, industry, financial, and transportation analyses to support Board adjudications, rulemakings, and policy decisions.
• Applies expert-level knowledge of economic theory, accounting, auditing, transportation costing, financial analysis, data governance, and data visualization as they relate to the economic regulation of surface transportation industries.
• Maintains a comprehensive understanding of industry structure, practices, and management organization, as well as the role of the sector within the national and global economy.
• Develops, conducts, reviews, and directs complex analytical studies addressing economic regulation, industry performance, and transportation policy issues.
• Oversees the evaluation of the economic impacts of proposed policies and regulations, providing expert analysis and strategic policy guidance.
• Manages the full lifecycle of economic data collected by OE, including the development and application of advanced analytics and visualization tools.

Qualifications

• Degree in economics that includes at least 21 semester hours in economics and 3 semester hours in statistics, accounting, or calculus; OR a combination of education and experience equivalent to a major in economics plus appropriate experience.
• Progressively responsible supervisory, managerial, or professional experience involving management of a program or organization of significant scope and complexity.
• Knowledge of economic theory, financial analysis, data governance and visualization, and accounting practices, especially as applied to economic regulation of the surface transportation industry or another regulated industry.

Salary: $151,661 - $228,000 per year

Pay Scale & Grade: ES 00 (Senior Executive Service)

Appointment Type: Permanent, Full-time