FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Caren Kraska, President and Chairman of the Arkansas & Missouri Railroad, will give the Dan Flowers Distinguished Lecture from 5:30-6:15 p.m. Thursday, November 2nd at the Janelle Y. Hembree Alumni House on the University of Arkansas campus. Her lecture is titled " Railroading in Northwest Arkansas: Challenges and Opportunities."

The Dan Flowers Distinguished Lecture is sponsored by Mack-Blackwell Transportation Center, the Maritime Transportation Research and Education Center (martrec.uark.edu), and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE).

Kraska holds a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering (with emphasis in transportation) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and as well as a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. She was born and raised in New York. Her career includes over fifteen years of experience in the railroad industry.

The Arkansas & Missouri Railroad (A&M) was established in 1986 as a Class III Railroad operating a 150-mile route from Monett, Missouri to Fort Smith, Arkansas. A&M’s corporate headquarters is located in Springdale, Arkansas; major operations are based there and Fort Smith. According to the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, short line and regional railroads operate in forty-nine states over nearly 50,000 miles of track, or approximately one third of the nation’s railroad network. Short lines are often called the first mile/last mile of the nation’s railroad system and handle in origination or destination one out of every five rail cars moving on the national system. In thirty-six states, short lines operate at least one quarter of the state’s rail network. There are twenty-three separate short line railroads in Arkansas that work together with the three Class I railroads to provide Arkansas with a world class freight rail network.

For additional information, please contact Amy Shell at 479-575-6021 or shell@uark.edu.