Panelist: 



Richard M. Bressler 



Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of 

 Burlington Northern Inc. 

 Seattle, Washington 



T. 



hank you, Governor Schwinden. 



I was enjoying the entertainment last night that 

 Governor Atiyeh so nicely arranged for all of us. I 

 was listening to our astronauts describe their trip, and 

 I enjoyed that description until Gordo and Jack started 

 to describe the Columbia as a transportation system 

 with a large excess payload. My God — more com- 

 petition. Vic, you've always been very subtle at 

 reminding BN to keep on its toes out here and I 

 expect more of the same. 



I've been associated in one way or another with 

 agriculture in the West ever since I grew up in a small 

 town in Nebraska I can remember well searching the 

 sky to make sure that there were clouds around, to 

 see if it was going to ram, or if it was going to ram 

 too much, or heaven forbid, if it might hail. Agricultural 

 entities have always had perilous times, so it is with 

 some nostalgia and a great sense of honor that I cur- 

 rently serve with Governor Charles Thone (Nebraska) 

 on his agricultural committee of the President's Export 

 Council. 



That's a particularly frustrating job, frustrating 

 because of the poor health of our agricultural estab- 

 lishment today. Those frustrations carry over into my 

 full-time job as Chairman of Burlington Northern, which 

 is the country's largest gram hauler and heavily 

 dependent upon the success of agriculture, particularly 

 m the upper Midwest and here in the Northwest. 



When you look at the ills of agriculture today, you 

 see how little any of us who are heavily dependent on 

 and involved in agriculture can do to make it right. 

 I'm citing things like high interest rates, the fact that 



we have a worldwide recession, that we continue as a 

 government policy to use food as an instrument of 

 foreign policy, which I think is very detrimental to mar- 

 kets. I'm sure many of the governors here who have 

 visited the Pacific Rim countries know that when we 

 cut off food to Russia it attracted the attention of the 

 Japanese and the Taiwanese as well. They don't like 

 the possibility of disruptions of markets. 



So, those are elements that are really outside the 

 ability of any one of us to control. I think all we can 

 do IS to speak up at appropriate forums, such as this, 

 to add our voices to ensure that agriculture and agri- 

 cultural exports are healthy in this country 



What can a company like Burlington Northern do 

 then, given the fact that we can't influence some of 

 those external environments? What can we do to 

 help ourselves and help agriculture at the same time? 



I could cite things like what we're doing here in 

 Oregon, working with the State of Oregon to reopen 

 the long dormant gram terminal at Astoria. It looks 

 like the prospects for that terminal to be reopened as 

 an export terminal are good. If that should happen, 

 we see the possibility of an export potential of 120 

 million bushels a year through that terminal by the 

 mid-80's, and that would just be great. We've pledg- 

 ed that we will do what is necessary to rehabilitate our 

 railroad line to Astoria to help make that happen. 



I could also cite cases where we have given some 

 of our financial resources to institutions like the Univer- 

 sity of Nebraska to study the more efficient use of 

 water from the Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation purposes. 

 We see that as a useful thing. 



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