The mere thought of locomotives chugging along the plains and canyons of Texas may spawn nostalgia for the historic days of the Wild West, but believe it or not, railroads will play a substantial role in the state’s future. As a hub of international trade, Texas claims more active stretches of railroad than any other state and the largest number of railroad employees in the nation. Railroad operators will continue to be a key thrust of the state’s expanding freight and logistics market, which also includes an extensive network of warehouses, manufacturing plants, roads and ports.
No one operates more miles of railroad in Texas than Union Pacific. For more than 20 years, UTSA and Union Pacific have held a close partnership. Union Pacific has made several investments in the success of UTSA’s students with the hope of fueling its workforce pipeline, from sponsoring interview rooms on campus to attending UTSA career fairs to launching the Iris Photo Booth, which provides professional headshots to the Roadrunner community.
“Union Pacific partners with universities to provide great students with great careers. Partnerships help cultivate that pipeline of highly qualified students who come in understanding our business and the importance of their role here at Union Pacific and how it impacts the U.S.,” says Melissa Price, senior manager of talent acquisition and HR technology at Union Pacific.
“We continue to invest and recruit at UTSA because of that high caliber of students we see,” Price adds. “There’s a passion and a drive for success for themselves, and that’s really exciting to see with the incoming workforce.”
When visiting UTSA and other universities to recruit to Union Pacific, Price says they are looking for students who show a high aptitude for learning and a driven ingenuity to improve processes.
“The students who have leadership skills tend to do very well here, whether that’s leading a student club or professional management experience,” Price says. “What I’ve seen with UTSA students is that there’s a good majority of them who work, manage a student club and are active on campus.”
Taylor Richard ’21 is one of those standout UTSA graduates that Price describes. Since joining the company in September 2021, she has served as a locomotive maintenance manager for the freight titan, which operates more than 8,300 trains and 32,000 miles of railroad tracks across the United States. Every day, Richard and her team overhaul locomotives, a mighty task that includes rebuilding engines, repairing generators and making essential piping improvements.
A mechanical engineering graduate, Richard has never been bothered by a little grease between her fingernails. She fondly reminisces about the days when her dad was a master technician for a car dealership and she’d help him tinker with his vintage ’65 Ford Mustang, or when she crafted stage sets and props for high school theater productions. Richard says she was destined to work with her hands.
Looking back, however, her journey to Union Pacific didn’t always feel like destiny. Like many of her fellow college students, she didn’t know where to start on her professional journey. So, she quickly connected with the UTSA University Career Center in the fall of 2016 and applied to be a student assistant. It wasn’t long before she was working at career fairs and tabling events where she could watch as employers held mock interviews and reviewed résumés.
That knowledge helped her land a mechanical engineering internship with the U.S. Air Force Civilian Service in the summer of 2019. During the internship, she did site and tank inspections, performed building condition assessments alongside engineering technicians and presented solutions to company decision-makers. Richard says it was a rewarding experience because she not only got to work in the field, but she also developed skills in civil engineering and operations management.
When she started looking for jobs in the summer of 2021, she was confident she had the skills to immediately thrive at a transportation franchise like Union Pacific and submitted an application. Richard remembered setting up the Union Pacific table at a UTSA University Career Center event and learning about just how much freight the company moves around the nation. It still fascinates her, so much so that one of her favorite things to do is share little freight facts with others.
“In 2023, we moved something like 1.9 billion units of French fries,” Richard says with a mix of awe and pride. “A lot of things move by rail that most people don’t know about.”
Richard has quickly progressed in her three years at Union Pacific, starting as a trainee at the Englewood Shop in Houston before being promoted to the Jenks Shop in North Little Rock, Arkansas, home of North America’s foremost locomotive overhaul facility. There, she has flourished as a leader for the overhaul and modification team and been heralded as a “champion of safety” by her supervisor, Heath Johnson.
“She produces quality results, ensures the team is safe and effective, and takes complete ownership of her responsibilities,” says Johnson, the senior manager of the locomotive facility.
Richard knows that she’s a rare breed in her profession. A demographic overview by Career Explorer states that only 16% of mechanical engineering employees in the American workforce are women, and only 4% are Black. Despite entering a field long dominated by white and Asian males, Richard says she’s felt nothing but respect from her counterparts — and the feeling is mutual.
“I love what I do. I love the people that I work with and the people that work for me,” she says. “They’re just a great group. They really care about the work that they put out.”
