The Greenbrier Companies made organizational changes as it prepares for the previously announcement retirement of James T. Sharp from his role as executive vice president and president of Greenbrier Leasing at the end of December. Sharp’s duties will be taken on by Mark J. Rittenbaum, executive vice president of commercial and leasing.

Sharp will continue in an advisory role through 2016 and beyond, assisting with transition and special projects. The organizational changes will further integrate Greenbrier’s Leasing and Management Services businesses with its Commercial activities.

Rittenbaum will have oversight responsibilities for all commercial and leasing activities in North America and Latin America, with particular emphasis on new railcar sales, leasing and enhancement of customer service design.

As announced previously, Jim Cowan, president of Greenbrier International, will oversee commercial activities in all railcar markets outside the Americas, while continuing as CEO of GBW Railcar Services, Greenbrier’s railcar repair and refurbishment joint venture with Watco Companies.

Additionally, Alejandro Centurion will continue as president of Greenbrier’s Global Manufacturing Operations. Centurion is credited with implementing Greenbrier’s global manufacturing and engineering system for new railcar manufacturing. Currently, GMO’s global output accounts for approximately 75% of Greenbrier’s annual worldwide revenue.

GLC will continue to align its leasing and management services businesses to emphasize three primary areas of business activity: lease underwriting, lease syndication and asset management services.  These areas will be led by three Greenbrier veterans who each now report to Rittenbaum: Larry Stanley, senior vice president of GLC Finance, will lead lease underwriting; Brian Conn, managing director of Structured Financial Products, will lead lease syndication and Dan Weiler will serve as senior vice president of Asset Management, leading GMS.

“We have a deep pool of talented people and highly capable teams in place within our leasing, management services and commercial organizations,” Rittenbaum said. “I know that the current high levels of integration and coordinated effort will only grow as we continue to collaborate within this new organizational structure.  My goal is to build on the platforms created by Jim and the GLC team, along with our Commercial organization”

Greenbrier’s Commercial organization includes Greenbrier’s field sales operations and commercial administration headed by Brian Comstock, senior vice president and general manager of Commercial in the Americas and Tom Jackson, vice president of marketing.

“Greenbrier is becoming more global, leveraging our scale, and moving closer to our customers,” said William A. Furman, chairman and CEO of Greenbrier. “We have a focused ‘go-to market strategy’ that serves our integrated business model and reflects our expanded worldwide activities. Thanks to the talents and vision of Jim Sharp, we have grown a small railcar leasing company into a very successful asset-light leasing and asset management business that manages over 268,000 railcars and originates almost $1 billion of railcar leases annually.  Most of this product is syndicated and sold to institutional partners with underlying assets managed by Greenbrier over the life of the equipment. I greatly appreciate Jim’s 20 years of service to Greenbrier.”