Banker Worked The Railroad Synonym For Success: Harriman's hands-on approach modernized Union Pacific.(LEADERS & SUCCESS)

Byline: MICHAEL MINK

Where others saw Union Pacific as an average railroad with a financially troubled past, Edward Henry Harriman saw opportunity.

Running from the Missouri River to the Pacific Northwest, Union Pacific was emerging from bankruptcy and receivership in 1897, the same year Harriman joined the railroad. He'd been vice president of the Illinois Central Railroad, but his responsibilities there were primarily those of a financial officer.

Consequently, when Harriman took over Union Pacific in June 1898 with the title of chairman of the executive committee, he'd had little railroad management experience. He made up for that with something else:

"(Harriman) prided himself on his imagination and liked to say that lack of it was a serious defect in any man. Unlike most men, he never let experience glaze his vision. For Harriman the conventional wisdom was a point of departure, not a refuge," wrote Maury Klein in "The Life & Legend of E.H. Harriman."

Harriman was nearly 50 years old when he joined Union Pacific. He'd already made a fortune as a Wall Street banker, but he was still looking to make his mark in life.

"At 50, the fires of many men have banked into the pleasures and rewards of comfortable middle age. In Harriman, however, the flame of ambition burned with an unsated fury," Klein wrote.