Coffee Chat with Laura Mason
By Edith Tapia
On the early morning of March 21st, 2025, the coffee chat with Laura Mason, WTS-DC Woman of the Year, took place in the board room of the Amtrak's corporate headquarters in Washington, DC. The WTS-DC chapter president, Sophie Guiny, moderated the lively and inspirational conversation.
Laura Mason is Executive Vice President (EVP), Capital Delivery, serving in this role since January 2022. Laura leads an organization focused on developing and executing all non-recurring and non-Information Technology capital projects, which together allow Amtrak to deliver high-quality service to its customers. Focus areas include fleet acquisitions and facility expansions and upgrades, major stations programs, infrastructure projects — including the Gateway Program — and major third-party projects. With over $50 billion of critical infrastructure, facility and fleet investments in planning and development, Laura leads Amtrak’s efforts to turn its ambitious plans into reality.
Through the questions asked during the coffee chat, Laura reminisced about her early years in the transportation industry and how she went from working as a contractor and then transitioning to the asset owner side. She enjoys her current role and values her past experiences as a woman in transportation to lead others and notes that having worked with customers during difficult times has been very humbling and motivating.
Some key takeaways and insights from Laura include:
- Diverse teams, with members of different backgrounds and experiences, deliver better outcomes thanks to a wide variety of ideas.
- When trusted with more responsibility by leaders, believe that you are capable of that and more
- Speaking the same language isn’t the same as meaning the same thing, so practice. Rephrase things back to clarify and ask questions when things don’t make sense
- Understand your audience’s motivation when dealing with customers, clients, contractors and owners. Do your research!
- Public recognition of what you’d like to see more will bring more of it.
- Leaders don’t get easy jobs but leading them entails providing them with information and context necessary to deliver potential desirable outcomes.
- Practice and choose how to respond to industry’s stereotypes against women.
Laura’s hobbies are downhill skiing and traveling, but most recently she has been enjoying yoga and boxing. Traveling abroad has given her a different perspective on life, which has served her well with her career in the transportation industry.
WTS-DC thanks Amtrak for their hospitality and the opportunity to spend some time with Laura Mason in such an intimate setting.