Lorie Tekorius took over one of the state’s most successful public companies — Lake Oswego-based The Greenbrier Cos. — from Bill Furman, a Portland business legend. Here’s what Tekorius, the company's president and COO, had to say during the September Power Breakfast, hosted by PBJ Publisher Craig Wessel
On her background, and landing at Greenbrier: I was thinking about this just the other day and realized that I grew up in Houston and went to Texas A&M and I moved here in 1992. All of a sudden, it hit me that I've been here at Greenbrier longer than I lived in Texas.
On the accountant-turned-CFO’s early path: I’ve always been good with numbers. My father was an accountant, so maybe it’s hereditary. I went into accounting thinking, well, this is probably a decent career path. When I started out in public accounting, it was interesting to look at some of the partners and think, well, maybe in 10, 15, 20 years, that could be me. That changed a lot over the course of time.
And I decided that really wasn't as interesting as I thought it was. So it was great to get the opportunity to come to Greenbrier.
On landing at Greenbrier: It was shortly after they had gone public and they realized they had quite a bigger need for doing some reporting and other skills that I had. And we're small, really small, at that point in time. We had Gunderson over on Front Avenue building rail cars. We had a very small fleet. We probably had a couple of repair shops, and that gave me an opportunity, as the company was growing, to use the slower periods to learn a little bit more about how railcars are managed or how we lease them.
On climbing the Greenbrier ladder: I would say it was more organic. I certainly didn't come in with an idea, nor do I recall a point in time where I ever said, that this is it, this is certainly my career. When I started here, it was a fairly small group of people. So you really got to know everyone. And at our core is this idea about having respect for each other and caring about our customers and just really this kind of can do attitude. So you really felt this desire to pitch in and try to figure out what you could do.
I think the one deliberate thing that I've done is I tried to always get engaged. I've got that curiosity that, if I had some downtime, I'd go and learn about something else. And I think that that came through. So as more opportunities came my way, they said the best thing you can ever do to get something done is, you give it to a busy person, because they can figure out how to do more.
And I think that's what has happened with me over time. It's continued to spur my interest in the company. I've worked in manufacturing, we've done mergers and acquisitions. I was talking to a group of women who work in the rail industry. And I said, just say yes to all opportunities. If you get too centered on your next move, you might miss out on something.