Former CEO Comes With Some Baggage (washingtonpost.com)

When Snow was introduced yesterday as Bush's nominee for the Treasury post, Washington and Wall Street were abuzz over how he represented a smooth-mannered, politically savvy version of the pugnacious O'Neill.

But while Snow's strong point may be that he brings an easygoing temperament and the keen political instincts that O'Neill famously lacks, his record as chief executive of CSX Corp., a giant railroad operator, has drawn less favorable reviews than O'Neill's tenure running Alcoa Inc.

Some of the actions Snow took -- and failed to take -- while in charge of CSX may prove politically troublesome to the White House as his nomination proceeds to the Senate.

Two years ago, for example, the railroad was cited by federal authorities for significant track-safety violations -- a stark contrast with the situation at Alcoa, where O'Neill's obsession with eliminating workplace accidents made the aluminum company America's safest major firm. A merger that Snow engineered with Conrail, the freight line once owned by the government, has been plagued by problems. Perhaps most important, Snow's compensation and the ties between members of the company's board of directors are akin to some of the practices that have aroused public fury at business executives' behavior after a series of scandals over the past year.

Through an executive compensation program, as of late 1996 CSX had lent Snow $24.5 million toward the purchase of company stock valued at $32.3 million, according to a report the firm filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. CSX's stock price stock subsequently declined, and in 2000 the company forgave outstanding loans to Snow and other executives.