About this role
Job Description
Barge Transportation Planning Specialist - ARTCO - Decatur, IL American River Transportation Company Full-Time | Exempt Position Position Summary This customer-facing role is responsible for coordinating barge movements and placements along a designated segment of one of North America’s major waterways, ensuring efficient and reliable transportation solutions for customers and internal stakeholders. The ideal candidate will bring a strong customer service mindset, excellent communication skills, and the ability to navigate a fast-paced, dynamic environment while building effective relationships with customers, third-party partners, and operational teams. The role combines commercial, financial, and operational expertise to optimize barge movements, asset utilization, and transportation economics across the network. The candidate will develop and leverage models to evaluate northbound and southbound lane economics, market spreads, netbacks, barge revenue, empty miles, and the true cost of operational downtime to identify opportunities to improve network performance and profitability. The position will also forecast barge requirements, support commercial and operational execution, and provide business and accounting expertise for system enhancements and new technology initiatives. Success in this role requires close collaboration with Commercial, Logistics, Accounting, Technology, and ARTCo teams, as well as the ability to represent the Commercial team in customer engagements, internal initiatives, and external industry activities while maintaining operational and regulatory compliance.
Key Responsibilities
- Business Development Responsibilities (70+%)