National Safety & Legislative Director
Greg Hynes is a fifth-generation railroader born in Winslow, Ariz., hiring out with Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway in Los Angeles, Calif., in 1995. He transferred to Phoenix, Ariz., in 1997.
Hynes was elected local legislative representative of Local 1081 at Glendale, Ariz., in 2003. He was elected Arizona assistant state legislative director in 2004, was elevated to Arizona state legislative director in 2009 and was re-elected to that office in 2011.
He served on the Executive Council of the Arizona State AFL-CIO and held the positions of Finance Committee chairman and Legislative Committee chairman.
Hynes was appointed the first chairperson of the UTU Rail Safety Task Force in 2009 and served in that capacity until being elected SMART Transportation Division alternate national legislative director at the Transportation Division’s 2014 convention.
He was elected national legislative director at the Second SMART TD Convention on August 11, 2019, in Las Vegas, and was re-elected on August 11, 2024.
He had the honor of serving on the SMART Transportation Division National Safety Team that assists the National Transportation Safety Board with accident investigations, from 2007 to 2014. In 2014, he was appointed to the Federal Railroad Administration’s Railroad Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC), which develops new railroad regulatory standards. Hynes also represents SMART TD on the Switching Operations Fatalities Analysis (SOFA) working group and in October 2018 was named by Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to the federal DOT’s Advisory Committee on Human Trafficking.