Operations Leader · Data & Automation

David R. Lyons

I lead people, manage operations, and build the systems.

For 14+ years I've led and managed operations and logistics teams — developing the people while running the day-to-day, from dispatching trains across 2,000+ miles at Union Pacific to running a multi-million-dollar distribution center as a GM today. Along the way I taught myself the skillset to both build and use the tools I needed to succeed — Power BI dashboards, automations, and AI agents that turn messy operational data into faster, smarter decisions. Leadership and management, paired with the ability to build — that's the mix I bring.

Based in DFW, Texas · works remote across US Central · focused on supply chain, operations, and BI analytics

See what I've built Resume LinkedIn

14+ yrs operations leadership
54.5% company-standings jump
30 person team led
2,000+ miles of rail managed
5 systems built end-to-end

Leadership & Management

2009 Land Surveyor Clear Fork
2011 Train Dispatcher Union Pacific
2016 Corridor Manager Union Pacific
2022 Mgr, Yard Operations Union Pacific
2024 General Manager American Tire Dist. Today

Self-taught data, automation & AI throughout — a parallel build track.

American Tire Distributors

Full-time · Feb 2024 – Present · Dallas, TX

General Manager Feb 2024 – Present

Direct multi-million-dollar distribution center operations, driving a 54.5% jump in company-wide standings through strategic planning and performance-driven initiatives.
Built and lead a 30-person team — owning hiring, mentoring, and data-driven training programs.
Cut overtime expense 15% and improved inventory variance through targeted cost-saving measures.
Lifted warehouse efficiency 10% with custom Excel tooling and streamlined workflows.
Raised route-delivery window success 7.3% via driver training, manifest analysis, and DOT compliance.
Stood up Power BI dashboards for daily order monitoring and rapid response to disruptions.

Union Pacific Railroad

Full-time · 12 yrs 3 mos · 2011 – 2023

Manager of Yard Operations Nov 2022 – Jun 2023

Coordinated 700+ freight cars daily, cutting terminal dwell and improving departure reliability.
Reduced safety incidents through field training exercises and Federal Code compliance enforcement.

Corridor Manager Jun 2016 – Nov 2022

Led dispatching teams of 10+ across 3 corridors, lifting schedule adherence through a positive culture and strong field support.
Supervised transportation plans for Class 1 railroads, reducing downtime several hours per week with better shift planning.

Train Dispatcher Apr 2011 – Jun 2016

Directed train traffic across 2,000+ miles of territory, dispatching 15–35 trains daily (Amtrak, intermodal, coal, auto).
Enforced safety regulations and intervened in real time to prevent incidents across the network.

Clear Fork Surveying & Mapping Co., Inc.

Full-time · May 2009 – Apr 2011 · Graham, TX

Land Surveyor / Survey Engineer May 2009 – Apr 2011

Performed all aspects of the entire “field-to-finish” land survey, including GPS data collection and total-station surveys to determine property boundaries, riparian boundaries, easements, and well-location surveys for as-drilled and permit plat requirements.
Conducted project research to obtain legal descriptions from deeds and leases, then drafted legal descriptions and associated survey plats for deed records.
Computed map projections between State Plane grid coordinates and geographic latitude/longitude.

Things I've Built

Kansas Castings

AI-driven SEO + cold-outbound engine for an American iron foundry

Problem: A 30-year foundry with thin, unranked web presence and no inbound pipeline — invisible for the searches its buyers actually run.
Built: Rebuilt the site's technical SEO and content end-to-end (titles, schema, copy across every page), shipped a custom RFQ lead-capture form with a full JSON-LD schema stack, then stood up a cold-outbound system: dedicated sending domain with DKIM/SPF/DMARC, warmup, Apollo prospecting, and per-vertical email sequences.
Result: Surfaced in Google's AI Overview for a high-intent buyer query within a week of launch, and the SEO work produced a real inbound RFQ — direct revenue, not vanity metrics.

Google AI Overview ranking
< 1 week time to rank
100% inbox outbound deliverability
real inbound RFQ pipeline

WordPress REST
Python automation
JSON-LD schema
Apollo + Smartlead
Email deliverability

Read the case study →

Foundry ERP

Replacing a $12k/yr cloud ERP for an iron foundry — data first

Problem: A 30-year iron foundry ran two systems in parallel: a 2007-era in-house app holding three decades of order history, and a cloud ERP costing ~$12,000/yr that every order had to be re-typed into.
Built: Mapped the legacy MySQL schema (16 tables, ~40k orders, 4k parts, 325 customers) including undocumented joins, extracted the incumbent ERP's data through its own reporting views while the subscription was live, then built the replacement: order entry, foundry WIP pipeline (cores → molds → pour → grind → inspect → outside services), shipping with packing slips and BOLs, invoicing with a QuickBooks Online push, scrap-rate and backlog dashboards, pattern/rack tooling with 3,150 auto-matched photos, and ton↔pound raw-materials tracking.
Result: Deployed and running in pilot on the client's own Windows Server with the owner testing daily. Cutover to system-of-record is scheduled, not yet done — the subscription savings are the target, not a claimed result.

39,807 orders records migrated
~$12k / year subscription targeted
9 modules in pilot
pilot, cutover pending status

MySQL 8
SQL schema design
Python
QuickBooks Online API
Windows Server + Tailscale

Read the case study →

DC Turnaround

Bottom quartile to top of company standings — dashboards, tooling, 30 people

Problem: A multi-million-dollar distribution center sat in the bottom quartile of its company-wide standings, with high overtime, unexplained inventory variance, and missed delivery windows — and no visibility into any of it until after month-end.
Built: Power BI dashboards for daily order monitoring so disruptions surfaced same-day, custom Excel tooling to replace manual shift planning, targeted scheduling changes against the overtime line, and manifest/route analysis paired with driver training and DOT compliance.
Result: The center climbed from the bottom quartile to the top of company-wide standings — a 54.5% improvement — while overtime expense fell 15%, warehouse efficiency rose ~10%, and delivery-window success improved 7.3%.

bottom → top standings
−15% overtime expense
+7.3% delivery windows
30 people team

Power BI
Excel automation
KPI design
Route & manifest analysis
Team leadership

Read the case study →

AITrader

Multi-platform autonomous trading agents with eval-first discipline

Problem: Building trading automation that is honest about edge — most bots ship on backtest hopium and blow up live.
Built: Agents spanning five brokerages/markets behind a unified pipeline, an eval-first research harness that validates strategies out-of-sample before any capital moves, hard risk gates (stop-loss, position caps, momentum gates), and scheduled execution via OS task scheduling rather than fragile in-app crons.
Result: A disciplined research-to-execution loop where strategies must clear walk-forward evaluation to run — and unproven ones stay disabled. The engineering rigor is the point.

5 brokerages markets
eval-first harness method
risk-gated execution safety

Python
Broker APIs
Backtest/eval MCP
Task Scheduler
Walk-forward eval

OpenClaw Agent Stack

Self-hosted multi-agent orchestration across VPS + local

Problem: Running a fleet of always-on AI agents reliably, cheaply, and on infrastructure I control.
Built: Seven specialized agents with distinct workspaces and permissions, hybrid model routing (local GPU + cloud models with fallback), cron-driven automation, and a hardened VPS deployment running as a systemd service alongside a local node — with delivery routed through Telegram.
Result: An owned, resilient agent platform that runs scheduled work unattended and routes each task to the right model at the right cost.

7 specialized agents
hybrid local + cloud routing
self-hosted VPS deployment

Node.js
systemd
MCP servers
Model routing
Cron automation

Agentic Dev Tooling

A personal AI-development workflow system

Problem: Default AI coding tools waste tokens and lack durable context, repeatable process, and guardrails.
Built: A layered workflow system: custom skills, rules, and hooks that enforce process; a Rust token-optimizer proxy that compresses dev operations; and a persistent file-based memory backend that carries context across sessions.
Result: A faster, cheaper, more consistent agentic engineering loop — with large token savings on routine operations and context that survives between sessions.

60–90% on dev ops token savings
skills + rules + hooks process
persistent memory context

Claude Code
Rust
Hooks
MCP
Skill authoring

Capabilities

Leadership

Team building & hiring
Coaching & mentoring
Culture & engagement
Cross-functional leadership
Talent development

Management

Operations & logistics
P&L / cost management
KPI & performance tracking
Process improvement
Safety & compliance

AI / Agents

Multi-agent orchestration
MCP server integration
Model routing & fallback
Eval & backtest harnesses
Prompt & workflow design

Automation

Scheduled job pipelines
Browser automation
Cron & systemd services
Hooks & process guardrails
Notification routing

Web / Engineering

Astro & static sites
React / Electron apps
REST API integration
WordPress engineering
Technical SEO & schema

Data / Integrations

SQL & schema design
Python data tooling
Data migration & cleanup
Broker & market APIs
Google Workspace APIs

Education & certifications Associate of Spatial Sciences, Texas A&M University · Google Data Analytics (Coursera), 5 courses completed

Recommendations

Four people who worked alongside me across a decade of operations leadership — peers, a manager, and a counterpart at another railroad. None of them were asked to write about the team. All of them did.

“I had the extreme pleasure of working side by side with David as a Joint Corridor Manager at the SDC in Texas. He is far and away the most dedicated individual I have met in the ten years of my railroad career. David has a quick intellect, excellent communication and written skills, and possesses extreme integrity. His contributions were absolutely invaluable, and it seems there's no challenge too big for David to tackle.”

Deidra Winzer Director of Operations Worked with David on the same team

“I worked side-by-side with David in a management role for nearly 10 years. David always goes above and beyond, working outside the box, to resolve issues and save cost, all while producing top-notch results for employees and customers. I highly recommend him for the logistics/operations management fields if your company is looking for new ways to produce an outstanding product — benefiting both customers and employees while saving money.”

Larry Bell Regional Airline Captain Worked with David in a management role for ~10 years

“As a manager at Union Pacific, David exhibited the utmost professionalism, a work ethic second to none, an insatiable desire to learn and improve, strong leadership skills, and an ability to inspire others through empowerment and personal example. David will be a very valuable asset to any organization.”

Matt Lyons Retired from Union Pacific Railroad Was senior to David

“I worked with David for several years on a territory of railroad jointly owned by BNSF and UPRR. I found him to be a very professional, intelligent, diligent, and honorable person who was a great partner. He will excel in any position requiring planning and decision making, and is an excellent motivator of the people around him.”

Jim Hays Manager at BNSF Railway Worked with David on the same team

About

I lead and manage operations for a living. Today I run a multi-million-dollar distribution center as a General Manager; before that I spent 12 years at Union Pacific Railroad, working my way up from train dispatcher to corridor manager to manager of yard operations — coordinating crews, traffic, and safety across thousands of miles.

Along the way I got tired of waiting on reports and started building my own — using Excel, formulas, and SQL, then moving into AI, which turned into a self-discovered passion. What began as a way to do my job better became a second skill set: Power BI analytics, automations, self-hosted multi-agent systems, eval-gated trading automation, and a growth engine that put a 30-year-old foundry into Google's AI Overview and produced real inbound revenue.

I lead people, manage operations, and build the systems. I care about outcomes over demos, culture as much as numbers, and turning "what if" into "running in production." If that mix is useful to your team, let's talk.