Eckstein Receives Rivers HoF Achievement Award

During the January 10 christening ceremony in New Orleans for Marquette Transportation Company’s new flagship towboat, the mv. John Paul Eckstein, Kurt Strand, president and CEO of the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium and the National Rivers Hall of Fame, and Capt. Corky Bickel, National Rivers Hall of Fame board chairman, gathered at the podium to present vessel namesake John Eckstein with their organization’s 2025 achievement award, given annually to a living legend of the maritime industry.

The National Rivers Hall of Fame and the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium are both located in Dubuque, Iowa, on the Upper Mississippi River. Besides the National Rivers Hall of Fame Achievement Award, the organization also recognizes bygone leaders who have helped shape river life and lore in the United States.

“You can learn more about these honorees by visiting the National Rivers Hall of Fame online,” Strand said, “or, better yet, go 890 miles upriver to Dubuque, Iowa, and you can actually visit the National Rivers Hall of Fame exhibits in person.”

“It’s further than that,” Eckstein interjected from his seat, with the crowd laughing in reply.

“Is it further than that?” Strand replied. “Google told me 890, so when I heard 1,000 to St. Louis, I started wondering.”

It was a lighthearted moment that displayed the quick wit and river knowledge of Eckstein, the longtime president and CEO of Marquette who has served as the company’s executive chairman since 2020.

Strand then shared a statement from Rick Calhoun, himself a National Achievement Award honoree who also has a Marquette vessel named after him.

“Rick noted, ‘John is one of the smartest people I have ever met in business, very quick with numbers,’” Strand read. “‘But more importantly, he is bold and decisive, which allows him to capture the opportunity while others ponder the matter. His leadership created phenomenal growth for Marquette.’”

Bickel then stepped up to the podium to recount what radio icon Paul Harvey might have called “the rest of the story.”

“John grew up in Cassville, Wis., the youngest of eight children,” Bickel said. “From a young age, he was on the river, whether or not, my guess is, his mother knew about it.”

Eckstein’s father, Ray, started Wisconsin Barge Line, and then, when Eckstein was a teenager in 1978, his dad began Marquette.

Eckstein stayed pretty close to home after high school, attending Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, just over 100 miles away. While at Coe College, during a January “J block” period in Colorado, Eckstein caught the attention of beloved Coe College mathematics professor Kent Herron.

“Professor Herron knew something about John, and that was that John was not doing well at Coe,” Bickel said. “John was not going to make it. … Kent said to John, ‘John, when we get back to campus, I want you to sign up for two of my math classes.’”

Eckstein followed through with that suggestion, and “the rest of it is history,” Bickel said.

“He graduated from Coe,” he said. “He went on to Vanderbilt, a school that’s hard to get into. He got an MBA in finance. And he didn’t forget about his friend, Kent. He came back to Coe and brought with him the funding to redo a wing of the classrooms where Kent taught, and they named it after Kent Herron.”

Eckstein returned to Marquette Transportation in 1990, Bickel said, and took over as president a year later at the age of 27.

“His father saw John had the skills and the wisdom to take over,” Bickel said. “He was president for 30 years. When he took over, the company had five boats. After 30 years, 134 boats, and now look at what we’re here for today.”

Even since stepping down as president in 2020, Eckstein remains active in Marquette Transportation and in other philanthropic and for-profit ventures, Bickel said.

“It is because of all of this that the National Rivers Hall of Fame is honoring John Paul Eckstein today with the 2025 National Achievement Award,” Bickel said.

Addressing the crowd later in the ceremony, Eckstein admitted that Bickel didn’t exaggerate when speaking about his early struggles in college. His turnaround, though, was rapid.

“I made a 3.0 my next semester, and I was dean’s list every semester after that, then got into a master’s at Vanderbilt,” he said.

After finishing his MBA, Eckstein spent some time in bond sales before coming back to Marquette in 1990 to work with his father. Eckstein recalled having to make quick decisions on which personnel members to part ways with and which ones—like Darin Adrian, Tom Erickson, Jerry Jarrett, George King, Theresa Wood and others—to keep at all costs.

“I didn’t have any experience, but I had a great team,” Eckstein said. “I had Tom Erickson. I had Darin. I had George and Jerry. As a team, we’re on this little office barge, and we sat down, and we figured it out. We said, let’s stop breaking down, let’s start making miles, let’s build a better business, and that’s what we did.”

In recounting episodes from his life and career, Eckstein also recognized two family mentors: his older brother, Randy, whose Eckstein Marine Service fleet became Marquette’s Gulf-Inland division in 2007, and his father, Ray, whose dedicated and tenacious leadership helped carry Marquette through the tumultuous 1980s.

“What a shrewd businessman,” Eckstein said of his father. “What an amazing person.”

Now, 35 years after Eckstein went back to work at Marquette Transportation, the company operates one of the largest fleets of inland towboats in the United States.

Each year, the National Rivers Hall of Fame honors past maritime heroes with inductions into the hall of fame and living leaders with the achievement award. The 2025 National Rivers Hall of Fame inductees included renowned steamboat fireman Ed Smith and Gouverneur Kemble (G.K.) Warren, a Corps of Engineers trailblazer who impacted the development of the Minneapolis-St. Paul harbor. Besides Eckstein, the National Rivers Hall of Fame also awarded an achievement award to Jerry Enzler, founding director of the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium.

To learn more, visit www.rivermuseum.org, or travel to Mile 580 on the Upper Mississippi River.

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Featured photo caption: Kurt Strand (right), president and CEO of the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium, speaks at the christening of the mv. John Paul Eckstein, held in New Orleans January 10. Strand and Capt. Corky Bickel (left) presented the National Rivers Hall of Fame’s National Achievement Award to John Eckstein, executive chairman of Marquette Transportation Company. (Photo by Frank McCormack)