Tom Hoback is founder, president and chief executive officer of The Indiana Rail Road Company, an Indianapolis-based 500-mile regional railroad with rotes from Chicago to Louisville, Indianapolis, and eastern Illinois.

A native of Peoria, Illinois, he attended Golden Gate University in San Francisco, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in transportation and economics. He held senior marketing positions for major rail carriers in San Francisco and Chicago.

In 1986 he founded Indiana Rail Road, whose original route between Indianapolis and Newton, Illinois, he acquired from the Illinois Central. Business on the line increased more than tenfold since its inception as Indiana Rail Road. Indiana Rail Road acquired the former Canadian Pacific Latta subdivision in May 2006. Hoback is also owner, president, and CEO of Central Midland Railway, a freight railroad serving the St. Louis region.

Hoback is a board member of the George Krambles Transit Scholarship Fund. He also serves on the editorial advisory board for Railroad History. He was elected to the Indiana Historical Society board of trustees in 2002, but he already had a long association with the Society, having co-founded the Midwest Railroad Research Center there in 1997. He is also active on other boards and advisory committees.