nications and that has served me well,because communication is truly what we’redoing. It is about building these strategic relationships. It is about servicing ourinternal customers and our external customers. And that communication background has been invaluable in leading aglobal logistics team.
QYou’ve been in the field long enough to have seen logistics and supply chainmanagement’s star rise, as it went from aback-office function to one that now has aseat in the boardroom. What do you thinkis driving that trend?
AI think that is a great question. We just concluded a series of webinars withNASSTRAC on getting your seat at thetable, and I do think that companies nowget it—that they understand the importance of the logistics arm. I think whatmore companies have realized is that itreally does come down to getting the rightproduct to the right place at the right timeand then on to the customer.
Certainly, part of it is what you mightcall the “Amazonization” of supply chain.What that’s done is to re-set the expectations of the end-user, so that if you’re notfocusing on logistics and supply chain,then you’re just not going to survive as acompany.
QLet’s shift gears and talk about what’s happening in the field from a macro
perspective. What are some of the biggest
challenges logistics practitioners face in
2020?
AI think one of them would be custom- ers’ escalating delivery expectations.Today, anything longer than two days isjust not fast enough. If they can’t ordersomething in the late afternoon or earlyevening and have it in two days, they’re nota satisfied customer. So that’s our challengeboth now and going forward: How are wegoing to constantly improve that deliveryservice to our customer?
I think the other major challenge is the
geopolitical turmoil. Businesses operate
best in a stable environment, not the kind
of volatile times we face right now. Take
the tariff disputes with China, for example.
As trade tensions have escalated, we’ve
moved some of our manufacturing out of
based out of Idaho. They offered
me a job in sales, even though I dis-
tinctly remember telling them that
I had never sold a thing in my life
and I knew nothing about trucking.
I went from there to ConsolidatedFreightways and Yellow Freight,and from Yellow Freight, I crossedthe fence to go to work for one ofmy customers. Once I landed onthis side of the fence, I really neverlooked back.
The position was with a startup
operation in Boise called Micron
PC. We were a direct-to-consumer
personal computer company. Over
the course of seven years, we went
from a startup to a retail company
with $3.2 billion in sales. I advanced
in that time from a traffic manag-
er to the vice president of supply
chain. My time there probably pro-
vided me with a better education in
logistics than I could ever have got-
ten in school. It was a fast-growth
ride and then an educational ride
down. [Micron Technology’s PC
division was spun off and acquired
by Gores Technology Group in
2001.] Although the ride down was
nowhere near as much fun as the
ride up, it taught me a tremendous
amount that I carried forward into
my other positions.
Three years ago, I went to workwith SanMar, leading the wholeglobal logistics scene, which is thecoolest opportunity I’ve ever hadin my life.
QSo you’ve experienced the logis- tics game from both sides now,and it seems you’ve developed avery strong generalist business skillset along the way. You really haveto understand the business as wellas the logistics to support it, right?AIt is, and it’s funny. People are always asking what my degreewas in. I got a degree in commu
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