[00:00:37] Good morning and welcome to a new episode of Supply Chain Now. I am your host, Enrique Alvarez, and today I have the pleasure and the pleasure of interviewing two very, very successful people in an organization that is really making a difference in the world, helping people and really making a difference. Our daily lives, one by one better, one better. Life to all, so let me introduce you before I officially introduce you to my guests. I remind you that if you are interested and enjoy listening to this kind of interviews, please do not continue to play now in Spanish. You can find us anywhere. Wherever and wherever you have your podcasts on YouTube and also on our website at Supli Chain or dotcom. And well, now it gives me great pleasure to introduce Claudia Freed. Claudia is president and whether or not a n? Or it’s based in Chicago. She has a very very special background and well, she’s originally from Argentina. Claudia, how are you? How are you?
[00:01:50] Hello Enrique and a pleasure to be interested. And a big hug to all the Spanish-speaking friends who are listening and watching us.
[00:01:58] It’s a tremendous pleasure to have you here. As I was telling you before we started recording this episode, for me it’s not only very nice to have you here, but to do a very very easy job, because this is a very interesting career and story and I’m sure everyone is going to like to hear it and well, also with us. Tony Rivera Tony is the Vice President of Strategy and Transformation. Yes, or a logistics company before that and well, Caterpillar executive for several years. Tony is originally from Mexico. Tony welcome. How are you?
[00:02:34] Hi, nice to meet you Enrique. Thanks for having me here on your show. I am very well. It’s a pleasure to be here with you and Claudia to talk a little about our adventures, to tell you about our work.
[00:02:51] I think it’s perfect and we’re very, very ready to hear not only about the adventures of the two of them, but a little bit more about the great organization they run and to be able to support them and our audience in any way we can. Claudia, why don’t you start? Let’s start with you. Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself? Who are you? How did you get here? What brought you to Chicago? Et cetera.
[00:03:16] Well, thank you very much. Hello! To tell you my story and share a little bit of generations of teachers, I mean, I started my life in Argentina being a member of a family that was always very dedicated to education. What I am interested in telling you today is that there are times when you are inside a story and you don’t even realize that you are a protagonist of something bigger that is happening. And that’s a little bit what happened to me. I am Mario and Rubi’s daughter. My father was president of a university in Argentina. My grandfather Enrique Zena was the name silenced on Enrique’s street. He was the first superintendent of Public Schools and would ride around his schools in the country on a horse. And my father was a teacher. My mom was a teacher, so education has always been very central to my life.
[00:04:19] Have you ever thought of following in the footsteps of.
[00:04:25] Good question. I was always interested and curious about science. I was a little girl doing experiments in my backyard. She was always going around with instruments that I pretended to be a doctor. So education, as a teacher, didn’t appeal to me. There are times when they say that the in the house of the blacksmith, eh? People don’t, don’t, don’t have iron, but not me. I didn’t go into teaching, I went into it for the love of learning things.
[00:05:03] That’s good, that’s good, isn’t it? Well, thank you Tony. Tell us a little about yourself as a boy. How? What was your life like at MEAM?
[00:05:11] Well, my mom immigrated to the United States when I was two years old and I stayed there in Mexico with my grandparents until I was six years old when my mom brought me here.
[00:05:23] A Toni arrived that to
[00:05:25] Chicago we have arrived in Chicago. She was in Chicago. Then I started my life here in the United States when I was six years old and it was a little difficult again. I also have alopecia, so I have no hair, I haven’t had hair for two years. So it was a little difficult for me when I was young, not only because I didn’t speak the language, but also because I didn’t, I didn’t have hair. Then this one. But those experiences in my life actually fortified me with my character, which made me a much stronger person than I thought I would have been if I hadn’t had them. That’s the one. That’s one of those things right there. Well, I lived in Chicago until I had. At 23 years old I was working long hours in a restaurant and one day I decided to pack everything in my car and go to Austin, Texas. Without this one, without friends, without a home, without a job, because I wanted something new. And that’s where my professional career began.
[00:06:33] Well, there you go, let me interrupt you before you keep getting ahead of us, because what I wanted to ask you, just like Claudia, is well as a kid in that first stage of your life still in Chicago, what did you want to be when you grew up?
[00:06:48] The truth is fine. And be true?
[00:06:50] Yes, when we grow up you and I are going to find out at some point.
[00:06:54] It makes this one in reality. I always wanted to do something where I was going to impact people, so this one wanted to have a positive impact more for young boys and girls than anything from a child. If I had a dream it was to have a waffle naje where I drove it. And this one and this one. Well, in Latin America wherever it is. I remember seeing many poor children who didn’t have much and I wanted to help them.
[00:07:28] That’s it. I say very powerful words and a very mature vision and really a passion for helping others that you don’t normally see so young. Age no, but. But it’s a very good point because I would like to pick up on what you are saying Tony and ask Claudia, maybe she obviously liked research, exploration, not so much in the teaching part, but from this to this passion that you both have because I know you and I see you giving to others, where does it come from? In your case, Claudia, what do you attribute this passion for helping others to?
[00:08:09] My dad, who passed away when he was only forty-two years old, I was 15 years old. He left a deep mark on my philosophy of life because he was a philosophy professor. So I always saw life from a different perspective from a very young age. And he always said that it was very important to fill your mind with wealth, and not just your pocket or not even your pocket. So he instilled in us from a very young age this principle of, as Tony says, wanting to have a global or broader perspective than what we had on our own. We never had much money. But our dad would send us four daughters in the car and take us for a ride and he would say sit your eyes down, screw your eyes up. And they were of the experiences. And the science aspect was because when I was a child I had many illnesses, asthma, I always had complications and my doctor, Dr. Jorge Axle, was a very important person in my childhood and so I think that’s what inspired me to want to be like him, a doctor. I wanted to be a hematologist, but now I see a needle and I faint.
[00:09:32] I mean, it happens. I’m not a big fan of the needle ones either. But. But how nice then. For example, we go back to this trip. Maybe one of the several they got with your sisters you remember? Maybe one in particular or a moment that you said well, this marked my life. I know that the influence that your father had was important and was a driving force in helping others and filling himself, filling his mind with wealth, not his pocket, as you said in some particular that you remember him telling you something, some advice, that you could share with the audience,
[00:10:11] Many, many experiences. Sharing with the audience is really getting back to what brings us all together. The tremendous concept of family that now in the cultural context that I am in this country, gave in the professional context that idea of family, of taking care of each other. My dad always said. He who takes shelter under a good tree has a good shadow. It is a phrase from a historian, from a writer in Argentina that has a lot to do with having good company in life. And that was very important. My dad had lifelong friends. I still have the concept of lifelong friendships, so friends and family were very important to him. The last thing I want to tell you that connects me. Travel to the United States. My dad showed me snow for the first time in Argentina, when he took us to a lagoon called Laguna del Diamante, near Chile, and for the first time I saw snow on the hill of a mountain in the Andes and today I live in Chicago, where every winter I have to be fighting with 20 inches of snow. And so it doesn’t connect things through memory and like a smell. Experiences make you feel
[00:11:40] How do you come to the United States? What was your path to get here? Tony has already shared some of his with us. How? How was yours?
[00:11:47] I came to the United States with the desire to be an exchange student in the last, in the last year of high school, like high school in Mexico. It turns out that a student from Philadelphia had come to my small town in Parana, Argentina, and he met my sister. But in my sister’s class they only spoke French and in my class we were trying to study English and this boy who was our age, he said you should. Research what it would be like to leave this country and be an exchange student in order to really learn English. And he planted the seed at a very difficult time in my life. My dad had died of a heart attack during the political insurgency that was going on in Argentina in 1978. I was sixteen years old and at that time
[00:12:45] Moment a difficult age as for apostille to button
[00:12:49] I started on that one and at that moment that partner inspired me. My mom told me I don’t have any money, but I have all the love and support to give you. And so began my career from coming to being an exchange student. Then I returned to Argentina after six months. The exchange family offers me to return to the United States to attend Puru University to become a graduate student. I’m going back to the States. I do a year of first Hessen and was totally. Devastated, miserable, horrible. It went very badly and I said I’m going back to Argentina. And this family said No, wait a minute. Learn the language, change your academic curriculum, change universities. You lose everything you’ve done, but you start over. And then, if you don’t succeed there, then we’re going to let you come back. And here the
[00:13:44] Important. How interesting that through a family, that well, it seems that he adopted you as if you were also his daughter this that. What does it matter? Because they didn’t mind you starting over, did they? They didn’t care that you’d already had that whole first stage. It was Be patient. And how brave of you to do it too, because not just anyone, not just anyone. And it is difficult. Well, the three of us live in the United States and what you were saying before, connecting it with the concept of family, well, it’s different. And being Latino I think that the concept of family unites us a lot and it’s something that’s really hard to cope with. When you’re homesick, right?
[00:14:28] And in what you said, for me it was not only the guidance that this family gave me, but my personal pride. My mom had sacrificed a lot to give me this opportunity and I didn’t want to go back defeated. So, that, that conviction that sometimes you have, as Toni said, the experiences, the blows of life make you see things from a different point of view. And that’s the kind of character that one over the years can develop and wouldn’t change. Nothing that has happened to me in my life, even though some of the blows have been very hard, has made me who I am today.
[00:15:09] It’s the same thing that Tony was telling us and that his condition and other things have helped him to do better and to have a different perspective on life. And well, back to you on this one, Tony. You were in this was the decision to leave Chicago. Was it overnight or was it from dawn you said so far? I’m going to pack the car, I’m leaving today because I can’t stand it anymore.
[00:15:34] No, no, the reality was from reciendo I was apurás escort Catholic schools truth that formed also many of my ideas and this I remember that this well this is one of the neighbors his dad and he installed carpets and he grabbed me at I was about 13 14 years old and he told me look of all the boys here if they all stay in the same neighborhood, they all stay in the same area. I understand,” he said. But if you don’t get out and do something in life it’s going to be a waste of what you have of it. And so that was a very big influence of some words that really helped me. Then, when I was 23 years old, I don’t know why, but that day I was working and I was working like 12, 14 hours a day. So I was there and I went to the market because I was shopping and that morning I remembered what he said and I said here I am wasting my life doing this, I want to do something new, I want to go where I read because in those days there wasn’t much internet, so from where? I read that it was very interesting and I went to Boston, so I decided to start over, I made a lot of friends again and that’s what Tog took a lot of chances, right? When I was young I lived in six or seven different cities, I had to learn a lot until my children were born and then I calmed down and I couldn’t, I couldn’t travel and do all that anymore, right? Because I had to give them something like that. But again it was another change for me which has been the best thing, to give what I needed. I was at the point, I had my kids at 30, so I was at the point where I said actually now this, this I’m ready to do this, I don’t think I was younger, I was ready to be a dad or whatever and now my kids are grown up, yeah, and so Varma is going to see more of this stuff that I have to do, see how my life changes.
[00:18:07] Hey, not very exciting. And again I see a bit of a connection, not between your story and Claudia’s story. It turns out that now, in your case, a neighbor or a friend there in the neighborhood is the one who pushed you and had a big influence in giving you the first step to realize that you like adventure and exploring new places and meeting new people and something that you remember, Toni, of this particular person or any other person who was your mentor in those first 20 formative years of your life, some teaching or some example, or some moment that apart from the one you already shared, that marked you.
[00:18:49] A Actually that was a moment where he told me no, no, no, no more we were this was dad, but the biggest influences I had, well after college my high school right? I went to a Catholic school called Montecarmelo here in Chicago and this and today’s post formed a lot of ideas. I wanted to be this priest out of all high school right? But God never called me to follow that step. Then I’m and I got to college and there Jacq with him because it was purely a men’s school. So when I got to college here it wasn’t like that, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. In fact
[00:19:38] It’s all right. There are other ways to help the community become acidic.
[00:19:43] But if there this then I was installed this service to others right? Service, doing things not just for you, but for you to succeed. But if you do things wrong and serve humanity. Then you’re going to have a very pleasant life.
[00:20:07] If the more, which is something I try to tell my kids, there’s a book here that I read to them when they were younger, that the more, the more you give, the more you have. And the more you give, the more you get and. And it’s something that maybe it’s hard to realize in life, or maybe a lot of people talk about it and know it. But to really have that kind of peace and certainty that it’s true is very difficult. And well, it tells you someone who told you, but not oku one alive with that certainty 100 percent. It’s something that I’m still working on and I’m still, I’m still trying to do, but it’s very true and I think that you and both you and Claudia are the example of two people who realized this philosophy of life that is very true, or at least for me. What did you like the most about hosting? Toni Changing the pace a little bit
[00:20:57] A is is why the fuck, of
[00:20:59] Everything I could from any city in the United States, you packed up and drove to Austin, Texas.
[00:21:05] And this and to this day. Of all the cities I have visited and been to, it is my favorite city in the United States. It has everything. Beautiful. adjUdi. It has rivers, it has a nightlife, especially when you’re young. Very, very pretty. Ah! There is a lot of diversification. So this is a more moderate point, isn’t it? No, totally free and liberated as this one left this one. But it’s like the rest of the tiles. Isn’t it more conservative? So this was it. It was a beautiful city. I worked for Apollos when I was there. It’s in accounting. I was coding, wasn’t I? Hahaha. But this one, this one, this one. And it was before the iPad because to the iPad if it wasn’t reconnected
[00:22:02] With
[00:22:04] This is not a cool city. And again. Yuvi traveled. I have had the good fortune to travel all over the continental United States. I’ve been to every state. I haven’t and this one. And I’ve lived in. I think 8 different cities. So this of all the places I’ve gone there this one. Well, it went very well and today I still have many friends. And this one. This is a place I love.
[00:22:31] Very nice city. If you are listening to us and you have the opportunity to visit the United States and you have the opportunity to visit a hostile city. I imagine that the hosting of now obviously has to be very very different from the hosting you knew when you first came to it. But. But I’ve had the pleasure of meeting it a couple of times and it’s a very beautiful city. You’re right. Claudia If you want, now moving on, moving on with you and following your story now, tell us what was the second, I mean, what was the second race. At the end of the day you gave up everything you had and everything you had worked for, which is an extremely important and valuable decision. And what did you change?
[00:23:19] The course of my life changed because of a scholarship, a school scholarship that has brought me to what I do today. At that time I didn’t know that the scholarship I was being offered to go to college existed only in Chicago. There was no puru and the university where I was offered this scholarship did not offer it in the medical curriculum. And I didn’t want to be a nurse. I wanted to be a hematologist. Dr. Claudia. But since I wasn’t going to be able to be Dr. Claudia, I switched to a totally different curriculum. I really like accounting. I like finance and changed course and studied economics and computer science. But it was a scholarship that was totally
[00:24:10] Radical change. But hey. Your fear of needles may have had something to do with it. The eye was a good indication that you were in the right race. But. But it’s a radical change, but just as fascinating and very applicable to what you’re doing right now. As you say,
[00:24:28] One of the stories that make me laugh all my life and that I say I didn’t become a doctor. But I married a doctor.
[00:24:37] Until then. Doctor.
[00:24:40] The doctor’s wife. That is, one. There are times in life when you have to get to the finish line, to get to the
[00:24:46] Where you can or
[00:24:47] Wherever you can and however you can, as long as it is with integrity and with honor and with joy. I live in and close to the world of medicine, not only through the career. From my husband, but also as the director of several campaigns and donations for cancer research. So one, the passion, the fire that one has inside for some subject in life does not die simply because you do not have or want to do something else.
[00:25:21] Sure, sure, there’s not everything and you have lots and lots of dimensions of all different industries and organizations that you can participate in without necessarily being the doctor. In this case straight, correct.
[00:25:36] And I have to be afraid of needles that way hahahahahaha
[00:25:40] Well, that’s what gets you to Chicago. But well, before you tell us what happened in Chicago this something that maybe the people who listen to us are people who are graduating, young people who listen to these two stories of life so successful and so different but at the same time so close and equal in many dimensions. What would you recommend? You, Claudia, to someone who is listening to you, who maybe is in college right now and is afraid of needles and that’s one. What do you recommend for them to be happy and successful in their career?
[00:26:15] A couple of things. I like to do lists number one, number 2, number 3 and one of the main things is to remember that life hopefully for everyone is my daily prayer. It is a long marathon that takes a long time and there are goals that take a long time to achieve. We live in a society where everything is rewarding, immediate. So if one remembers that our ancestors, our grandparents, our grandmothers, if they were lucky, many people lived a long time and it took them a lot of effort to achieve goals. Of course, if you don’t reach your goal in 90 days, it doesn’t mean you won’t reach it. In other words, first keep a perspective that life is long and that you have to enjoy it every step of the way. Second, that it is often not just the job or career that one chooses, but the conditions under which one can achieve and that satisfaction. For example, my father being a teacher, they taught in a rural school with few resources, but the love they had for the teaching career was so great that it was the thing that made them most happy. They did not have to be directors of large prestigious universities, but the conditions under which one can achieve one’s professional ambitions. And third, you have to start small with small steps. For example, speaking of what we here in this community like to hear about Tony’s experience. We are all people with energy, with dreams, with the desire to change the world. But you don’t start by changing the world and go back, you start small. What steps can you take with today’s race? With whom can they link themselves, with what community can they establish ties to begin that walk that if God wills, will last them a lifetime of being able to change the world with the passion they have and the power they have. To achieve something through a lifetime is very rare person who in one idea changes the world. It’s very rare, it’s
[00:28:43] Not perfect and well there and there you have it. What you are hearing from us basically boils down to three things and as Claudia rightly said, lists are important. I’m a fan of lists. One must also remember that life is a marathon, not a marathon. It is long to be patient, maybe it can be reflected there. Don’t give up. I could do something that I that I read in the background of that of that comment. The second thing is not the job, the career or the money itself. It is the conditions of life that give you pleasure and satisfaction. And the example of your parents is an extremely powerful and easy to understand, easy to imagine. You don’t have to be. In a palace in the best conditions, you can’t be in a rural school and be the happiest person in the world, moreover, maybe there are fewer distractions. I would tell you that the people I know, who perhaps have conditions more attached to nature, more attached to those conditions of life, can become happier and it is easier to be calm and at peace. And the third thing is to start with small steps, not to see. Always see the next step. See, feel the next step. You don’t have to see the whole staircase to take the next step. Very, very good life teachings from Claudia. Almost Dr. Claudia. Claudia, please continue. Now, if not only with your professional career you get to Chicago, but it pushes you now into the supply chain part that pushes you into the organization that you’ve worked so hard to grow and develop. Tell us a little more about your topic.
[00:30:33] Of course! The scholarship that I mentioned that changed my life brought me to Chicago to study economics, that scholarship was a social experiment in the year nineteen eighty-two. There were two businessmen who had gone to college themselves because they had been given scholarships to go to their own universities when they were young and had made a pact. These two friends. What did they say? We are confident that we are going to be very successful in the business arena and when we just can. We want to give other students the same opportunity to have a scholarship and we are going to create a business idea, how to generate scholarships for many students. I didn’t know that I had been chosen as the first candidate for this scholarship. He, who was an experiment that gave him to be born there. Hallel The idea of these two friends who had this dream and very succinctly, very briefly, what was the idea? They fundamentally believed that the way we can improve the world is by protecting every person who wants to study the opportunity to study, that money is not the barrier by which someone can overcome. And they used the logistic principles of D. D. business management, everything they knew about business to create a platform that converts the value of a product that is no longer used. And the value of a scholarship and that scholarship, if the author wins students who have very low financial resources. It doesn’t have to be someone super smart, or tall, or short, or fat, or skinny. The desire to study and to excel in life.
[00:32:38] So the main idea was to give the resources to someone whoever they want to be or whoever they want to educate. And the way and the formula to change the world and improve the world.
[00:32:50] Exactly.
[00:32:51] And well, and you’re going to have to explain it to us a little bit more. One how it works and this one how? How does it work? In a practical way. How can we explain it to others? Because how do you transform the value of certain material things into scholarships?
[00:33:09] He stops to explain the model. One has to think of two sectors of the economy, for example, a sector of the sector here in the United States, of the university or tertiary education and small universities. We call it what we call small towns. Each college has plumbing, electrical, park care. All have infrastructure needs. And these two businessmen said these universities have to pay for the cost of all the maintenance. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could go to the big multinational companies and ask them every time they have some piece of debt, inventory or some piece of equipment of some engine, a ladder, a lawn mower. If that product, that equipment is ugly or old, or has some deficiency they can’t sell it as new instead of throwing it away. Why don’t we create as an exchange? Instead of being a school exchange, which is when I came to the United States to learn the language, this is another concept of exchange where you exchange the value of an engine, of a ladder of clothing to maintain the universities and the value of that product is exchanged like through an exchange with the university administrators for the value of a scholarship. So that’s how it is. The company donates the product. They receive a tax benefit because they are donors. The university purchases this product so that it can use it in its infrastructure and saves money. For example, $500 and that $500 is passed on to a student in the form of a scholarship. What if? That’s how I entered this university to study economics. Two engines that were donated by a large company were donated to my small college here in Chicago and it is in that exchange of value that was given to me so that I could afford to pay for my education in economics.
[00:35:35] And you were the first, the first person who was given the scholarship. I mean, you’re not only Fuser. Now, if we go back to the beginning, you are the one who runs the organization. But you were also the first beneficiary of this business model.
[00:35:54] Absolutely. The first beneficiary. La la, la la. The first person to demonstrate this concept from a business point of view. We always have to do the prototype planning.
[00:36:06] You were the
[00:36:07] Concept, the good. And the
[00:36:10] It was just right. I struggled with the word.
[00:36:13] Yes, yes, but that.
[00:36:16] The guinea pig
[00:36:17] He was the guinea pig, huh? But fundamentally, I believe that it accentuated and solidified my conviction, of course, of the mission of the organization. If they hadn’t changed my life, I wouldn’t have been able to dedicate the rest of my life to it.
[00:36:37] Ah, no, of course. You are living proof that this works and works very well. And well, Toni, now let’s go with you to catch up a little bit, because Claudia got ahead of us chronologically speaking and then I would like Claudia also to explain to us well, what happened next? Because I imagine there was some component there that returned her to the organization that gave her the scholarship. But you, Toni, tell us a little about how you found out about this organization and what it is for you at l Green. How? How? What is your connection? Following the story you were telling us it was a very now thing where are you now when you are hosting? Then you moved several times, you go back to Chicago and that’s where you see it.
[00:37:19] Yes, here I am in Chicago. And he was at a point where he was trying to start another company that because of the circumstances in Mexico, where the government changed, well, we were not doing very well because they changed a lot of the film of the spades that gave energy to this fugitive Bill Celtica. So this one, that one. In those days this I received a message by LinkedIn, this vito experencia you had this to this. You have helped other logistics companies or you also help in a job by Alan Neith, this being the best that this except network has done helping organizations during this time of disasters right? Human that is here this local or also international. Then I did a job with them and I don’t know how Claudia found me, but she sent me to zafe de de de de así and told us we have a new situation where we have to set up facilities to handle all our transportation. So we up to this point, with people giving us, donating product, they handled the transportation and supply chain and now we need to do that. You can help us. And we start talking and initiate more talks. Be helping them pro bono. Then a job was done this portaste as consul consulting them on how this was going to be handled and finally this Claudia invited me to estem put me part of the team.
[00:39:13] Well, if you had already designed the Stack plan, someone else should do it. If it’s not your idea now take care of the. Hey Tony, before you tell us about your experience and your love for logistics, I’ll pass on your experience and your love for logistics. Obviously it is reflected from Caterpillar and further back. Tell us a little bit about your career oraci in the more technical part of logistics. What? What is the experience with logistics?
[00:39:38] The funniest thing is that I started me, me, me, me, I’m very different as Claudia said, that she was a “me” list person and I’m more of a “I jump into the deep end of a freezing cold pool” person, right? Ready? So I’ve had very interesting projects where I’ve managed the construction of oncology centers in Latin America since I got into it so I was also doing this recycling of Batees for a while. Lead days this and this was after, because my my career wasn’t in logistics, it was in this, in real estate. I had a title company, I owned it here, but I got tired of the industry. It was very in 2006 I sold it and then I started doing recycling projects in Mexico. I wanted to be more in Mexico because I had a lot. I have a lot of family there and I and. And when I started to move the batteries, when I started to move products within Mexico and here, I saw that I was paying a very large excess for what is transportation, because what was this situation. And I said well let’s see how this works, right? And this one I got in and started. I started researching and and took a risk and it was something new that I love. Cemil, what’s new, this one and this one. That’s how I started my, my, my experience in logistics. More Nothing mostly because I wanted to learn what I was doing, because it was a big part of our costs. Right? Of course. It was more than 30 percent 40 percent of the costs. Then he wanted to investigate me. From there I went to school. I went back to school to take out. When I was with Caterpillar, I went back to school to get a degree in Supply Chain Operations because I was so interested.
[00:41:48] In which city were you cautiously?
[00:41:49] I was in Chicago. I was also in Chicago and that year was very incredible for me. Worked toe to toe on Caterpillar. I finished two years of school in one year and with Street three bunkers in Mexico oncology, oncology centers.
[00:42:06] He even imagined that you weren’t bored in Italy.
[00:42:10] Depended on very young children. So between all this I can’t do it anymore. I can’t work like this anymore. But in those days because this one is very dedicated and that makes me.
[00:42:23] I love the pillar. Were you also in the logistics supply chain area or were you in another area?
[00:42:29] No, in this Caterpillar is this one. I got more into the supply chain because I was in this shopping. So we were responsible for buying all the lantern systems, so I had responsibility for these cylinders and tanks all over the world. It was by Caterpillar and so much of the insurance of products that is coming in so much to be this as well as the purchases of this material. You also had to make sure that the suppliers were also sending you products and the supply chain was very interesting because a lot of times we hit the suppliers for defects and I was one of the people that again if something wasn’t right, I went in and investigated. Then I went to one of the wineries where this one was. We were sending products to Brazil like from here in Joliet and that’s where we had a Caterpillar plant and I got in, right? I went, I investigated with my eyes and I saw that all the packaging that was being paid for from the suppliers, all the boxes, everything that we were undoing and we were also paying for the same service twice and also in the change where the product was being damaged. So what I, what I, what I, what I learned at that point is many times this. You have to get into the details and to understand your supply chains, as an entrepreneur, as a manager of any company, you have to be in the warehouses, you have to see the processes, right? It’s something where Claudia and I and also our other partners in this, we’re constantly doing this now, right? Let’s see how we can improve the process if one of the process is not working, you have to investigate what is happening instead of always many people in the chains and always blame the supplier or always blame Siddhānta in Ninth.
[00:44:52] And that’s not the situation is it? You have to investigate and also what you have to think is that no, not everyone this me, me, I, I think no one wants to do bad work, right? So a lot of times where the process isn’t working is because people aren’t educated on how to do it. Working or not, they are thinking about how to work that and that’s why we also work very well as a team, even though we have, as you said, similar stories. We all have and there are many different ways to be true. Claudia is smart, I’m more like that. Then each one of you can take advantage of this blog. But today I burned. Every team has to have everyone right? From the smart people, from the people who are more risky. This and in between all, then work with their collective ideas to move the company forward.
[00:45:53] I totally agree. I totally agree. And that’s why diversity is so important. And so, well, people like you and like many people in the United States and in every other country in the world, the most successful teams are the ones that are the most inclusive, the ones that bring in people with different ways of thinking, from different careers, from different parts of the world or different families with different backgrounds and different histories. Claudia Back to you, then you the story seen from the other side of the coin. You, you why did you need someone to help you put this supply plan together? E a l Grint
[00:46:31] I never imagined that I would be the president of the organization.
[00:46:37] First of all, tell us a little bit about that, because if I’m totally skipping ahead from when you received the scholarship, graduated and how did you get back to being the president?
[00:46:46] C From the point of view that when I was awarded the scholarship, it obviously opened my eyes. Of course, that generous gesture, because I said people who don’t know me, who don’t even know who I am, they don’t know about my grandfather, my mother, my father. Nobody wanted to give me this opportunity. And why is that? Because he is like that. So that aroused my curiosity and the moral obligation not to let these people down, to say well, if you believe in me, I’m going to believe in you. And I graduated from North Park University with a degree in Economics and Computer Science. And I joined a very innovative and prestigious organization. D. and D. they call him D. The first one is the stock market, where agricultural products are bought and sold, and the second one is the stock market, where agricultural products are bought and sold. And then there was the other financial, stock market which was called the options market, which is another financial instrument that allows you to buy and sell contracts so that you get to reduce the risk of companies that are doing work globally across different currencies. As Toni was saying with regard to Catal peeling and different groups, then I went into Adam and as a practice to how he unravels the career development of an economist within a public finance house. And I was working there for seven years with the expectation that I was a member of what they call the international markets group and I started studying Japanese because the organization where I was working was expanding into the Tokyo markets. I studied Japanese for five years and on the eve of organizing the group to make the first trip to the Tokyo Stock Exchange, my dear doctor calls me and says Good news Claudia. Are you expecting twins? Hahahahahaha in my teens, good news and I change my plans.
[00:49:10] Sure, totally. Tony said it too. No, that is a very important change in the lives of many of us.
[00:49:17] And I was young at that time I would have
[00:49:19] Japanese balloons for these heights.
[00:49:21] Bad luck, enough to be able to be part of a Japanese team. Obviously it is one of the languages that has nothing to do with the Anglo Romance languages. So I studied what is called hiragana, which is the most basic Japanese that allows you to do Ganger’s business Japanese. It opened my eyes to the whole culture of Asia, not just Japan, which I enjoy to this day. Before Cobián I had traveled to 32 countries to Mencanta, Japan, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam. I’ve been to all those places.
[00:50:05] Well, then I sang to you. Well, change your plans and tell us now how you get online again. You better get out of that company sometime
[00:50:15] During the whole time I was in that company which was called Yes Arty its hair Rizo Chauhan Training. I continued my affiliation ranks with and to the ring which at that time was called Education Assistance not to put the program was to assist people. With their dreams of getting an education. It was called educational assistance. After I left Desía ti, I was working as a consultant, from there my career in logistics began a little bit, because I was a financial consultant for an organization that at that time was giving business management advice to the city of Chicago. The mayor came down, who I know was very famous and we were able to plow Washington, a super important person in the culture of Chicago. I had the honor, the honor of working with him under the project of how to improve public education in Chicago. And there begins my career of understanding a little bit the effect and the importance of transportation, logistics, distribution of products and start to see how all that is linked to the quality of education. And it was at that moment that the director of the head of the director of IA iHe, at that moment of education is being SMT and invites me to come back to the organization, not just as the first great student, not just as a volunteer because I had been maintaining my connection, but as executive director, which was the first title that I received in the year nineteen ninety-five. When I got there Hallel now as a draftee, the Lord told me Claudia, we are watching your career. He tapped me on the shoulder and said We’ve been watching your career since you graduated from college and we think you’re ready for Kanban to come back.
[00:52:20] A
[00:52:21] The story.
[00:52:23] But that was 25 years ago. Wow, 25 years ago I started my second chapter with her and him now as director and I have had the great privilege of still being here all these years.
[00:52:39] Wow! And that was good. The way you came home, as you mentioned and well, you would have too. You already had the knowledge of the logistical side. Tony is an expert in logistics. What problem were you trying to solve? And we pulled out a little bit of let’s fast forward a little bit in time and in the years I was trying to figure out when. You had to hire Toni. And what were you looking for, what was going on in your supply chain? That you needed someone with Toni’s experience and talent?
[00:53:13] Sometimes when we look at organizations from so close, when they say that if you look at the tree and don’t miss the forest, what was happening is that this is a nonprofit organization that has a very clear mission. But in order to continue that mission, one has to grow. The only way you grow in business is by adapting. And how does it adapt? It’s two or three very simple ways. First of all, it’s technology. Second, have a plan like today that you have to Gosho with militÃ, no?
[00:53:48] First, parasitology
[00:53:50] Have a plan. They’re getting the technology right because now we can’t exist. No one has the luxury of saying I’m doing it without technology. So we understand biology, its technology in every aspect and I can tell you 50 thousand stories, but it doesn’t have. We don’t have the time and technology. We are going to
[00:54:08] We will have to have another session to talk more calmly, because you are right, we have many topics that I would love to do at some point.
[00:54:18] Of your technology and the and the role of technology in your business, whatever. I was saying ng, whether it’s transportable, whether it’s vitamins, whatever. Technology. Second, have a plan that we call a contingency plan or a plan to manage risk. Because when a business is quiet as well water as we say in Argentina nothing happens, but when you want to be growing and doing scale, then you start to see the complexity of the business and you have to have a plan to manage it. And thirdly, it’s what Toni takes me to, which is to surround yourself with people who are sometimes better educated than you are, to surround yourself with people who have experience, who are smarter than you are in that sense. Not intellectually, but he has lived more. Of course. Then we started. When I took over the company and our team started working, the company had enough money to have two or three bucks, that is, two or three monthly payments. And if we didn’t grow up, we died. Here they say If you’re not growing, you’re dying. The first, the first challenge, was how to grow the business, because we live on generous donations, donors. So, how does one grow when in a limited flow of capital and demonstrating the value and impact one has on society or the community. And so we’ve grown the organization over the last 25 years from $60,000 that we had in the bank, that happened to have just paid two or three monthly installments to today that we removed in this one to five million dollars and with Tony’s help growing.
[00:56:11] Wow! It’s an impressive story. I’ll be right back with you for that. But Tony, before we lose him in the texts. Tony Eh? Do you see the problem? Do you see the company? It is a not for profit. You come from Caterpillar. Why take a job like this? If you weren’t coordinating worldwide shipments for cartel? Ask what was what? What catches your attention? Which one? What was your reaction to the green?
[00:56:40] Look, more than anything this one, well this one comes in for the cause, right? Because I think education is very important. La la to get them out of poverty, to get them out of poverty, to get them out. Then the mission of us is very noble, which I liked the most. For me it was a decision to enrich his heart more than Enriquez, to roll up his bags, right? I And actually for how it all happened, well the best thing that could have happened for me at this point was that I was in the middle of some family things and the pandemic came and with that. with this organization, because I had the opportunity and the fortune to spend more time with my children who are older now and it gave me that flexi of flexibility. Also the work that I do every day, although some days with any work you wake up tired, you feel annoyed, this knowing the mission, reading the letters that come to us from the students of the schools, how we are helping them, it gives a lot of motivation and apart from that it is again like my title Strategy and transformation. We took this company this when I started that Claudia and the team did a very good job in growing and we are changing it right? To a company that is now taking measurements mostly true with this current data, we are now measuring how much carbon emissions we are using and saving this by our strategy. We are seeing how much as this product we take out of the dumpsters this and recycle it or logo or refuse it then. And we are also using this post analytic analytics stuff for this as we are looking for new ones from this new companies that can help us with their products that are already using us. It’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s a business, a market where we are entering right now and being in logistics. You who know that the world is in pardons right now with things that people are returning. So we changed from being a traditional organization where we look for donations to help. That Zapp we are a solution for business, that now is not only that we are giving. Give us your donations
[00:59:41] Because they’re already looking for you because they need you. Interesting ñadas.
[00:59:49] If they’re looking for us, why are we helping them with a sore spot now, right? They like relieving them, so relieving that. And it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s something we are also handling, which is transportation, which is one of the things that is very difficult right now, well, just by handling it and removing those weights we are helping them a lot outside, and now there are also tax benefits for them outside of the gold and moral burden that can help them. And so that’s why I’m here, because it’s like a start up. Right? We are. We are a little or will urge 40 years.
[01:00:35] That gives those kinds of organizations are the ones that really excite me. And I really think that everyone who is listening to us is excited to know, is excited to participate as you or Tonica at the time you did not know her, you started to know her with Siste’a Claudia and several of the people who make up this incredible organization and. They have the mission, they have the purpose. They have great potential. It’s winning, winning is saving the planet. And well, something I have to mention is a lot of the other organizations in e n geos or nonprofits this don’t have that vision either of being shed of pseudos and emissions and being green and making sure that we’re being responsible to the planet and to the ecosystem. And that’s it. That’s admirable, because not only are they trying to educate people and not only are they giving money for people to educate themselves, but they’re also being aware of their impact that they have on nature and that. Claudia Mi is not very special to you.
[01:01:49] Absolutely. One. A new stage in our history, because until now our history has been focused mostly on providing a solution, as Toni was saying, to companies that have damaged products and previously had few options. When we started to realise that the market was changing and we can narrow down certain moments, for example, finance companies start to tell investors we are not going to invest anymore in investments that harm the planet or that have that are unfair. When the pendulum of business starts to swing, Harry, Rick, start to question what the role of business is and they start to wake up to this idea that business is not just there to make money, but to start the seminal question that starts to enter the business conversation is. Are there companies that can do less harm? Classes is when the companies, which are the ones that support us, begin to show that they also had a vision of being able to eliminate or reduce the damage they were doing to the planet. That is one of the changes we have to make. Sure, and we started to focus on, as Toni says, measuring the environmental impact of our own production of this solution. Wow! In 2016 we changed the name, we became, we were in fact cation. So are SMT We became the acronym for those letters. And the fact that we stand alone asestan of metal and we add the word green that in English is the color green to emphasize the expectation of our commitment to the planet. In regards to everything we do from the office that we have in going paperless, reducing the way we impact the environment and how we handle all donations. Last year Tony can correct me, but we received over 500 truckloads of product that at some other time would have been thrown in the garbage because they had a little damage and we rescued them and turned them into grants.
[01:04:20] Wow! It is impressive the value they are generating and they are doing it in a responsible and environmentally friendly way. It is a very interesting role model and hopefully many of the people who are listening to us will pay particular attention to it. Attention not only to the leadership example Claudia and Toni are setting, but also to the organization and above all to the business model they are proposing. It’s not educating, it’s taking away a little bit of the large quantities of products that we are not using the waste, eliminating the waste and besides, being responsible with the planet. What goals do you have in part based on? And if you give us a little bit more numbers Tony or your Claudia, the one who wants to tell us what the goal they have the CEO 2 part, or the number of trucks received, or how they measure the how they measure the how they measure the success of A L Green was year by year.
[01:05:14] Actually, last year we did this Milk Milk in five scholarships, right? As for me, five scholarships for almost three million dollars. This we did this we are growing, so we set our goals, something where it is reasonable, of course, the truth is to decrease about 10 to 15 percent every year.
[01:05:39] How many, how many freckles have occurred in these 40 years? Well, 20, 30 whatever years of organization.
[01:05:45] Nineteen thousand three hundred and forty-one scholarships,
[01:05:49] Nineteen thousand 341 scholarships and this includes all education. So it’s a scholarship. How do you define it
[01:05:56] Scholarship, eh? Well, good question Toni,
[01:05:59] If we work with universities we don’t even say how much they can give in that to people. When we put the money in with the universities, when the equipment is funding this, they give it to the students who are most in need. Sometimes it is the average of our scholarships. Last year it was two thousand nine hundred and some dollars to this year, but we’ve had people who have had scholarships of 20,000 dollars. We have had ORT, but
[01:06:39] The university is in charge of objectivity. In other words, you don’t, you don’t participate in the selection process and the universities know their students. They will know who, who has the greatest need and they are in charge of administering the money you donate to them.
[01:06:56] So, that’s one of the ways.
[01:06:58] The universities they have now, I mean, you can sign up for the program or how many universities they have right now that they work with.
[01:07:08] Approximately 60 universities, which is impressive. But perhaps also in perspective. When one considers that in the United States there are over eleven hundred small four-year ocean colleges. We are just getting started. Universities can be part of our community, which is free of charge. They don’t have to pay a membership or anything. That’s why the only thing we require is that every university should also be an LGO, that it should be a non-commercial university.
[01:07:49] I have organized and are they all over the United States or are they in any particular region? Throughout the United States.
[01:07:56] We are all over the United States and you look at the map where we have our Impact Report, which is posted on our website. We invite you to see, you are going to see maps of the United States. If you see a large concentration in what is called the Midwest, that is, the largest part of the country. But we’re also on the East Coast and the West Coast, but all in the United States.
[01:08:22] And well, and that’s the need for logistics and operations are everywhere. Then you have to distribute all these products that are constantly donating to different parts of the country.
[01:08:34] Yes, and one thing, I wanted to organize the tournament, one thing I wanted to clarify because I didn’t answer your question to Enrique why he has to hire Tony, invite him to come? No, uh, us. Another stage of growth was when one of our major contributors presented us with an opportunity to work with them in the California market. Then we are from Chicago to California. We had to do an expansion and we didn’t have an expert on our team to help us do that geographic expansion that wasn’t originally part of the program. Whatever they do to us that starts giving us that kind of experience and that solves it for us. First the problem of expanding. So, with Tony’s experience we could really think about how to integrate two places, how to start thinking about transportation, about the cost to everyone. What he did we had not calculated because it had never been part of the vision that these two businessmen had in 80, 81 and 82, they never thought that this was going to grow so much relatively in four decades.
[01:10:04] Yes, I’m sure this was a bit beyond their initial expectations. And well, now with what you’ve already shown you can do and what the whole team has shown they can do in joy. I imagine that now if the expectations go beyond that, it’s 1100 universities. Well, let’s capture 1100 college. Then they still have room to grow and develop. And it has been a pleasure chatting with you. We are slowly running out of time. But. But I’d love to have another interview at some point to see how this one goes. Obviously I would like to. Tony, you wanted to say something, something else to complement the interview that you want to leave us. Now we come to the final part, shall we say, of the interview.
[01:10:51] If one of the things through our state transformation is. That we are now entering more trade schools. Right? So, traditionally we were this plus this. Ah! Staffs, data on that. But now to trade schools, because that’s again one of the biggest needs there is for employment in the United States. And also, as well, as opportunities to people who may not really be that good for school, but they can use their clearing of things and that’s something where we are. We’re focusing a lot with the technical schools that do those types of programs. This has been our expansion this year.
[01:11:38] If I am someone who is listening to the show, what do they need? How? I mean, I’m totally sold on the story, on the purpose, on the culture, on what it represents. How can I help? I mean, if I don’t own a company, how? How can I get involved with you?
[01:11:57] Can you contact me? Direct to Toni at e l e r e e e n dot o r g then this Toni to steal and to the big dot org and this or you can call me at home 31 8 03 16 and at 7.
[01:12:21] And well. And if I am a company and I have products that I would like to donate two questions up to there. What kind of products are you looking for? And also like. How is there a program through the page that I can sign up for? How does that part work?
[01:12:39] We always think of universities, as I said at the beginning, as being small towns. So we are interested in all kinds of products. There are times when due to logistical, storage, transportation issues, we will say well, for example, we are not going to receive food, but we have a large network of other organizations throughout the country and sometimes even the world, where we can facilitate the delivery of that food, for example, to an organization that can use it. So we say no, we say no to anything. Of course, we always evaluate whether we can assess that the interest of that company and our mission can be expected to be on the fine line in the Halia alias, lie, feed, that they’re aligned to align, that they’re aligned. And then there’s a, a, a, a, an opportunity to work with them. And you can always connect with us on LinkedIn through our website. The easiest is LinkedIn. To me my email also Claudia at at and a l g r e e e n dot o rg very easy to connect and we are always interested in also helping universities. If there is a teacher, for example. As Toni was saying, even though we started giving scholarships for students in economics and computer science, today we give scholarships to students who are on reservations in Hanoi to change bakan in the United States and we also work with schools and technical institutes where they are learning to weld, to do carpentry, to fix engines, to restore cars and those universities and technical schools also need scholarships and require support.
[01:14:40] And they are very important for the economic functioning of the country and their technical careers and technical universities are equally or more important for everybody and it is important that those who are not listening today listen to him and that they do something apart, that they listen to him and that they do something this. But it’s not impressive for
[01:15:01] Your business this? Many are truck drivers, right? They need that one too. So this impacts the transportation industry a lot,
[01:15:11] Totally and well, and they need that’s a good point. Tonicity. Someone is listening to us on the Supli side. Jeannine Segui has good contacts on the trucking side as well. Have them contact you. Maybe I could look at the other freight donation component that could continue to reduce the operating costs that they have. And I imagine the more they can reduce their operating costs, the more money they can pass on to scholarships. So there might be some synergy with some trucking company that is listening to us, some company, trucking that has an organization and a culture based on purpose and helping. I think this is it. I think it’s very easy. I don’t think that’s the case and we have the example here. Claudia is the spitting image that this works and. And how can we get an organization to start with $60,000 and now have over $5 million? And the added value and the social impact it has is much, much, much greater than the five million? How many of those 19,341 scholarship students do not go on to become business owners or employees or parents? In other words, the impact is enormous. It’s an incredible story. It gives me great pleasure to have met you again. They have our full support and that of the great Supli Chain Now community. For whatever you need. And well, I’d love it if you would like to end the show with some, some, some challenge or some challenge that you want to leave the audience with. And if you want, Toni, let’s start with you and I’ll let Claudia close the show.
[01:16:53] You sealed this post for me. What I say is this look, we’re almost out of this pandemic. If we know anything about what chain supply is, it’s what drives the entire economy. So any kid, any student, you need a lot of people in all, all areas of the chain, so get into this career. It’s something where it’s never going to stop, because the movement of food, of movement, of everything that we use every day is there, there’s not enough people, so follow that. That’s that race because it’s one that you need and and from there you can. You can do a lot of things.
[01:17:40] I totally agree. And well, with the support of E. a L. Grint maybe they can even have some scholarship to study that logistics is that they apply and an anxiety this industry that as Toni says. It will never cease to exist and now I think it is more evident than ever. How important it is not Claudia’s we close with a flourish to the pleasure of talking with you.
[01:18:03] Well, the pleasure has been ours and to meet and share a few moments with your audience each one. Each person listening may have a different reaction or a different impact, but what we would like to share as closing words is to remember that prosperity is based on two things in the gratitude that one feels, the gratitude that one has and the education. When we no one saves the future or saves the future holding on to life in a way and jealousy of life that if you want to have prosperity you have to remember that first there must be gratitude, because to the things that happen to us we must be grateful, even if they are ugly and hard, because that makes us grow. And education opens our minds and opens our eyes, connects us to another community that we often don’t even imagine exists. So if one wants to thrive as a human being, one must have an attitude of gratitude and keep an open mind, learning new things and cultivating new thoughts and ideas.
[01:19:24] Claudia Thank you very much. Absolutely nothing more to add to these very wise words. To all who listen to us. Nice to be here with you again. Again this is Supply Chain Now in English. I’m Enrique Álvarez and we’ll be waiting for you in an upcoming episode.
[01:19:41] Thank you, thank you, thank you.
