Supply Chain Now
Episode 767

I've even seen models where once we have the roads completely robotized, we won't need things like turn signals and stop signs even, or stoplights because the vehicles can actually time themselves, the distance between themselves, to assure that there is no conflict.

-Greg White

Episode Summary

Is magnesium the new toilet paper? Join co-hosts Scott Luton and Greg White to review the latest supply chain buzz, from an impending aluminum alloy shortage to the rise of robo-taxis and too much food waste. Be the first to know why soda cans and semi-conductors might become scarcer in the coming months, what climate change has to do with it, what’s on the horizon for labor negotiations – and why air travel is no longer a pros-only game. Hear Scott and Greg sound off on these emerging headlines and get a head start on planning for all the latest movements across the supply chain landscape.

Episode Transcript

Intro/Outro (00:03):

Welcome to supply chain. Now the voice of global supply chain supply chain now focuses on the best in the business for our worldwide audience, the people, the technologies, the best practices, and today’s critical issues. The challenges and opportunities stay tuned to hear from those making global business happen right here on supply chain now.

Scott Luton (00:31):

Hey, good afternoon. Good morning. Good evening. Based on wherever you are across the globe. Scott Luton and Greg White with your out here on supply chain now. Good morning, Gregory White. How you doing?

Greg White (00:43):

Uh, good morning. And it is in fact morning here and Kansas city. Mid America. Yeah, doing good. How about you?

Scott Luton (00:53):

Wonderful.

Greg White (00:53):

Two days in a row in November,

Scott Luton (00:55):

You’re wearing shorts to football games in Kansas city. Greg, that’s crazy

Greg White (01:00):

Quiet, but yeah, it was a little breezy as it can be in Kansas. So shorts were not part of the wardrobe I brought them, but I didn’t have the guts to wear

Scott Luton (01:11):

Well, folks, welcome to the supply chain buzz. We’re going to be tackling some of the leading stories across the world of global business. Um, want to hear from you too? So hopefully you’ve packed your POV today. Greg does not leave the house without your POV. Is that right?

Greg White (01:27):

Got it right here. Over my shoulder. Okay.

Scott Luton (01:30):

All right. So booklet and get ready because we want to hear from you as we walk through these stories here today. Hey, uh, Greg, before we get into the goods here today, let’s share a couple of thoughts about our friends as well. Aura, how’s that sound?

Greg White (01:45):

Yeah. Well, I mean, we’ve been talking about these folks for a couple of weeks now and you know, it’s funny when you, when you’re trying to redo something visually or aesthetically or whatever with your identity, it’s a real struggle. I think we’ve all been through it a few times. If you’ve had a business, you know, how hard it is to find that kind of right mark and finding a talented group of people that get you. I think that’s probably the most basic term you can use, uh, is really tough and important. Um, but I think we did. I think we did pretty good.

Scott Luton (02:18):

Thanks Scott. I think we did a wonderful, I’ll tell you what and, uh, today’s show is produced in partnership with our friends at Azle Ark, who as Greg is alluding to built our stunning, the website supply chain. Now that comm y’all check that out. Uh, as we’ve talked about Greg here, I love the, the really practical search, uh, button. You can look through our library of roughly a thousand episodes, uh, as a Lark, as a leader in user experience, design development of not just websites like ours, but also Gregg custom software applications within the supply chain industry, you can learn more@agilearc.com and big things to say here, and the top notch team over there at, as LARC right there. He’s picked you’re right there in the middle, Greg, uh,

Greg White (03:02):

Right there in the middle. Yeah, you can’t miss him. He’s the tallest person in the company. I think there was somebody taller, but he had to let him go because they were taller. I have no idea. Um, but yeah, and he’s, you know, he is in the same space. We are right at, at king plow at the king plow center, so conveniently located, but, uh, that’s a really artistic part of town. Isn’t it? I mean, there are a couple of companies that, that are, uh, kind of upskilling a lot of the tech in Atlanta. So maybe we landed in like the center of the tech universe and Atlanta,

Scott Luton (03:39):

The center of, of a supply chain city and more for sure. Yeah. Well, well, y’all check out as arc, uh, dynamic, uh, heavy hitting well-recognized team and you can learn more again as will arc.com, but we also got some big news coming up, uh, tell ya, it might be end of the year and, and folks may be tired of registering for webinars, but man, they are coming out in droves. We’ve got close to 800 people, I believe registered for this session next week, Greg, where we’re partnering with our forensic Cooper, Dr. [inaudible]. And of course the one only Loris is Siri. And we’re gonna be talking to Greg about the supply chain of 20, 22 and beyond focusing on building real resiliency anti-fragility maybe, and agility into the operation. What’s your take on,

Greg White (04:29):

But yeah, I mean, it’s, you’re going to get the facts right from Dr. Derby and a course from Laura about what companies should be doing and what they are doing. And despite a lot of the discussions that we have and that Laura and other analysts have, it looks like a lot of companies aren’t really converting on truly transforming their resiliency. So there’s great opportunity here. And it’s funny, Scott, we keep talking about webinar fatigue, but the numbers in our webinars just keep going up 6, 7, 800 people registering for these things. So I’m going to say Scott Luton, you must be doing something right.

Scott Luton (05:07):

Well, it takes a village for sure. It takes great content, great partners. And, uh, and you know what the best part of these webinars beyond a great guest, the Q and a at the end, uh, you know, we use a carve out 15 minutes or so for Q and a, and that’s my favorite part. So y’all join us November 9th at 12. Noon is free, free to join. Uh, so check out that on the ninth and also November 18th, Greg, we just wrapped up a, um, a podcast with, uh, Bob here and Greg both with Manhattan associates. Yeah. And we had such a great time. We’re like, you know, what, what else let’s do it?

Greg White (05:44):

So it was good. I mean, it was great. It was great topics. Um, of course they’re right in the middle of it. And of course, TMS seems to be in the middle of everything, right. There is, there’s so much going on with connectivity between enterprises. Everybody wants to know where’s my stuff. Um, right. And so that’s been a huge topic. And of course, I mean, I think we talked about this in the show. I know we’ve talked about it with Greg and Bob, but Manhattan has been doing TMS when TM, before TMS was cool. Right, right. So, uh, yeah. Yeah, that’s right.

Scott Luton (06:22):

That’s right. Yeah. Do you want her to November 18th, 12 in the Eastern time, also a free to join free to, you know, engage. I bring your POV, want to hear from you as well. Okay, Greg, we’re going to do something fun here, uh, on the front end, right. Um, we love this supply chain chow, uh, kind of sub-community we’ve created on Facebook. So many folks that have food Mohib in supply chain. Uh, just get, we’re gonna say let a few folks and just a second, we’re going to share some of our, uh, some of the, um, the wonderful food pictures that we’ve been getting in supply chains chow. So stay tuned for that folks. But first let’s say hello to a few folks. So Peter bullae was with us at least for a couple of minutes. Uh, this morning he says all the best seems like the same clothing laundry day on the horizon.

Greg White (07:11):

I wash it every week. It’s just, this is my go-to cool weather. Hey, you know what more I’ll change. I’ll change. Let’s do a cam. Let’s do a camera swap real quick and I’ll change into my chief’s a windbreaker.

Scott Luton (07:24):

Love it. And Hey, Peter, uh, come on. You got to give me a little, little leeway there in Atlanta. Just one it’s

Greg White (07:33):

Only been a

Scott Luton (07:33):

Week. It’s only been a week and it goes, you know, it’s easy, uh, easy to get on and off one of my favorite, uh, go-to jackets. So, Hey, bear with us. Great to have you here as always Peter. Hey, it reminds me that feedback is a blessing as always in that Greg

Greg White (07:48):

Procurement and fashion consultant. Peter bullae. Thank you.

Scott Luton (07:52):

Right. Ramond is back with us. Hello, splotch and excited to learn new things every Monday morning from this group. Hey, we want to learn from you. So let us know what your take is on these articles that we are going to sharing here today. These stories Mohit is back supposed to be good noon, but we’ve moved back to nighttime saving daylight saving this week and you’re right. Mohib so it used to be, um, I guess 12 noon Eastern time now, but in the past, I guess he’s saying it

Greg White (08:22):

Would be 1:00 PM would have been 1:00 PM. One that’s right.

Scott Luton (08:26):

See, I’m confused. The one hour just, just blows my mind. So Mohit. Great to have,

Greg White (08:31):

Uh, imagine. Okay. It feels a little bit like time travel when you go to a different time zone and then they changed the clock, right? Because you actually get there before you leave and it’s confused.

Scott Luton (08:44):

I don’t know how you made the kickoff, Greg, but you did. And the Kansas city chiefs one, it makes it even better. Uh, yes, sir. David is back with us. David. Hope this finds you well via LinkedIn. Great to you here today. Uh, let’s see. Sylvia. You mentioned her Sylvie is with greetings from a sunny Charleston, Greg, any gotten any jam lately?

Greg White (09:05):

I’m going to be jammed, but Sylvia, you’ll be glad to know that very soon we will be very close to being neighbors. So

Scott Luton (09:13):

How about that? More to come more to come in fact, his yes. Right? His jacket, which has nothing to do with the geographic location. Might just be a clue Sylvia.

Greg White (09:23):

Oh, very good.

Scott Luton (09:25):

Scott. We try, we try very good, Eric. Hello? Uh, via LinkedIn. He says, of course it’s the center of the supply chain universe for technology. Um, here he must be in Atlanta, Greg.

Greg White (09:36):

Yeah. Clearly let’s see tracking right now.

Scott Luton (09:39):

All right, Bob, Bob’s got our back. He says Peter bowler has the same yellow shirt with every photo I see of him. Uh, this buddy man

Greg White (09:47):

Changes a bit. He changes his profile pic today. That’s good. Good,

Scott Luton (09:53):

Good catch Bob and Jonathan wash liger. If I said that, right, I apologize for that. It’s pretty close. Hopefully. Uh, good afternoon. Tuned in the, uh, LinkedIn. Great to see you here today. Okay. Speaking, Greg, uh, Bob Bova and Peter bullae. They may, they may just be part of our food run, run down. Uh, I can share this. There we go. So again, folks, we created the supply chain chow Facebook group a few months back after a lot of food dominated, a lot of our internal and external discussions. We have all have a lot of passion for it. So we’d love for you to join. It’s a public group, anybody, and everybody’s welcome. And it’s really just to share your culinary experiences, whether you like to cook, whether you like to go out and eat or whether you’re a, you name it a lo we love pictures like this one here, Greg, this is Bob Bova who made this attack, onion style, authentic Italian style dinner, because his son wanted homemade for his birthday. Made three rounds. Holy cow, Greg. How about that? Well,

Greg White (10:57):

That’s beautiful, frankly, though, you can tell those are homemade meatballs. I’m just wondering Scott, where was our invite?

Scott Luton (11:06):

Seriously. Bob was already

Greg White (11:08):

Rounds. I mean, I could see, I could see not being invited to the first or maybe even the second round, but third round c’mon man. Look how I hope your son had a great birthday

Scott Luton (11:17):

By the looks of it. He had a wonderful birthday. Look at the character in that, in that, uh, tomato sauce that, that, yeah, that you could just tell com. Uh, and he says, uh, come to Soquel. Okay. We’re headed your way, Bob. We’re going to be there soon and we’ve got to connect with our dear friend,

Greg White (11:35):

Scott.

Scott Luton (11:36):

Okay. We got, uh, catch it with our friend Jose. Who’s also in Southern California. Great to see you there. Jose and David, going back to our comment or Bob’s comment about Peter, uh, changing his shirt. David says that’s a solid bet. He meaning he’s going to change that group. That’s shirt. Okay. Let’s keep driving here. Uh, we’ve got a picture from LA. It’s been a little while since LA Jordan’s for lobstering, but she sent this picture of garlic chicken. Look at the crustal net thing. Huh?

Greg White (12:04):

That looks good.

Scott Luton (12:06):

Delicious. And then Peter Bola, you know, Thanksgiving and Canada was a couple of weeks ago. Uh, so it looks like he was doing the, uh, the, the bird for the, uh, the feast and look in the upper left-hand corner of that pan. Uh, it looks like they saved the neck for cousin Eddie. Hey, it’s

Greg White (12:27):

For the gravy, right?

Scott Luton (12:29):

It is folks, uh, uh, as a meme says, uh, you don’t, you can’t trust folks that can’t quote daily, uh, national Lampoon’s Christmas vacation this time of year. You can’t trust people that don’t know that movie. Greg, you Paul’s, but I know, you know, that movie backwards and forwards, don’t you?

Greg White (12:48):

Yeah. Well, they made, yeah, well, yes. Vacation. I know very well because they made pretty good fun of Kansas on that. Oh, did they? I dad says I’m the best kisser. Okay. That’s it’s a quote. You don’t want to hear from my part of the country.

Scott Luton (13:07):

Folks, check out, check out Christmas vacation, get back to us. Uh, all right. Finally, this is so a lot of folks may not know that Amanda here on our team, who and big thanks to Allie Jayda and Amanda behind the scenes helping to make production happen today. Amanda is like a world-class chef. Uh, she’s not a chef by like a degree or anything, but man, she is a wonderful cook. And uh, she, from time to time, we’ll post these live stream lunches. She whips this up Greg and like three minutes. It would take me all day

Greg White (13:39):

Cubed mozzarella on top, obviously balsamic vinegar on top. That looks fantastic. And Bazell vinegarette with a balsamic reduction. Okay. Wow. Awesome. How was it’s gone? I mean, I know what you’re going to say, but I’ll be able to tell by your look on your face.

Scott Luton (13:57):

It was delicious.

Greg White (13:59):

It looks spectacular.

Scott Luton (14:01):

It’s a picture worthy way, but folks just like Jennifer and hello, Jennifer. Great to see you here today. I look forward to talking barbecue with you soon. She just joined the supply chain chat group on Facebook. Uh, we’d welcome. You know, we have a big harvest table. Everybody’s welcome. And we love, you know, uh, if as Allah is from, I think Sudan, uh, Greg, we want it to be a global conversation. Global food, global culinary experiences come one, come all.

Greg White (14:29):

Yes, David, we had, we were on a flight to Kansas city. They were trying to get four people to give up their seats. And the, one of the, um, people working the gate was from Jamaica. And she said, you can be on a nice beach, eaten jerk chicken from Scott cheese, which is in Montego bay. Nobody took her up on it. Although I have to, you I’ve eaten at Scotty’s. I was very tempted.

Scott Luton (14:54):

Sounds great. Let’s make that to be the next, if there

Greg White (14:56):

Hadn’t been a chiefs game that weekend, I probably, if you’d just been seeing family or something.

Scott Luton (15:01):

Well, as David says, yes, we’re all now getting hungry. So thanks. Yeah.

Greg White (15:07):

Yeah. Well it’s lunch hour for everybody else. It’d be, it would be uncouth, I think, for us to eat a sandwich while we’re doing this.

Scott Luton (15:13):

Right. It definitely, definitely. Um, all right. So folks that will supply chain channel, y’all keep the recipes and the pictures and the restaurants come in there and everybody is welcome to join us. Um, all right. So we mentioned there’s one of the comment I was going to mention, and it escapes me right now. So that means we’re gonna have to get to work. Rick, you ready?

Greg White (15:34):

All right. Let’s do it. Yeah. So interesting stuff happening.

Scott Luton (15:37):

Yeah. A lot of interesting stuff. You’re absolutely right. So I want to start with this report from supply chain, DOB energy shortages, and China may well lead to a lack of supply of critical aluminum alloys that go into a wide variety of items, auto parts, Coke cans, furniture, you name it. So Greg did you know that China produces about 80% of the world’s magnesium supply. Now I was not good in chemistry class. So I had had had a study extra hard in this article, but magnesium is critical to producing aluminum alloys. That industry again, uses all around the world. Now Sarah Zimmerman is, uh, the assistant editor at supply chain DOB who put this story together. As she says, China has effectively captured cornered the market for years, making most of the world dependent on its production. So in this case, the Chinese government is attempting to mitigate its energy crisis, as well as meet carbon emission goals, which is all that is hampering. These Chinese smelters factories that make this low magnesium from running at normal capacity. So Greg, what’s your take here?

Greg White (16:46):

Fascinating timing, right during cop 26, right? The, uh, the global climate summit and, you know, to which China gets a healthy exemption for pollution and greenhouse gases. Interesting that the ti the timing of, of this during that, when they are under unquestionably vying for another or greater exemption from that, um, that aren’t, that aren’t afforded to more ethical countries around the world. So, um, I don’t think it’s any coincidence, frankly, but it is, it is a problem. You know, remember most of rare earth minerals also come from China, right? And rare earth minerals are critical to semi-conductors. So they’re wielding their power over global commerce on questionably

Scott Luton (17:36):

Agreed as Bob Boba points out China manipulating the market again for profits, that never happens. Right.

Greg White (17:43):

So now you’re invited to my house,

Scott Luton (17:47):

Uh, and by the way, hello, Stacy. Great to see a Jean pledgers with us. Jean, you had a great restaurant visit in Chicago last week. Hey, shoot us that picture. Yeah, I think you got you gather one. If you can shoot that to amanda@supplychainnow.com. I’d love to feature that on an upcoming episode. Okay. So Greg will, we’re going to keep our finger on the pulse of what goes on here with these magnesium shortages. Uh, I’m hoping we can, it’s not one more toilet paper incident, right? We’ll see. Uh, we shall see, all right, let’s move forward.

Greg White (18:21):

Unquestionably lead to inflation, further inflation, further non transitory inflation for awhile anyway, until they get their way, right?

Scott Luton (18:30):

Yeah. Agreed. Okay. I want to move right along to our next story, which is about labor. So labor organizers, Greg, aren’t done yet trying to form a union that an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, gene pleasure. Let us know. I should have looked this up, but let us know where Bessemer Alabama is, but regardless the big a is taking no chances, right? As Reuters reports here, Amazon defeated a unionization effort at this Alabama plant earlier this year, but brig in official with the U S national labor relations board said in August that Amazon’s conduct as a try to fight that effort back interfered with the election. So a decision is expected soon on whether or not to order a second election Amazon, regardless of that decision or getting out ahead of it and not just locally this plant, but probably as we all see some of the Amazon commercials, um, do our weekend programming. Now, finally, Greg, I’m gonna get your take here. Can’t wait for it. Wilma Liebman, which this article quoted, she’s a former in L R B chair says, quote, there’s nothing like a union win and a win can be contagious, which is what the big a fears for sure, Greg.

Greg White (19:49):

Yeah. Unquestionably. They fear that. Uh, let me tell you that. Remember I’m in Kansas city, so I’m going to be very careful about how I talk about the virtues of labor, because I don’t want some labor leader to help me disappear later today. So, um, labor, you know, um, I get why in this day and age organization, or people want to organize, but frankly they don’t need, they don’t need unions to do so. And, and Amazon, of course, they’ve made their way. I mean, as much as they can in commerce, uh, based on keeping prices low. And remember Amazon is not profitable. They continue to take risks to be in the e-commerce game and unions want to mandate a rate that will assure their lack of profitability for decades to come. So yeah, of course, they’re going to, going to like many companies have in the past fight, fight this.

Greg White (20:45):

I don’t know how else to say right. Fight, uh, this initiative because it is it’s, um, viral, right? If it happens in one facility, it tends to happen in others. And, and also the fact that it’s happening in a right to work state is, um, you know, it would be particularly distasteful for any organization that, that doesn’t want unions because they probably left another state. So they wouldn’t have to have this battle. Right. So you can, you’re going, gonna have your discussion over the virtues or FA uh, or issues with, with labor. I just won’t be joining it today until my flight takes off from Kansas city.

Scott Luton (21:22):

Okay. Like Wilma says it is contagious. And undoubtedly, uh, I came here with some of the groups that had had vowed to get behind this latest effort. Uh, but you know, uh, the building blocks, right, you’ll be a building that they were able to, uh, unionize the Bessemer facility. Of course their eyes are on the greater prize. And, you know, uh, I, I know I don’t want to put you on the spot. And, uh, there are, There are very smart, educated, and passionate people on all sides of this, but we’ve seen no shortage of, um, safety, uh, safety reports and, and other complaints made across the Amazon footprint. And, uh, you know, you want to take care of people regardless. So, um, we’ll see how this plays out here. And, you know, if the RB does weigh in that votes going to happen, regardless of, Amazon’s just trying to get ahead of the game here, right?

Greg White (22:15):

Yeah, that’s right. I mean, first of all, I mean, despite all the hi-jinks from unions over the past and recent history, um, I mean, if Amazon is, is interfering in the election, of course that’s not the right thing to do, but now they’re at least taking the opportunity outside of the framework of the election to try to, and it sounds like from the article try pretty strongly and aggressively to influence the election it’s campaigning. Just like anything else, right?

Scott Luton (22:45):

Yep. Well said there, Greg. Um, all right, so we’re going to give it a pause. We’ve got a couple of comments going back to the first story and, uh, I’d love to share those here. Sylvia says, Hey, let’s go back to glass bottles. We’ve got plenty of sand, you know, you know,

Greg White (23:00):

Um, do you remember the days when we were kids, when you would collect glass bottles and go get a nickel or whatever form, we’ll see that’s why is that not viable? That’s what I can’t figure out. That is the ultimate circular economy. In my opinion, I’d love if there’s an expert out there to be able to tell us why that’s not viable, because I, I completely agree with that. We were just talking

Scott Luton (23:22):

Well, you know, so to your, to, uh, one of the points you’re making, you know, we may or may not go through an adult beverage, a wine bottle on a weekly basis, perhaps not name any names, but, you know, we used to recycle and be able to recycle all that. Now we know that China changes policies, um, roughly two or three years ago. And that must be, uh, you know, uh, it must’ve really impacted the likelihood and the, um, the profitability of recycling glass. Cause as you’d like to say, you gotta follow the money, but I would love for an expert, especially someone that, you know, that knows chemistry a lot better Nadu that can explain why we can’t recycle glass. Like we should, like, we used to, uh,

Greg White (24:05):

W well, in the very old days, Scott probably even pre you, they used to used to just take the bottles, put them back in the wood case, they came in and a Coca-Cola driver or Pepsi driver would come up and pick them up and take them back to the point they’d wash them and re you know, make sure they were still viable and actually reuse them. There was no other than dishwashing. So there was no chemical involved. There was no reconstitution, right? No crushing, no reconstitution, none of that stuff. So I’m curious why, and you know, again, well, before my time, and I haven’t, I haven’t done any kind of historical analysis of the economics of it, but I wonder what the money told us back then that made us stop doing that.

Scott Luton (24:47):

I think it’s fascinating. Uh, I remember Dr. Pell watch a documentary on Dr. Pepper that drink, uh, and the recycling of those bottles actually factored into how the company evolved. I wanna, I want to say there was some disagreement between company leadership that, that, that, uh, made the company branch off or something. Anyway, Greg, that is circularity. Let’s see, let’s see why that can’t happen anymore. Um, all right. I want to share this

Greg White (25:15):

Also. I think there’s a, there’s a consumer benefit there to spot, and that is that I will, to my dying day, tell you that Coca-Cola really probably any soda in a cold glass bottle tastes better than plastic or aluminum. The bottle helps kind of keep it cold, so you don’t need ice. So it doesn’t get watered down. There are some consumer experience or customer experience benefits there as well.

Scott Luton (25:38):

I’m with you a hundred percent. And it’s a lot easier to put peanuts and a glass bottle of Coca-Cola. And

Greg White (25:45):

I forget, yeah, they do that in the south

Scott Luton (25:48):

Sometimes. All right. Mohit, going back to our discussion a second ago, about a Chinese magnesium production, Mohib says power cuts will also diminish carbon emission from heavily dependent, coal fired power generators. That’s a good point. Uh, Mohit.

Greg White (26:06):

Oh, you’re from Bangladesh. You know, that’s not the reason they’re doing,

Scott Luton (26:11):

We’re going to have to have Mohit bone for, um, a real, yeah.

Greg White (26:14):

I mean, there’s no doubt that is a factual and a correct statement, but that not at all. Why China, China doesn’t do Tinker’s about pollution.

Scott Luton (26:24):

So Jean, uh, Johnny on the spot, when it comes to letting us know where Bessemer is, it is a suburb on the Western side of Birmingham. Birmingham’s are in a cool town. You’ve been there lately. Uh, Greg, no.

Greg White (26:36):

Oh no, probably not since. Oh my gosh, Scott, probably not since our first episode together, which was now what, two or three years ago was it that

Scott Luton (26:47):

It was forever ago because that was probably around episode number 80 ish. Um, and what Greg is talking to me, he’s talking about the university of Alabama at Birmingham, where we made a trip and interviewed,

Greg White (26:59):

Um, and had some great Mediterranean.

Scott Luton (27:02):

Sorry. I recall that in Birmingham. That’s right. Global city.

Greg White (27:05):

Fantastic. Bob and good news right there. Yeah.

Scott Luton (27:08):

Uh, Shashi. Hello. Great to see you here today via LinkedIn. Uh, so glad you’re back with us. Sylvia says supply chain. Now, now that is sad. I use homestead Creamery, glass bottles, $2 deposit. And for grandpa Fred, her grandpa, Fred, I guess I save wine bottles for his amazing strawberry. And Muskatine, Muskett on wine. How about that, Greg?

Greg White (27:31):

Wow. So she’s practicing circularity right there in a way that probably all of us could, frankly, you know, so they still do recycle it for money in some states, maybe. So I’m fascinated to understand the economics of why that isn’t universal. So I’ve lived in several states where they did that. You’d used to do that in Illinois and Michigan. I think even Kansas, we did that for a while. I’d be fascinated to hear that economics behind

Scott Luton (27:59):

Give us a scoop. And Bob says we recycled bottles cans for money here all the time. Bob is in, in California fornia. That’s right. Eric says insurance liability in Atlanta because it takes, I can’t quite see us what, a million years for a glass bottle to dissolve. Okay. All right. Uh, Joe’s a big fan of glass bottles. Great to see here today. Jovia LinkedIn and Danny happy Monday, everybody via LinkedIn. Great to see here today, Danny.

Greg White (28:27):

And he looks like a guy who would prefer to drink out of a glass bottle too. I mean, he prefers his Coke out of a glass bottle. I’m pretty sure of it. We’ll find out what’s

Scott Luton (28:40):

Danny. Yeah. Let us know. And not none, none, uh, uh, silly twist off. We want something you’ve got to use a bottle opener owns that, right? Greg? Yeah,

Greg White (28:49):

Absolutely. Bottle opener, a metal edge. The wedding ring, your wife will still allow that.

Scott Luton (28:56):

All right. So let’s see here moving right along here on the supply chain buzz on supply chain now welcome everybody. Appreciate everybody’s comments thus far. And evidently you hit the nail on the head with Danny. Agreed. Uh, so you’re your a quick assessment on folks, Greg? Pretty impressive

Greg White (29:15):

A lot.

Scott Luton (29:17):

All right. So this is, uh, speaking of, uh, something really cool. This story got our attention. So CNBC is reporting that robo taxis in California are getting closer and closer to being a reality. So Cruz is a company backed by general motors, and it’s just one permit away in the state of California from CA from kicking off and standing up a fleet of robo taxis. It’ll be the first company operating a fleet like that. And at least California, if not the us, if not, maybe even north America, Greg, you mentioned they’ve got robo taxis in the Netherlands, right?

Greg White (29:56):

Amsterdam. Yeah. Yep. So I think it looks remarkably similar to this vehicle. So it may, it’s not the same company, but it’s kind of more bus, like than more rideshare kind of vehicle. Um, but yeah, anyway, it’s, it’s similar and it’s interesting because you know, we’ve been talking about this forever Waymo, right? Wasn’t that Google’s thing. Um, and there’ve been others in the states obviously as well, but yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how that goes.

Scott Luton (30:27):

Agreed, agreed to have San Francisco

Greg White (30:29):

Streets, man, if you can get a robo taxi too, right. To navigate those narrow overcrowded or a presumed still over crowded streets, uh, that would have to have pretty good LIDAR or whatever the heck they’re using these days for this thing, these things. So,

Scott Luton (30:46):

Well, I would imagine one of the reasons I’m so excited about it is a spillover effect. You know, this, this could, this could move the whole industry forward for all things, autonomous driving. So we shall see the day we get a robot to pick me up from my house here in Walton county and take us into the studio in Atlanta. And I can use that hour plus time for productive, productive pursuits. Greg, talk about your life changers. You know, I thought it was a life-changing event when the kids could get in the car and buckle their own seatbelt, which that was life changing, but, uh, magic

Greg White (31:23):

Amazing.

Scott Luton (31:25):

That’s right. Imagine getting an hour on both sides of your commute back and to do whatever you want to do other than drive.

Greg White (31:33):

So people where there are lots of public transportation options, mostly trains, because they can go straight through on an hour ride or two, right. They have been using that time effectively to work remotely for, for decades. Right. Right. And, and it would be nice in a place where, for instance, Atlanta where the G or, or San Francisco or the geography does not allow trains because there’s so many steep Hills. And you know, we’re at the foothills of the Appalachian mountains here and in San Francisco, likewise, you know, um, with whatever mountain range it is they’re near or whatever it is that causes all that. Hippiness, um, it, it’s tough in some geographic areas. So you need an alternate options. So,

Scott Luton (32:19):

Well, the idea I do to this will be interesting to see how quickly they get that final permit. Uh, that was one of six permits. They had to get through this process from all from state of California. So we’re going to be watching this one, uh, closely. And as Danny says, sign me up. I’m with you, Danny. I’m with you. I’d love to get those couple hours back. Okay. And one last thought here, I wonder how scalable Greg, to your point, gosh, starting in San Francisco has gotta be, that’s pretty, that’s pretty bold and audacious there. I wonder once they get the permit here, how quickly they will look to, um, to stand up, you know, NFL cities around the country.

Greg White (32:57):

Well, particularly in California, it’s about the economics because they know, even though they defeated, whatever that thing was, that was going to make Uber drivers, employees, they know that that’s not long for this world. Um, so again, this goes to economics. So they’re going to try and eliminate the drivers by, by accelerating robotics. And so the economics just make the most sense in California, I guess. And of course the center of tech things, especially robotics is, is around the valley, which is right near San Francisco. So it makes sense to do it there. I think it’ll be interesting. You know, I’ve seen even models where once we have the roads completely robotized, we won’t need things like turn signals and stop signs even, or stoplights because the vehicles can actually time themselves, the distance between themselves to assure that there is no conflict, even with a left turn or something like that. It, it’s amazing to watch some of the models that, that come to be in that case. And it will help reduce congestion. Once we get to the kind of ultimate level of performance of these things. Lastly,

Scott Luton (34:06):

I love it. Um, hopefully the robots are better drivers than cousin Eddie, but we shall see, we’ll see Greg. Alright. And

Greg White (34:15):

Well, you know, they, they should be able to drive in the rain, which should resonate with some folks.

Scott Luton (34:21):

Yeah. It’s impossible here in Georgia to drive and rain evidently, but Hey, all in good fun. Picking them drivers all in good fun. Eric says Tesla is still planning on waking up all their cars and making them a hundred percent ride share while you’re at work. Oh, that’s pretty cool. Huh?

Greg White (34:38):

Reminds me of a Silicon valley episode where, um, hack one of the, one of the other founders cars and have it go get a carwash and, and power up somewhere else. And then come back.

Scott Luton (34:51):

I love it, man. This is a, this is a brave new world we’re moving into. Jose says the ground is congested already. Aerial is cheaper. Autonomous transportation is what I would like to see for short distances while you’re going to get your wish. Evidently Jose and Hey, if you were Jose or Bob or anyone else that’s tuned in here, uh, the space in California, once they get the permit, I love to see some video footage of y’all getting into these taxis and going places. That’s something we’d love to share. All right. Um, okay. So Greg, let’s see what store, I guess I’m losing track a tiny robot to keep me on the agenda today. Um, so we’re talking food today. Uh, that’s a big thing that food and robots, but, um, our final story, uh, comes to us from the wall street journal, uh, Gregory.

Scott Luton (35:44):

And it talks about food waste. You know, there’s been a ton of entrepreneurial and investment interest in tackling this massive challenge. We’re talking great, 30 to 40%, uh, on estimates, uh, government estimates of food here in the U S is thrown away 30 to 40%. So enter problem, massive problem. Nope. You know, inner investment inner, uh, entrepreneurial-ism you name it and a lot of corporate interest, especially as they continue to find ways to invest in E S G initiative. So Greg, for starters, before you comment here on this, uh, this wall street journal article that talks about a renewed and heightened interest in this aspect of, of global business, do you remember our awesome discussion that we had with gooder, right?

Greg White (36:30):

Yeah, of course. Gooder and Jasmine Crowe comes immediately to mind. Um, because that’s, I think that is because it, that is not a nonprofit, that is a for-profit entity that helps other companies save money and feed people. Um, I think that’s probably the most viable option is something that crosses that nonprofit line, but still does good or, um, right. If you think you’re doing good. You’re good. Um, so yeah, I think, um, that’s, that’s a great example of it is because one of the things that Jasmine talked about, and one of the things that I think people have recognized is it’s not just about consumers. It’s not just about the needy. It’s not just about companies. It’s also about health compliance and we need the cooperation of governments because the reason that so much food goes to waste, how, how kind of the government to report on something that they cause the problem of as usual?

Greg White (37:32):

Um, the reason it’s so much, so much food goes to waste is that it is actually illegal in a lot of cases or at least, well, it is illegal and usually subject to substantial fines to move goods on once they’ve been opened. For instance, if you’ve ever seen this in a grocery store, if somebody ever opens a package of steak that has, if that doesn’t go with that consumer out the door that has to be thrown away, it cannot be, have anything else done with it. So we have to have the, the, um, holistic operation of the health departments to figure out what makes sense or a way to make that make sense. And that was a, that was an issue that I recall Jasmine and others struggling with, because that was one of the main hurdles for a lot of the companies that she wanted to have engage in gooder.

Scott Luton (38:19):

That’s a great memory. And if we can drop a Amanda and team, if we could drop that episode, you, uh, Jasmine Crowe is a phenom and she’s gone even much bigger and gooder since she joined us for a sit down so we can drop that link.

Greg White (38:34):

She just got some more investment. If I recall

Scott Luton (38:36):

Correctly, I’ll have to look up. I think you’re right. Um, Allie, uh, Greg Alice says behind the scenes, uh, that crisp, which is a company we’ve had here on the bus with us also does work with retail analytics software for food suppliers to help solve food waste. That’s a great call out, uh, there alley. Um, it’s certainly going to take more than a village to get our hands and our, uh, our arms around the problem that is food waste. I want to share,

Greg White (39:02):

I surely love the idea, man. I hope we can figure it out, right? Because it just makes so much sense. We have, we have product that people don’t want and we have people in need who would be happy to get it. I just think there’s gotta be a way to do it, right.

Scott Luton (39:19):

Absolutely. Uh, Eric says, Hey, what waste? My mama always told me to clean my plate, even if you don’t like it, but did you do it, Eric? Did you do it? So, um, ho uh, Joe is an inhaler joke. Ritzy here says, can you resend the link for the supply chain in 20, 22 and beyond? So, uh, Amanda Jayda, Allie, if we can drop that link in the comments, that’s the webinar we’ve got tomorrow with Mahtab and Laura, that’d be great. Now, uh, we have royalty, we have star power with us here today beyond all the folks who’ve already pointed out Korean bursa hosts of tech talk, digital supply chain podcast is with us. And she’s speaking to appoint, Mohib said earlier, she says, I try to avoid plastic bottles, but when I do use them, I’ll reuse at least three times small, but important stamps, uh, steps. That’s a good point in that, Greg.

Greg White (40:14):

Yeah, it is. And it makes me think about, yeah. That’s, I mean, that’s really good. Um, it makes me think about, I have my youngest daughter carries around not a Yeti, but saying kind of vacuum wall thing. She carries that around all the time and then five finds places to fill it. And I, it seems like we were, um, talking about event. Oh no, no, no. It was a charter fishing boat captain of all places near Charleston. As a matter of fact, our

Scott Luton (40:43):

Tour

Greg White (40:43):

Doesn’t allow plastic bottles on his boat. He, he encourages you to bring those kinds of your own metal, uh, bottle, and, and he fills it. He keeps water in mass quantities to fill your, your water bottle. That’s genius. Isn’t it? I mean, that directly affects his ability to fish in those small places. Right. And you can find some pretty good places from what I hear. Um, and I mean, he’s making a really conscious effort to, you know, to contribute, to reducing plastics in the environment. I liked that I like what Kerryn and he are doing.

Scott Luton (41:19):

Yeah. Agreed. And as Michael Scott learned firsthand, whatever those boat captains say goes, right. The guys, one of our favorite episodes, um, that’s, that’s the, a reference to the office folks in case you are not a fan, let’s see here, Sylvia says, follow the French lead, going back to the food here, supermarkets get fined that they throw out food. Now, Greg, I would assume that’s probably not, uh, not one of your favorite ideas there. Right? Don’t know.

Greg White (41:47):

I mean, I don’t disagree with that generally, but boy, that’s a big leap for American government. I mean, we have exactly the opposite stance. We throw out perfectly good. I mean, we force groceries to throw out perfectly good food. So there has to be some way to get better. Um, also they don’t have the greatest stakes. And

Scott Luton (42:09):

So this LinkedIn user and let us know who that is. Amanda Allie Jayda, local sweeps of retail stores to pick up food about, to expire or get thrown out and deliver it to local food banks. The needs now are big, excellent point. And that’s

Greg White (42:24):

Yeah, that’s essentially what good are does, right? That’s when they try to coordinate with local chains and local stores and believe it or not local stores, small stores have been easier than the chains because there’s so much liability and you know, the potential for Ecolab or whatever, right. Could impact somebody’s health from those things. But again, we can figure out ways to reconstitute those foods. I’m sure

Scott Luton (42:49):

That’s Amy Barnes. Thank you for joining us today, Amy, uh, Jose says Europe supermarkets sell at a big discount, uh, food after a specific evening hour to mitigate the waste, the waste and improve revenue for stores. I like that idea. I like how you make that into the business model on the non-regulatory side. Right? Um,

Greg White (43:10):

We’re having done business in, in the UK for quite a while. Tesco just runs out around noon and then there is no waste. I love that. I used to be, I used to be pretty awful about that. I don’t know. It used to be a joke around England,

Scott Luton (43:27):

Going back to the robo taxis. Stacy says, what better way to improve on the tweaks of a robo taxi, then send them out, love the idea of getting an extra hour to prepare for a presentation I’m with you, Stacy. That is a,

Greg White (43:40):

Those look pretty comfortable. Didn’t they? Those are, uh, Chevy bolt vans of some sort, right?

Scott Luton (43:47):

So it, it looked like a, to me, those back up here, it looked like a, um, kinda like a, a den on wheels or a parlor on wheels. You know, it was like get plenty of room to stretch out, especially if you don’t have a whole bunch of people in there with you. So, uh, yeah. Who knows? We need, we could get a little card game in there. Touring the states, uh, streets of San Francisco. Greg. That’d be kind of neat. Huh? Yeah.

Greg White (44:09):

That’s a great idea. Actually. That would be great promotion for it. Wouldn’t it?

Scott Luton (44:13):

Yes.

Greg White (44:15):

Your own, your own self guided tour or the robot could tell you on your left, you will see Russian hill.

Scott Luton (44:24):

I love it. Let’s do it. Let’s let’s go out to Calla, California and make that happen. Mohib says conscious effort, keywords of the day. That’s a great point. Mohib uh, and Stacy selling food’s about to expire for less. Yes. She liked the idea that Jose and others spoke about. Okay, Greg, uh, I’ll tell you what we wrapped up a little bit early here today. Uh, so I’m going to give you a second. We’re just efficient. We’re highly, highly efficient. You’re right. Um, so if you, if there’s anything you want to mention here at the end, I’m going to give you a chance to do that. But, uh, I want to also, uh, mention to Kerryn if she’s still with us. And she published a wonderful episode with one of the leading staff members for, uh, Auburn university’s vaunted supply chain management school. And, uh, if we can Amanda Jade or Al, if we can drop that link in the chat, that would be great, very down to earth, practical discussion, you know, and, and just, uh, a really informative one, which you always get with, uh, current episodes.

Scott Luton (45:29):

So we’ll drop that in the link for folks. Uh, but Greg got a couple of minutes here, uh, and you’ve been traveling quite a bit, uh, talking with a bunch of, uh, entrepreneurs and investors and folks out there making it happen. What’s been one intriguing, recent takeaway. If you think about any common themes from your travels and almost it makes me think when I say that, it makes me think of a Fraggle rock that had the uncle, they always get postcards from on his travels. I have to have a, uh, Greg white series like that, but tell me what’s, um, what’s been a common thread amongst your conversations here lately. Um,

Greg White (46:10):

Um, wow. I got to tell you, I think, um, probably the most common thing has been just how busy the airports are and how inverted the travel schedule has become and what a challenge that’s been as we’ve seen the news for some of these airlines. Yeah. Saturday and Sunday are the biggest travel days of the week now. Whereas it used to be Monday people leaving to go to wherever they were working away from home and Friday people coming back from the same. So it’s been a really fascinating study. There are a lot of, I don’t know what to call them other than amateur flyers, probably recreational flyers now, instead of professional flyers, um, I can tell you that in Atlanta, the, you know, unquestionable air aircraft cab, or airline Capitol of the world, um, you don’t wait nearly as long in line if you’re a platinum medallion, as you used to.

Greg White (47:07):

I mean, you know, when you were flying home to Atlanta, it didn’t really matter what level of medallion you were because everyone flying back to Atlanta was a medallion, a frequent flyer level. Right. Um, so it’s been really interesting from that standpoint. Um, and I do see a lot of people flying still for recreation. People are staying away from work in droves. And I saw an interesting article over the weekend as to why that is so somewhere in the neighborhood of around 3 million, more people retired than they were expecting to retire since basically since COVID started. Um, so, you know, the workforce has actively receded kind of from the top or from the highest age group down. Um, and, and people have simply not got back to work even though the federal unemployment assistance stopped in September. So I imagine people save their pennies and are really carefully thinking about where they want to spend their career as they go forward and now they have the opportunity to do so.

Greg White (48:14):

So, um, and a lot of them are spending time traveling, seeing people or seeing places or whatever. So I guess that’s probably the biggest thing, the biggest surprise I’ve had because I expected to go to empty airports and, you know, be able to kind of sail through. And, um, you know, it’s not, it’s not always the case, right? So that’s probably the most surprising thing that I’ve seen it. You know, when you say since, since you opened with travel, that’s the first thing that comes to my mind is that the fact that there are so many people traveling though, I may, in these last couple visits may have seen it starting to tail off. Kids are back in school. People are. And I mean, literally in a lot of places, kids are actually in school now. Um, and, and people are, are maybe getting back to work or whatever, right.

Greg White (49:05):

Um, but the, the volume doesn’t seem as high. And of course we know that the airlines have canceled thousands and thousands of flights. So there, there are more people, or maybe even way fewer people, but on many, many fewer flights. So it looks that much more crowded on the aircraft as well. But you, I mean, you know, we talked about it earlier in the show, they were suggesting people to give up their seats, which you would think only happens at max capacity and in the airline industry. So was a long answer to a short question, Scott, but I mean, it, it has been a lot of observations. Right.

Scott Luton (49:41):

Awesome. I love that. Look forward to your future, uh, trips and travels. We’ll say Korean, uh, Robert Glenn Richie was the professor’s name ahead to supply chain program at Auburn universities, Harbert hardware. Maybe it might be French college of business. So outstanding interview in Korean. Appreciate what you do there on tech talk, uh, we’ve dropped a link into comments. Sarah Silvia, HH Gregg stands for two cities Hilton head, or what’s that

Greg White (50:10):

Hence, hence the stead Homburg or Hilton head. Yeah. Let me tell you, it’s not in Germany.

Scott Luton (50:18):

That’s right. Uh, let’s see here, Eric. So Eric says, I would love an episode that explains economics of a Seaport. How does an owner operator Seaport work versus a landlord port who employs a longshoreman, how to terminals work in a landlord, port Eric. That’s a great idea. In fact, we’ve got a great idea. We’ve got two shows in the works, both with east coast ports, where we want to dive more into, um, the port operations and some of those things you touch on. So we’ll see if we can’t make that happen before here, the end of the year, you know, much like supply chain in general port. Certainly you have to have a lot more, a lot new, um, more fans, more folks interested in, in the congestion and how they work and their role in global infrastructure and supply chain. And it really is fascinating in that Greg.

Greg White (51:10):

Yeah. Calling them fans is a generous, probably more discerning evaluators, but I mean, truthfully, we asked for this publicity didn’t leave. So we wanted this attention and we wanted this respect and we wanted this awareness while we got it. So, um, yeah, we’re, I mean, we we’ve got some work to do, frankly. I, I did a post today, a summary of an, of an article and you and I talk about this frequently is we wanted the visibility. We wanted the awareness we wanted the, as you’ve always said, seat at the table, now that we’ve got the seat at the table, we have to really up our game. I mean, manual processes and best practices. Um, and, and you know, the old ways that we’ve been able to get away with things because nobody noticed we were there. That’s all coming to light now, and that will have to change really, really rapidly.

Scott Luton (52:05):

Um, Eric speaking of, uh, we do have one of the two shows I mentioned has already been published. I was just a shot, a note forgotten, and that is the leader of the Georgia ports, uh, Georgia port authority. Of course, Savannah is rock and roll and has been growing for years. Uh, I believe, uh, one of our hosts sat down with the leader of the Georgia ports authority. Amanda, if we can drop that in the show notes, that will address some of those questions. And we’ve got another show in the works with a different port that we will hopefully be produced in that in the next few weeks, uh, see here Christopher trailer. Great. How you back Christopher salty dog lover.

Greg White (52:46):

So the salty dog is a famous, uh, restaurant in the sea Pines resort on, um, on Hilton head. And it’s a huge tourist trap, but with actually good food, I mean, seriously, um, you know, t-shirts and hats and all kinds of this, this funny, lower story about, uh, the sailor and his dog. And, um, but it’s a fantastic place it’s on kind of a marsh port and the food is actually really good. I’ve never, it has never disappointed in the time that I’ve been there. And you know, when you go to resort places and you go to, um, some of these really common tourist places, they’re not really that good, they’re really fast or in great volume, but the salty dog is actually really good. I’m really looking forward to having an occasional meal there.

Scott Luton (53:38):

Love it. And, uh, see David wants to know more about ports as well. It’d be very interesting. I’m with you, David Sylvia says, Hey, we got an invite and Barbara, Melvin of the South Carolina ports authority to a show. That’s a great

Greg White (53:51):

Idea to help us with that. Sylvia let’s do that.

Scott Luton (53:54):

Happy would love to, uh, the port of Charleston has been doing really big things in recent years, as it has continued to grow. You know, a lot of the hubbub around the port deepening here in the Southeast, uh, was focused on Savannah. But I think Charleston has also deepened its port, uh, in recent years. Uh, Bob says, Hey, Greg, talk to it, departments. They appear to be on the continuous improvement prevention team from that’s what Bob said. Let’s be clear. Baba said that, uh,

Greg White (54:24):

He’s not wrong. And that’s a lot of that has to do with kind of the religion of technology. If you’re an SAP shop, you’re an SAP shop and you’ll never, you know, bring anything else out or Oracle or Microsoft or whatever, whatever your bias is, right? You want it all from the same carrier and not, or same provider and not all of those providers are good at everything. So we see them starting to build their ecosystems. So they’ve got other options outside of their technology. Um, but yeah, he’s not wrong. There’s a lot of comfort and there’s a lot of strain, frankly, on it organizations. And every time they bring in something new, it really complicates their life. In terms of support though, is why cloud technology is such a boon for these it groups because they don’t have anything but integrations, API APIs, or whatever they integrate, but they have to mess with. And now with the intelligence, even in those things, it takes a lot of weight off of it. Department’s shoulders to be able to continually heal those data connections or, you know, find and, and identify where their flaws and, and help to fix that. Right.

Scott Luton (55:30):

Well, my mind went straight to the enormous and growing cyber security, uh, risks that there is. I can’t imagine being an it team, whether it’s a small company or a large international enterprise, uh, just second and triple checking to make sure you’re not opening a door for bad actors to come in and harm the operation. So, um, goodness gracious. As I say, he has gotta be a huge, uh, burden on the mental state of, of that profession. Okay. Gregory. It is 1257 Eastern time, which is 1157 central time where you are. Right, right. So it’s lunch time.

Greg White (56:12):

I have not, but I sent my youngest daughter who came with me to go to the game. I sent her on a sojourn to, to seek out our lunch spot. She’s a vegan. So it’s always fascinating to watch her and I eat together. Um, so it’s, it’s fun. I mean, it’s, it’s actually fun. And, and it, it, that’s another thing that is notable. Is there a lot of places who make accommodations for V even if they’re not, you know, steak houses and whatnot that make accommodations for vegan and vegetarian diets. So I think that’s pretty cool thing. Cause we can go a lot more places together.

Scott Luton (56:47):

I love that. Uh, conscious, always on lookout for ways you can optimize the customer experience as a name, one of the name, names of the games here in 2021 folks. Yeah. What a wonderful hour spent with the winner only Greg white. It was great to see Bob Bova pop in Christopher, Joe, Eric, um, Sylvia Mohit all of the folks in bursa popping in. I know I left a few folks out David and Peter and you name it great to have you all here. I really appreciate all the comments and perspective you shared. It makes, makes a great interactive and engaging our, uh, big thanks again to Amanda Jayda, anally behind the scenes, helping us make the production happen here today. Big, thanks to Greg white. Who’s on the road. Following his Kansas city chiefs always taken an hour out, um, to spend with us on the supply chain buzz. Uh, and you’ve got lunch. I don’t wanna interrupt. I don’t wanna be the last person standing in the way of you and a great lunch with your daughter, Greg.

Greg White (57:50):

It’s okay. We ate a little bit of a late breakfast, so, but I appreciate it. Thank you. We’re looking forward to it. And then we’re heading home. We’ll be back in ATL tonight. So I give you exact times, but I don’t want you to flooding gates, you know?

Scott Luton (58:02):

All right. Wait folks had a wonderful time. I Stacy says 8:00 PM where she is. Uh, so Stacy, I appreciate you taking,

Greg White (58:10):

So those folks really who tune in at 8, 10, 12, 1 o’clock in the morning because we have fallen back, but they have not fallen back in east Asia. Yes. Right? So it’s actually one o’clock in the morning when, when we kick off this thing. So really appreciate that.

Scott Luton (58:25):

Well, uh, folks have a great rest of your week, wherever you are. Most importantly, if you take one thing away here today beyond the Greg’s wonderful travel, uh, insights and observations, I love that. Do good. Give forward. Be the change is needed. And on that note, we’ll see next time, right back here at Sebastian now. Thanks for budding.

Intro/Outro (58:48):

Thanks for being a part of our supply chain. Now, community check out all of our programming@supplychainnow.com and make sure you subscribe to supply chain. Now anywhere you listen to podcasts and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. See you next time on supply chain now.

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Demo Perez

Host, Supply Chain Now en Espanol

Demo Perez started his career in 1997 in the industry by chance when a relative asked him for help for two just weeks putting together an operation for FedEx Express at the Colon Free Zone, an area where he was never been but accepted the challenge. Worked in all roles possible from a truck driver to currier to a sales representative, helped the brand introduction, market share growth and recognition in the Colon Free Zone, at the end of 1999 had the chance to meet and have a chat with Fred Smith ( FedEx CEO), joined another company in 2018 who took over the FedEx operations as Operations and sales manager, in 2004 accepted the challenge from his company to leave the FedEx operations and business to take over the operation and business of DHL Express, his major competitor and rival so couldn’t say no, by changing completely its operation model in the Free Zone. In 2005 started his first entrepreneurial journey by quitting his job and joining two friends to start a Freight Forwarding company. After 8 months was recruited back by his company LSP with the General Manager role with the challenge of growing the company and make it fully capable warehousing 3PL. By 2009 joined CSCMP and WERC and started his journey of learning and growing his international network and high-level learning. In 2012 for the first time joined a local association ( the Panama Maritime Chamber) and worked in the country’s first Logistics Strategy plan, joined and lead other associations ending as president of the Panama Logistics Council in 2017. By finishing his professional mission at LSP with a company that was 8 times the size it was when accepted the role as GM with so many jobs generated and several young professionals coached, having great financial results, took the decision to move forward and start his own business from scratch by the end of 2019. with a friend and colleague co-founded IPL Group a company that started as a boutique 3PL and now is gearing up for the post-Covid era by moving to the big leagues.

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Mary Kate Love

VP, Marketing

Mary Kate Love is currently the VP of marketing at Supply Chain Now focused on brand strategy and audience + revenue growth. Mary Kate’s career is a testament to her versatility and innovative spirit: she has experience in start-ups, venture capital, and building innovation initiatives from the ground up: she previously helped lead the build-out of the Supply Chain Innovation Center at Georgia-Pacific and before that, MxD (Manufacturing times Digital): the Department of Defense’s digital manufacturing innovation center. Mary Kate has a passion for taking complicated ideas and turning them into reality: she was one of the first team members at MxD and the first team member at the Supply Chain Innovation Center at Georgia-Pacific.

Mary Kate dedicates her extra time to education and mentorship: she was one of the founding Board Members for Women Influence Chicago and led an initiative for a city-wide job shadow day for young women across Chicago tech companies and was previously on the Board of Directors at St. Laurence High School in Chicago, Young Irish Fellowship Board and the UN Committee for Women. Mary Kate is the founder of National Supply Chain Day and enjoys co-hosting podcasts at Supply Chain Now. Mary Kate is from the south side of Chicago, a mom of two baby boys, and an avid 16-inch softball player. She holds a BS in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Joshua Miranda

Marketing Specialist

Joshua is a student from Institute of Technology and Higher Education of Monterrey Campus Guadalajara in Communication and Digital Media. His experience ranges from Plug and Play México, DearDoc, and Nissan México creating unique social media marketing campaigns and graphics design. Joshua helps to amplify the voice of supply chain here at Supply Chain Now by assisting in graphic design, content creation, asset logistics, and more.  In his free time he likes to read and write short stories as well as watch movies and television series.

Donna Krache

Director of Communications and Executive Producer

Donna Krache is a former CNN executive producer who has won several awards in journalism and communication, including three Peabodys.  She has 30 years’ experience in broadcast and digital journalism. She led the first production team at CNN to convert its show to a digital platform. She has authored many articles for CNN and other media outlets. She taught digital journalism at Georgia State University and Arizona State University. Krache holds a bachelor’s degree in government from the College of William and Mary and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from the University of New Orleans. She is a serious sports fan who loves the Braves. She is president of the Dave Krache Foundation. Named in honor of her late husband, this non-profit pays fees for kids who want to play sports but whose parents are facing economic challenges.

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Vicki White

Controller

Vicki has a long history of rising to challenges and keeping things up and running. First, she supported her family’s multi-million dollar business as controller for 12 years, beginning at the age of 17. Then, she worked as an office manager and controller for a wholesale food broker. But her biggest feat? Serving as the chief executive officer of her household, while her entrepreneur husband travelled the world extensively. She fed, nurtured, chaperoned, and chauffeured three daughters all while running a newsletter publishing business and remaining active in her community as a Stephen’s Minister, Sunday school teacher, school volunteer, licensed realtor and POA Board president (a title she holds to this day). A force to be reckoned with in the office, you might think twice before you meet Vicki on the tennis court! When she’s not keeping the books balanced at Supply Chain Now or playing tennis matches, you can find Vicki spending time with her husband Greg, her 4 fur babies, gardening, cleaning (yes, she loves to clean!) and learning new things.

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Ben Harris

Host

Ben Harris is the Director of Supply Chain Ecosystem Expansion for the Metro Atlanta Chamber. Ben comes to the Metro Atlanta Chamber after serving as Senior Manager, Market Development for Manhattan Associates. There, Ben was responsible for developing Manhattan’s sales pipeline and overall Americas supply chain marketing strategy. Ben oversaw market positioning, messaging and campaign execution to build awareness and drive new pipeline growth. Prior to joining Manhattan, Ben spent four years with the Georgia Department of Economic Development’s Center of Innovation for Logistics where he played a key role in establishing the Center as a go-to industry resource for information, support, partnership building, and investment development. Additionally, he became a key SME for all logistics and supply chain-focused projects. Ben began his career at Page International, Inc. where he drove continuous improvement in complex global supply chain operations for a wide variety of businesses and Fortune 500 companies. An APICS Certified Supply Chain Professional (CSCP), Ben holds an Executive Master’s degree in Business Administration (EMBA) and bachelor’s degree in International Business (BBA) from the Terry College at the University of Georgia.

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Page Siplon

Host, The Freight Insider

Prior to joining TeamOne Logistics, Page Siplon served as the Executive Director of the Georgia Center of Innovation for Logistics, the State’s leading consulting resource for fueling logistics industry growth and global competitiveness. For over a decade, he directly assisted hundreds of companies to overcome challenges and capitalize on opportunities related to the movement of freight. During this time, Siplon was also appointed to concurrently serve the State of Georgia as Director of the larger Centers of Innovation Program, in which he provided executive leadership and vision for all six strategic industry-focused Centers. As a frequently requested keynote speaker, Siplon is called upon to address a range of audiences on unique aspects of technology, workforce, and logistics. This often includes topics of global and domestic logistics trends, supply chain visibility, collaboration, and strategic planning. He has also been quoted as an industry expert in publications such as Forbes, Journal of Commerce, Fortune, NPR, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, American Express, DC Velocity, Area Development Magazine, Site Selection Magazine, Inbound Logistics, Modern Material Handling, and is frequently a live special guest on SiriusXM’s Road Dog Radio Show. Siplon is an active industry participant, recognized by DC Velocity Magazine as a “2012 Logistics Rainmaker” which annually identifies the top-ten logistics professionals in the Nation; and named a “Pro to Know” by Supply & Demand Executive Magazine in 2014. Siplon was also selected by Georgia Trend Magazine as one of the “Top 100 Most Influential Georgians” for 2013, 2014, and 2015. He also serves various industry leadership roles at both the State and Federal level. Governor Nathan Deal nominated Siplon to represent Georgia on a National Supply Chain Competitiveness Advisory Committee, where he was appointed to a two-year term by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce and was then appointed to serve as its vice-chairman. At the State level, he was selected by then-Governor Sonny Perdue to serve as lead consultant on the Commission for New Georgia’s Freight and Logistics Task Force. In this effort, Siplon led a Private Sector Advisory Committee with invited executives from a range of private sector stakeholders including UPS, Coca-Cola, The Home Depot, Delta Airlines, Georgia Pacific, CSX, and Norfolk Southern. Siplon honorably served a combined 12 years in the United States Marine Corps and the United States Air Force. During this time, he led the integration of encryption techniques and deployed cryptographic devices for tactically secure voice and data platforms in critical ground-to-air communication systems. This service included support for all branches of the Department of Defense, multiple federal security agencies, and aiding NASA with multiple Space Shuttle launches. Originally from New York, Siplon received both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering with a focus on digital signal processing from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned an associate’s degree in advanced electronic systems from the Air Force College and completed multiple military leadership academies in both the Marines and Air Force. Siplon currently lives in Cumming, Georgia (north of Atlanta), with his wife Jan, and two children Thomas (19) and Lily (15).

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Kristi Porter

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Kristi Porter is VP of Sales and Marketing at Vector Global Logistics, a company that is changing the world through supply chain. In her role, she oversees all marketing efforts and supports the sales team in doing what they do best. In addition to this role, she is the Chief Do-Gooder at Signify, which assists nonprofits and social impact companies through copywriting and marketing strategy consulting. She has almost 20 years of professional experience, and loves every opportunity to help people do more good.

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Sofia Rivas Herrera

Host, Supply Chain Now en Espanol

Sofia Rivas Herrera is a Mexican Industrial Engineer from Tecnologico de Monterrey class 2019. Upon graduation, she earned a scholarship to study MIT’s Graduate Certificate in Logistics and Supply Chain Management and graduated as one of the Top 3 performers of her class in 2020. She also has a multicultural background due to her international academic experiences at Singapore Management University and Kühne Logistics University in Hamburg. Sofia self-identifies as a Supply Chain enthusiast & ambassador sharing her passion for the field in her daily life.

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Katherine Hintz

Sales and Marketing Coordinator

Katherine is a marketing professional and MBA candidate who strives to unite her love of people with a passion for positive experiences. Having a diverse background, which includes nonprofit work with digital marketing and start-ups, she serves as a leader who helps people live their most creative lives by cultivating community, order, collaboration, and respect. With equal parts creativity and analytics, she brings a unique skill set which fosters refining, problem solving, and connecting organizations with their true vision. In her free time, you can usually find her looking for her cup of coffee, playing with her puppy Charlie, and dreaming of her next road trip.

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Kim Winter

Host, Supply Chain Now

The founder of Logistics Executive Group, Kim Winter delivers 40 years of executive leadership experience spanning Executive Search & Recruitment, Leadership Development, Executive Coaching, Corporate Advisory, Motivational Speaking, Trade Facilitation and across the Supply Chain, Logistics, 3PL, E-commerce, Life Science, Cold Chain, FMCG, Retail, Maritime, Defence, Aviation, Resources, and Industrial sectors. Operating from the company’s global offices, he is a regular contributor of thought leadership to industry and media, is a professional Master of Ceremonies, and is frequently invited to chair international events.

He is a Board member of over a dozen companies throughout APAC, India, and the Middle East, a New Zealand citizen, he holds formal resident status in Australia and the UAE, and is the Australia & New Zealand representative for the UAE Government-owned Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA), the Middle East’s largest Economic Free Zone.

A triathlete and ex-professional rugby player, Kim is a qualified (IECL Sydney) executive coach and the Founder / Chairman of the successful not for profit humanitarian organization, Oasis Africa (www. oasisafrica.org.au), which has provided freedom from poverty through education to over 8000 mainly orphaned children in East Africa’s slums. Kim holds an MBA and BA from Massey & Victoria Universities (NZ).

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Adrian Purtill

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Adrian Purtill serves as Business Development Manager at Vector Global Logistics, where he consults with importers and exporters in various industries to match their specific shipping requirements with the most effective supply chain solutions. Vector Global Logistics is an asset-free, multi-modal logistics company that provides exceptional sea freight, air freight, truck, rail, general logistic services and consulting for our clients. Our highly trained and professional team is committed to providing creative and effective solutions, always exceeding our customer’s expectations and fostering long-term relationships. With more than 20+ years of experience in both strategy consulting and logistics, Vector Global Logistics is your best choice to proactively minimize costs while having an exceptional service level.

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Kevin Brown

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Kevin Brown is the Director of Business Development for Vector Global Logistics.  He has a dedicated interest in Major Account Management, Enterprise Sales, and Corporate Leadership. He offers 25 years of exceptional experience and superior performance in the sales of Logistics, Supply Chain, and Transportation Management. Kevin is a dynamic, high-impact, sales executive and corporate leader who has consistently exceeded corporate goals. He effectively coordinates multiple resources to solution sell large complex opportunities while focusing on corporate level contacts across the enterprise. His specialties include targeting and securing key accounts by analyzing customer’s current business processes and developing solutions to meet their corporate goals. Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn.

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Jose Miguel Irarrazaval

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Jose Manuel Irarrazaval es parte del equipo de Vector Global Logistics Chile. José Manuel es un gerente experimentado con experiencia en finanzas corporativas, fusiones y adquisiciones, financiamiento y reestructuración, inversión directa y financiera, tanto en Chile como en el exterior. José Manuel tiene su MBA de la Universidad de Pennsylvania- The Wharton School. Conéctese con Jose Manuel en LinkedIn.

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Nick Roemer

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Nick Roemer has had a very diverse and extensive career within design and sales over the last 15 years stretching from China, Dubai, Germany, Holland, UK, and the USA. In the last 5 years, Nick has developed a hawk's eye for sustainable tech and the human-centric marketing and sales procedures that come with it. With his far-reaching and strong network within the logistics industry, Nick has been able to open new avenues and routes to market within major industries in the USA and the UAE. Nick lives by the ethos, “Give more than you take." His professional mission is to make the logistics industry leaner, cleaner and greener.

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Allison Giddens

Host, Logistics with Purpose

Allison Krache Giddens has been with Win-Tech, a veteran-owned small business and aerospace precision machine shop, for 15 years, recently buying the company from her mentor and Win-Tech’s Founder, Dennis Winslow. She and her business partner, John Hudson now serve as Co-Presidents, leading the 33-year old company through the pandemic.

She holds undergraduate degrees in psychology and criminal justice from the University of Georgia, a Masters in Conflict Management from Kennesaw State University, a Masters in Manufacturing from Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Certificate of Finance from the University of Georgia. She also holds certificates in Google Analytics, event planning, and Cybersecurity Risk Management from Harvard online. Allison founded the Georgia Chapter of Women in Manufacturing and currently serves as Treasurer. She serves on the Chattahoochee Technical College Foundation Board as its Secretary, the liveSAFE Resources Board of Directors as Resource Development Co-Chair, and on the Leadership Cobb Alumni Association Board as Membership Chair and is also a member of Cobb Executive Women. She is on the Board for the Cobb Chamber of Commerce’s Northwest Area Councils. Allison runs The Dave Krache Foundation, a non-profit that helps pay sports fees for local kids in need.

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Billy Taylor

Host of Dial P for Procurement

Billy Taylor is a Proven Business Excellence Practitioner and Leadership Guru with over 25 years leading operations for a Fortune 500 company, Goodyear. He is also the CEO of LinkedXL (Excellence), a Business Operating Systems Architecting Firm dedicated to implementing sustainable operating systems that drive sustainable results. Taylor’s achievements in the industry have made him a Next Generational Lean pacesetter with significant contributions.

An American business executive, Taylor has made a name for himself as an innovative and energetic industry professional with an indispensable passion for his craft of operational excellence. His journey started many years ago and has worked with renowned corporations such as The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (GT) leading multi-site operations. With over 3 decades of service leading North America operations, he is experienced in a deeply rooted process driven approach in customer service, process integrity for sustainability.

A disciple of continuous improvement, Taylor’s love for people inspires commitment to helping others achieve their full potential. He is a dynamic speaker and hosts "The Winning Link," a popular podcast centered on business and leadership excellence with the #1 rated Supply Chain Now Network. As a leadership guru, Taylor has earned several invitations to universities, international conferences, global publications, and the U.S. Army to demonstrate how to achieve and sustain effective results through cultural acceptance and employee ownership. Leveraging the wisdom of his business acumen, strong influence as a speaker and podcaster Taylor is set to release "The Winning Link" book under McGraw Hill publishing in 2022. The book is a how-to manual to help readers understand the management of business interactions while teaching them how to Deine, Align, and Execute Winning in Business.

A servant leader, Taylor, was named by The National Diversity Council as one of the Top 100 Diversity Officers in the country in 2021. He features among Oklahoma's Most Admired CEOs and maintains key leadership roles with the Executive Advisory Board for The Shingo Institute "The Nobel Prize of Operations" and The Association of Manufacturing Excellence (AME); two world-leading organizations for operational excellence, business development, and cultural learning.  He is also an Independent Director for the M-D Building Products Board, a proud American manufacturer of quality products since 1920.

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Lori Sofian

Marketing Coordinator

Lori is currently completing a degree in marketing with an emphasis in digital marketing at the University of Georgia. When she’s not supporting the marketing efforts at Supply Chain Now, you can find her at music festivals – or working toward her dream goal of a fashion career. Lori is involved in many extracurricular activities and appreciates all the learning experiences UGA has brought her.

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Chantel King

Social Media Manager

My name is Chantel King and I am the Social Media Specialist at Supply Chain Now. My job is to make sure our audience is engaged and educated on the abundant amount of information the supply chain industry has to offer.

Social Media and Communications has been my niche ever since I graduated from college at The Academy of Art University in San Francisco. No, I am not a West Coast girl. I was born and raised in New Jersey, but my travel experience goes way beyond the garden state. My true passion is in creating editorial and graphic content that influences others to be great in whatever industry they are in. I’ve done this by working with lifestyle, financial, and editorial companies by providing resources to enhance their businesses.

Another passion of mine is trying new things. Whether it’s food, an activity, or a sport. I would like to say that I am an adventurous Taurus that never shies away from a new quest or challenge.

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Trisha Cordes

Administrative Assistant

Trisha is new to the supply chain industry – but not to podcasting. She’s an experienced podcast manager and virtual assistant who also happens to have 20 years of experience as an elementary school teacher. It’s safe to say, she’s passionate about helping people, and she lives out that passion every day with the Supply Chain Now team, contributing to scheduling and podcast production.

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Clay Phillips

Business Development Manager

Clay is passionate about two things: supply chain and the marketing that goes into it. Recently graduated with a degree in marketing at the University of Georgia, Clay got his start as a journalism major and inaugural member of the Owl’s football team at Kennesaw State University – but quickly saw tremendous opportunity in the Terry College of Business. He’s already putting his education to great use at Supply Chain Now, assisting with everything from sales and brand strategy to media production. Clay has contributed to initiatives such as our leap into video production, the guest blog series, and boosting social media presence, and after nearly two years in Supply Chain Now’s Marketing Department, Clay now heads up partnership and sales initiatives with the help of the rest of the Supply Chain Now sales team.

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Amanda Luton

Vice President, Production

Amanda is a production and marketing veteran and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience across a variety of industries and organizations including Von Maur, Anthropologie, AmericasMart Atlanta, and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Amanda currently manages, produces, and develops modern digital content for Supply Chain Now and their clients. Amanda has previously served as the VP of Information Systems and Webmaster on the Board of Directors for APICS Savannah, and founded and managed her own successful digital marketing firm, Magnolia Marketing Group. When she’s not leading the Supply Chain Now production team, you can find Amanda in the kitchen, reading, listening to podcasts, or enjoying time with family.

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Constantine Limberakis

Host

Constantine Limberakis is a thought leader in the area of procurement and supply management. He has over 20 years of international experience, playing strategic roles in a wide spectrum of organizations related to analyst advisory, consulting, product marketing, product development, and market research.Throughout his career, he's been passionate about engaging global business leaders and the broader analyst and technology community with strategic content, speaking engagements, podcasts, research, webinars, and industry articles.Constantine holds a BA in History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an MBA in Finance & Marketing / Masters in Public & International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh.

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Mary Kate Soliva

Host, Veteran Voices

Mary Kate Soliva is a veteran of the US Army and cofounder of the Guam Human Rights Initiative. She is currently in the Doctor of Criminal Justice program at Saint Leo University. She is passionate about combating human trafficking and has spent the last decade conducting training for military personnel and the local community.

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Kelly Barner

Host of Dial P for Procurement

Kelly is the Owner and Managing Director of Buyers Meeting Point and MyPurchasingCenter. She has been in procurement since 2003, starting as a practitioner and then as the Associate Director of Consulting at Emptoris. She has covered procurement news, events, publications, solutions, trends, and relevant economics at Buyers Meeting Point since 2009. Kelly is also the General Manager at Art of Procurement and Business Survey Chair for the ISM-New York Report on Business. Kelly has her MBA from Babson College as well as an MS in Library and Information Science from Simmons College and she has co-authored three books: ‘Supply Market Intelligence for Procurement Professionals’, ‘Procurement at a Crossroads’, and ‘Finance Unleashed’.

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Enrique Alvarez

Host of Logistics with Purpose and Supply Chain Now en Español

Enrique serves as Managing Director at Vector Global Logistics and believes we all have a personal responsibility to change the world. He is hard working, relationship minded and pro-active. Enrique trusts that the key to logistics is having a good and responsible team that truly partners with the clients and does whatever is necessary to see them succeed. He is a proud sponsor of Vector’s unique results-based work environment and before venturing into logistics he worked for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). During his time at BCG, he worked in different industries such as Telecommunications, Energy, Industrial Goods, Building Materials, and Private Banking. His main focus was always on the operations, sales, and supply chain processes, with case focus on, logistics, growth strategy, and cost reduction. Prior to joining BCG, Enrique worked for Grupo Vitro, a Mexican glass manufacturer, for five years holding different positions from sales and logistics manager to supply chain project leader in charge of five warehouses in Colombia.

He has an MBA from The Wharton School of Business and a BS, in Mechanical Engineer from the Technologico de Monterrey in Mexico. Enrique’s passions are soccer and the ocean, and he also enjoys traveling, getting to know new people, and spending time with his wife and two kids, Emma and Enrique.

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Kevin L. Jackson

Host of Digital Transformers

Kevin L. Jackson is a globally recognized Thought Leader, Industry Influencer and Founder/Author of the award winning “Cloud Musings” blog.  He has also been recognized as a “Top 5G Influencer” (Onalytica 2019, Radar 2020), a “Top 50 Global Digital Transformation Thought Leader” (Thinkers 360 2019) and provides strategic consulting and integrated social media services to AT&T, Intel, Broadcom, Ericsson and other leading companies. Mr. Jackson’s commercial experience includes Vice President J.P. Morgan Chase, Worldwide Sales Executive for IBM and SAIC (Engility) Director Cloud Solutions. He has served on teams that have supported digital transformation projects for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the US Intelligence Community.  Kevin’s formal education includes a MS Computer Engineering from Naval Postgraduate School; MA National Security & Strategic Studies from Naval War College; and a BS Aerospace Engineering from the United States Naval Academy. Internationally recognizable firms that have sponsored articles authored by him include CiscoMicrosoft, Citrix and IBM.  Books include “Click to Transform” (Leaders Press, 2020), “Architecting Cloud Computing Solutions” (Packt, 2018), and “Practical Cloud Security: A Cross Industry View” (Taylor & Francis, 2016). He also delivers online training through Tulane UniversityO’Reilly MediaLinkedIn Learning, and Pluralsight.  Mr. Jackson retired from the U.S. Navy in 1994, earning specialties in Space Systems EngineeringCarrier Onboard Delivery Logistics and carrier-based Airborne Early Warning and Control. While active, he also served with the National Reconnaissance Office, Operational Support Office, providing tactical support to Navy and Marine Corps forces worldwide.

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Tyler Ward

Director of Sales

Tyler Ward serves as Supply Chain Now's Director of Sales. Born and raised in Mid-Atlantic, Tyler is a proud graduate of Shippensburg University where he earned his degree in Communications. After college, he made his way to the beautiful state of Oregon, where he now lives with his wife and daughter.

With over a decade of experience in sales, Tyler has a proven track record of exceeding targets and leading high-performing teams. He credits his success to his ability to communicate effectively with customers and team members alike, as well as his strategic thinking and problem-solving skills.

When he's not closing deals, you can find Tyler on the links or cheering on his favorite football and basketball teams. He also enjoys spending time with his family, playing pick-up basketball, and traveling back to Ocean City, Maryland, his favorite place!

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Chris Barnes

Principal, Supply Chain Now
Host of Supply Chain is Boring

Talk about world-class: Chris is one of the few professionals in the world to hold CPIM-F, CLTD-F and CSCP-F designations from ASCM/APICS. He’s also the APICS coach – and our resident Supply Chain Doctor. When he’s not hosting programs with Supply Chain Now, he’s sharing supply chain knowledge on the APICS Coach Youtube channel or serving as a professional education instructor for the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistic Institute’s Supply Chain Management (SCM) program and University of Tennessee-Chattanooga Center for Professional Education courses.

Chris earned a BS in Industrial Engineering from Bradley University, an MBA with emphasis in Industrial Psychology from the University of West Florida, and is a Doctoral in Supply Chain Management candidate.

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Greg White

Principal & CMO, Supply Chain Now
Host of Supply Chain Now and TECHquila Sunrise

When rapid-growth technology companies, venture capital and private equity firms are looking for advisory, they call Greg – a founder, board director, advisor and catalyst of disruptive B2B technology and supply chain. An insightful visionary, Greg guides founders, investors and leadership teams in creating breakthroughs to gain market exposure and momentum – increasing overall company esteem and valuation.

Greg is a founder himself, creating Blue Ridge Solutions, a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader in cloud-native supply chain applications, and bringing to market Curo, a field service management solution. He has also held leadership roles with Servigistics (PTC) and E3 Corporation (JDA/Blue Yonder). As a principal and host at Supply Chain Now, Greg helps guide the company’s strategic direction, hosts industry leader discussions, community livestreams, and all in addition to executive producing and hosting his original YouTube channel and podcast, TEChquila Sunrise.

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Scott W. Luton

Founder, CEO, & Host

As the founder and CEO of Supply Chain Now, you might say Scott is the voice of supply chain – but he’s too much of a team player to ever claim such a title. One thing’s for sure: he’s a tried and true supply chain expert. With over 15 years of experience in the end-to-end supply chain, Scott’s insights have appeared in major publications including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and CNN. He has also been named a top industry influencer by Thinkers360, ISCEA and more.

From 2009-2011, Scott was president of APICS Atlanta, and he continues to lead initiatives that support both the local business community and global industry. A United States Air Force Veteran, Scott has also regularly led efforts to give back to his fellow veteran community since his departure from active duty in 2002.

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