Detours of duty: interview with Dr. Stephen Rutner
In 2009, Dr. Stephen Rutner put his teaching career on hold for his second tour at the Port of Ash Shuaibah in Kuwait. Today, he's back in the classroom with tales from the war zone—in the most literal sense.
Steve Geary is adjunct faculty at the University of Tennessee's Haaslam College of Business and is a lecturer at The Gordon Institute at Tufts University. He is the President of the Supply Chain Visions family of companies, consultancies that work across the government sector. Steve is a contributing editor at DC Velocity, and editor-at-large for CSCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly.
If Dr. Stephen M. Rutner, professor of supply chain management at Georgia Southern University, seems unusually familiar with the ins and outs of moving large international cargo shipments, there's a reason for that. As it happens, Dr. Rutner is also Lt. Col. Rutner, an Army Reserve logistics specialist who has helped move tens of thousands of pieces of military equipment in and out of the Middle East during two tours of duty at a military port in Kuwait.
Rutner originally trained as a tanker, but along the way the Army Reserve discovered that its armor officer had picked up a Ph.D. in logistics and transportation at the University of Tennessee and adjusted its career plan for the "doctor." The rest, as they say, is history.
Rutner recently returned from his second deployment to the Port of Ash Shuaibah, Kuwait, where he served as commander of the 1181st Transportation Terminal and Deployment Distribution Support Battalion. This is the primary military seaport in Southwest Asia supporting our forces in Iraq. He's Airborne qualified, which means he's trained to parachute into a drop zone, and he has earned a Bronze Star. We suspect that his students are afraid to skip class.
Rutner spoke recently with DC VELOCITY Editor at Large Steve Geary about why the Army is involved in running ports, the challenges of moving a 68-ton tank, and what the military can learn from the commercial sector and vice versa.
Q: On behalf of DC VELOCITY and our readers, may we thank you for your service?
A: I appreciate that, but as you go through the airports, please thank all those 18-, 19-, and 20-year-old kids in uniform, not me. They deserve all the pats on the back.
Q: You are both a career academic and a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army Reserves. We all know what a college professor does, but you have now done two tours in Kuwait in an Army uniform working at the military port. Can you give our readers an idea of just what the Army is doing running a port? You think of the Navy when you think of ports. A: This is one of those little skill sets that is critically important to the entire Department of Defense and the Army, but most people don't understand it. There are 12 reserve battalions just like ours, and our mission is to help the warfighter move through the port system to and from the fight. That means we start all the way up at the foxhole helping them come back to the port, moving through the port, and onto the ships, and back to the United States or vice versa. We meet them at the dock and help them get through the process. Since 2004, I guess it is, possibly back into 2003, reserve battalions have been running that process, and we have moved over 750,000 pieces of military equipment in and out of the theater. In any given month, we might move 6,000 or 7,000 pieces of military equipment.
Q: When you talk about 7,000 pieces of military equipment, we're not talking about typewriters and things like that, are we? A: Absolutely not. In my world, a small piece of equipment is a 20-foot container. We move lots of containers for the Army as well as pieces of equipment—an M-1 battle tank, a Bradley tank, all the new high-speed MRAP (mine resistant, ambush-protected) armored vehicles, all the trucks, all the support equipment, the bridges, everything for an Army unit to do its mission.
Q: So when we talk about something like a battle tank, just to give a frame of reference, how much does one of those weigh? A: The M1A1s and A2s that we have seen weigh right around 68 tons. That sounds like a horrific amount of weight, but we are working in an area where we measure things that we load on and off ship in thousands of gross tons. As heavy as an M-1 is, we can probably get 150 of them on one of the big ships if we really need to.
Q: Are military ports a high-volume operation? A: It depends on the port and where you are in the world. Ash Shuaibah, Kuwait, yes. We are by far the highest-volume port in the entire DOD system. Our sister ports, like Beaumont, Texas; Charleston, S.C.; and Jacksonville, Fla., move large amounts, too, but we tend to be the big dog in the process.
Our sister battalions are running places like Aqaba, Jordan. They are doing the same thing on a much smaller scale. Our sister battalion in Bahrain is moving cargo through Karachi [Pakistan, en route to Afghanistan], but they're doing it all with third-party service providers, no military, and they're moving smaller amounts of cargo.
Part of the training, part of the skill set that the Army has given us is the ability to operate in a high-throughput port like Ash Shuaibah or in an unimproved port and do logistics over the shore, which is painfully slow but still a very important skill set if you are going into a third-world country that doesn't have good port facilities.
Q: Given the breadth of the U.S. Army's capabilities for managing the movement of cargo in and out of ports, are there any lessons learned or any insights you can offer to your commercial counterparts? A: I would almost argue the military is learning more lessons from the commercial sector than vice versa. For example, the commercial guys are very good at ship handling, very good at throughput because every hour a ship sits on berth is costing money. Our carriers are just driven on time efficiency. Although time is important to us in the military as well, we have other things that are even more important to us. Where the commercial guys are saying, "Well, you are costing me $10,000 an hour for the ship to sit on berth," the military is going, "Yes, but I've got eight more pieces coming from Iraq that have to go to Kuwait and that will be here at the port tomorrow; those eight have to go with that package to get home so that we create a whole unit move." The learning here is the need to take a deep breath and balance some things. One of the lessons that I think the commercial guys could learn from us is that at the end of the day, it is a dollar business on the commercial side, but sometimes that investment of waiting a few hours and building a little flexibility pays off tenfold down the road.
Q: So the military is taking a look at it from an end-to-end supply chain perspective? A: Absolutely. The commercial carriers that are willing to be flexible and do that, they become the preferred carrier because they are helping the military. Somewhere in Alabama or Georgia, they need that entire package to arrive to keep their system flowing. The carrier is a piece of that supply chain, and when carriers recognize that they are a valuable piece of it, then they become the preferred carrier and all of a sudden, magic things may start happening in their lives. Yes, it could cost them $10,000 here in the port, but if they then become the preferred guy on the list so they get the next bid, which is a $7 million option, it may be worth it six weeks from now.
Q: What important insights are you going to offer to your students at Georgia Southern? A: The biggest lesson I'm going to bring back into the classroom is the need for young lieutenants and captains on the military side and young zone managers in distribution centers or assistant terminal managers in trucking companies who can see the consequences of their decisions. You need people that can think. In a given situation, what do I do? If you do this, what is going to happen? Is it good, is it bad? How did you think through that process to get to that decision?
Q: Is there anything that you would like to add, any point you would like to raise before we wrap this up? A: I am grateful to all of those folks who are over there now and wish them Godspeed. There are going to be times when your readers have the ability to help returning veterans, and I hope companies will continue to be there. I hope all your readers will realize what tremendous logisticians they are. You thanked me in the beginning; let me thank all your readers for helping our guardsmen and reservists go serve and reintegrate back into your companies.
Nearly one-third of American consumers have increased their secondhand purchases in the past year, revealing a jump in “recommerce” according to a buyer survey from ShipStation, a provider of web-based shipping and order fulfillment solutions.
The number comes from a survey of 500 U.S. consumers showing that nearly one in four (23%) Americans lack confidence in making purchases over $200 in the next six months. Due to economic uncertainty, savvy shoppers are looking for ways to save money without sacrificing quality or style, the research found.
Younger shoppers are leading the charge in that trend, with 59% of Gen Z and 48% of Millennials buying pre-owned items weekly or monthly. That rate makes Gen Z nearly twice as likely to buy second hand compared to older generations.
The primary reason that shoppers say they have increased their recommerce habits is lower prices (74%), followed by the thrill of finding unique or rare items (38%) and getting higher quality for a lower price (28%). Only 14% of Americans cite environmental concerns as a primary reason they shop second-hand.
Despite the challenge of adjusting to the new pattern, recommerce represents a strategic opportunity for businesses to capture today’s budget-minded shoppers and foster long-term loyalty, Austin, Texas-based ShipStation said.
For example, retailers don’t have to sell used goods to capitalize on the secondhand boom. Instead, they can offer trade-in programs swapping discounts or store credit for shoppers’ old items. And they can improve product discoverability to help customers—particularly older generations—find what they’re looking for.
Other ways for retailers to connect with recommerce shoppers are to improve shipping practices. According to ShipStation:
70% of shoppers won’t return to a brand if shipping is too expensive.
51% of consumers are turned off by late deliveries
40% of shoppers won’t return to a retailer again if the packaging is bad.
The “CMA CGM Startup Awards”—created in collaboration with BFM Business and La Tribune—will identify the best innovations to accelerate its transformation, the French company said.
Specifically, the company will select the best startup among the applicants, with clear industry transformation objectives focused on environmental performance, competitiveness, and quality of life at work in each of the three areas:
Shipping: Enabling safer, more efficient, and sustainable navigation through innovative technological solutions.
Logistics: Reinventing the global supply chain with smart and sustainable logistics solutions.
Media: Transform content creation, and customer engagement with innovative media technologies and strategies.
Three winners will be selected during a final event organized on November 15 at the Orange Vélodrome Stadium in Marseille, during the 2nd Artificial Intelligence Marseille (AIM) forum organized by La Tribune and BFM Business. The selection will be made by a jury chaired by Rodolphe Saadé, Chairman and CEO of the Group, and including members of the executive committee representing the various sectors of CMA CGM.
The global air cargo market’s hot summer of double-digit demand growth continued in August with average spot rates showing their largest year-on-year jump with a 24% increase, according to the latest weekly analysis by Xeneta.
Xeneta cited two reasons to explain the increase. First, Global average air cargo spot rates reached $2.68 per kg in August due to continuing supply and demand imbalance. That came as August's global cargo supply grew at its slowest ratio in 2024 to-date at 2% year-on-year, while global cargo demand continued its double-digit growth, rising +11%.
The second reason for higher rates was an ocean-to-air shift in freight volumes due to Red Sea disruptions and e-commerce demand.
Those factors could soon be amplified as e-commerce shows continued strong growth approaching the hotly anticipated winter peak season. E-commerce and low-value goods exports from China in the first seven months of 2024 increased 30% year-on-year, including shipments to Europe and the US rising 38% and 30% growth respectively, Xeneta said.
“Typically, air cargo market performance in August tends to follow the July trend. But another month of double-digit demand growth and the strongest rate growths of the year means there was definitely no summer slack season in 2024,” Niall van de Wouw, Xeneta’s chief airfreight officer, said in a release.
“Rates we saw bottoming out in late July started picking up again in mid-August. This is too short a period to call a season. This has been a busy summer, and now we’re at the threshold of Q4, it will be interesting to see what will happen and if all the anticipation of a red-hot peak season materializes,” van de Wouw said.
The report cites data showing that there are approximately 1.7 million workers missing from the post-pandemic workforce and that 38% of small firms are unable to fill open positions. At the same time, the “skills gap” in the workforce is accelerating as automation and AI create significant shifts in how work is performed.
That information comes from the “2024 Labor Day Report” released by Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute (WPI), the firm’s government relations and public policy arm.
“We continue to see a labor shortage and an urgent need to upskill the current workforce to adapt to the new world of work,” said Michael Lotito, Littler shareholder and co-chair of WPI. “As corporate executives and business leaders look to the future, they are focused on realizing the many benefits of AI to streamline operations and guide strategic decision-making, while cultivating a talent pipeline that can support this growth.”
But while the need is clear, solutions may be complicated by public policy changes such as the upcoming U.S. general election and the proliferation of employment-related legislation at the state and local levels amid Congressional gridlock.
“We are heading into a contentious election that has already proven to be unpredictable and is poised to create even more uncertainty for employers, no matter the outcome,” Shannon Meade, WPI’s executive director, said in a release. “At the same time, the growing patchwork of state and local requirements across the U.S. is exacerbating compliance challenges for companies. That, coupled with looming changes following several Supreme Court decisions that have the potential to upend rulemaking, gives C-suite executives much to contend with in planning their workforce-related strategies.”
Stax Engineering, the venture-backed startup that provides smokestack emissions reduction services for maritime ships, will service all vessels from Toyota Motor North America Inc. visiting the Toyota Berth at the Port of Long Beach, according to a new five-year deal announced today.
Beginning in 2025 to coincide with new California Air Resources Board (CARB) standards, STAX will become the first and only emissions control provider to service roll-on/roll-off (ro-ros) vessels in the state of California, the company said.
Stax has rapidly grown since its launch in the first quarter of this year, supported in part by a $40 million funding round from investors, announced in July. It now holds exclusive service agreements at California ports including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Hueneme, Benicia, Richmond, and Oakland. The firm has also partnered with individual companies like NYK Line, Hyundai GLOVIS, Equilon Enterprises LLC d/b/a Shell Oil Products US (Shell), and now Toyota.
Stax says it offers an alternative to shore power with land- and barge-based, mobile emissions capture and control technology for shipping terminal and fleet operators without the need for retrofits.
In the case of this latest deal, the Toyota Long Beach Vehicle Distribution Center imports about 200,000 vehicles each year on ro-ro vessels. Stax will keep those ships green with its flexible exhaust capture system, which attaches to all vessel classes without modification to remove 99% of emitted particulate matter (PM) and 95% of emitted oxides of nitrogen (NOx). Over the lifetime of this new agreement with Toyota, Stax estimated the service will account for approximately 3,700 hours and more than 47 tons of emissions controlled.
“We set out to provide an emissions capture and control solution that was reliable, easily accessible, and cost-effective. As we begin to service Toyota, we’re confident that we can meet the needs of the full breadth of the maritime industry, furthering our impact on the local air quality, public health, and environment,” Mike Walker, CEO of Stax, said in a release. “Continuing to establish strong partnerships will help build momentum for and trust in our technology as we expand beyond the state of California.”