Some measure success by salaries and titles. Others use a different yardstick altogether. Take the eight professionals selected as our 2021 Rainmakers, for example. When asked about their proudest professional accomplishments, their answers ranged from the satisfaction of building teams whose members “do amazing things every day” to mentoring younger colleagues and seeing them go on to greater glory.
So who are these Rainmakers and how were they chosen? As in the past, DC Velocity selected the 2021 Rainmakers in concert with members of the magazine’s Editorial Advisory Board from candidates nominated by readers, board members, and previous Rainmakers and DCV Thought Leaders. This year’s selections represent different facets of the business—practitioners, academics, a third-party executive, and even a NASA logistics specialist. But as the profiles on the following pages show, they’re united by a common goal of advancing the logistics and supply chain management profession.
If you’d like to nominate someone for our 2022 Rainmakers report, please send your suggestions to DC Velocity’s group editorial director, David Maloney, at dmaloney@dcvelocity.com.
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Ed Bowersox
When your father is a college logistics professor, you grow up with a keen awareness of the power of supply chain management. That background served Ed Bowersox well when his employer, the Des Plaines, Illinois-based third-party service specialist DSC Logistics,
was acquired in 2018 by South Korea’s CJ Logistics,
introducing an array of organizational and strategic challenges. As an executive at the firm, Bowersox took a lead role in integrating the two companies, went on to champion projects to implement technology solutions across CJ Logistics’ nationwide network, and has recently guided the company’s Covid-19 crisis management efforts.Now CEO of CJ Logistics America, Bowersox draws on a long career in the sector, including his previous experience as senior global director of global product supply at Kimberly-Clark. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in packaging engineering and logistics from Michigan State University.
Q: What drew you to the field of logistics?
A: I grew up with logistics, supply chain, and physical distribution. My dad, the late Dr. Donald Bowersox, was a professor of logistics and supply chain management at Michigan State University, and we had a running joke—he taught it, and we went out and did it. I had the pleasure of having my dad as my teacher in class; then for a good part of my career, I was able to use him as a sounding board, which was so valuable as well as a lot of fun.
Q: What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen during your career?
A: I think the evolution of technology has been the biggest change and has had the biggest effect on the logistics profession.
Then there’s the industry’s rising stature—the general public is now more aware of supply chains and logistics. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of—and our dependence on—global supply chains. I think we are going to have a huge influx of talent into the field as a result.
Supply chain is a tech-forward, tech-driven critical business function that’s now getting visibility all the way up to the boardroom level. Supply chain and logistics workers feel a sense of pride, knowing that during the Covid crisis, their companies were designated as critical, exempt businesses that provide essential products and services.
Q: What hasn’t changed?
A: The key thing that hasn’t changed is the dependence on talent and the need to mentor, develop, and retain talent. Systems and technology will only take you so far. It is talent and relationships—the human element—that keep businesses going. Our company was built on strategic partnerships. Partnerships ebb and flow, but as long as you are being creative, solving problems, bringing value to your customers, and differentiating yourself in the marketplace, there is the ability to maintain and build partnerships. Capabilities, partnerships, and talent are a winning combination.
Q: What advice would you give someone just starting a career in supply chain management?
A: To figure out a career path, you need to be exposed to the different elements of the supply chain so you can really understand where your passion lies. Coming right out of school, depending on the curriculum, you could be more interested in transportation, procurement, strategy, systems, or operations. But often you’ll find—particularly in the early stages of your career—that companies will dictate what they need from you.
At CJ Logistics, we’re trying to change that conversation and to understand what excites young supply chain professionals, what they have a passion for, and where they feel they can contribute the most and really make a difference. The most rewarding part of my job is when I make the time to sit down and talk to employees and discover what matters to them. When you can connect opportunities with passion, it will lead to successful outcomes and personal fulfillment.
Q: What are some of the truisms that should be forgotten? In other words, what rules do companies need to break?
A: Coming out of this Covid experience, and in these times of market and supply chain pressure, all companies are reassessing how they do business, on a variety of levels. The traditional structure in which a lot of us grew up and worked needs to continue to adapt, and as we adapt, we have a higher probability of utilizing talent to its fullest and providing differentiated value for our customers.
Randy Bradley
With a deep background in computer engineering, Randy Bradley brings a technical perspective to his work as a consultant and supply chain IT (information technology) strategist and researcher. His expertise includes digital business transformation, supply chain digitalization, and the strategic application of business analytics and IT in the supply chain, with an emphasis on the health-care sector. As an academic, he has made a career out of studying the hazy area where the supply chain ends and IT begins.
Bradley is currently an associate professor of information systems and supply chain management in the University of Tennessee’s Haslam College of Business. He is also executive vice president of digital transformation in life sciences for the Bio Supply Management Alliance (BSMA), a California-based forum for operations and supply chain information-sharing in the biotech, biopharma, and biomedical device industries.
Q: What drew you to the field of logistics?
A: My interest in the area of logistics, and supply management more broadly, was ignited when I worked as a systems engineer for a private manufacturing company. My initial project was related to supply chain integration. Coming from a computer engineering background, I wasn’t fully aware of the logistics segment, but I had to get up to speed quickly to add value to the project. After I left that organization, I could see logistics all around me on various consulting engagements.
Q: What are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen during your career?
A: The pace of technological change in the supply chain space is staggering. That’s not to say that we, as an industry, have fully embraced or kept pace with the change, but there is a very thin line between where supply chain ends and IT begins. In fact, some of the key characteristics of future supply chain leaders include “tech-savvy,” “entrepreneurial,” “analytics-minded,” and “bridge-builder.” I have referred to such people as “Purple Lego Masters.” Purple because they blend technical acumen with the business domain. Lego Masters because they have the ability to componentize without compartmentalizing problems. Their mindset is “What are we trying to do holistically, and how do I break this complex objective into small pieces that I can quickly address without losing sight of the big picture?”
Q: What hasn’t changed?
A: In some segments of our industry, there is still a tendency to stick with what’s comfortable. I don’t believe every organization needs to be hyperentrepreneurial or hyperexperimental, but every organization needs a culture of innovation. We are still very entrenched in a continuous-improvement mindset, so radical improvement or transformational initiatives often have a hard time getting traction.
Q: What advice would you give someone just starting a career in supply chain management?
A: Don’t limit yourself. The opportunities in this profession are endless. The tendency is to focus too narrowly. You can and should focus on a breadth of supply chain knowledge. That breadth of knowledge will serve you well in the future, as it is more likely to cause you to see things through an end-to-end lens. You can then start to specialize in, and focus on, a particular segment of supply chain management.
Q: What are some of the truisms that should be forgotten? In other words, what rules do companies need to break?
A: The first truism that must be forgotten is “This is how we’ve always done things.” That’s a definite inhibitor to transformation.
Another truism that should be forgotten is “We’re not Amazon, Apple, or Walmart.” Whereas that’s true, I’ve often found it to be an excuse for why we’re not progressing. I usually respond to my clients by saying “I don’t want you to be like Amazon, Apple, or Walmart; I just want you to be a little more like them in your approach.”
Terry Esper
While many find their way into logistics through the college classroom, that wasn’t the case for Terry Esper. His interest in the profession was sparked by a government job early in his career analyzing the impact of highway infrastructure on economic development. “It was as if the door to a whole new ‘behind the scenes’ world had been opened to me,” he recalls. “I walked through it, and, as they say, the rest is history.”
That newfound interest in logistics led Esper to take a job as a transportation manager for Hallmark Cards Inc. and its Hallmark.com online store, and eventually to pursue doctoral studies in the field. Today, he is an associate professor of logistics in the marketing and logistics department at The Ohio State University’s Fisher College of Business.
In addition to his full-time academic responsibilities at Ohio State, Esper serves on faculty for the University of Iowa CIMBA (Consortium International Master of Business Administration) Italy program, the board of directors of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and the American Marketing Association Foundation, and as an educational adviser to the Health and Personal Care Logistics Conference. He is a frequent speaker at global conferences and a regular contributor to “NPR Marketplace.”
Q: What drew you to the field of logistics?
A: I started my career working for a state department of transportation through the support of the Federal Highway Administration. So, my roots are in the public sector, where I studied transportation infrastructure and explored how our interstate highways contribute to economic development. I admit that I spent over a year studying roads and bridges, truck traffic, and commodity flows without once considering that there were businesses that were managing these freight movements in order to get product to market most efficiently. It just never occurred to me that someone somewhere was coordinating transportation in order to meet time and service targets. When I finally learned about logistics, I was sold! I immediately connected with the idea that transportation was a part of a bigger whole and that logistics plays a critical role in our everyday lives.
Q: We talk a lot about the forces that have changed the profession, but not so much about the fundamentals or “constants.” What hasn’t changed during your time in the field?
A: As I reflect on it, I would say the focus on customer service has been an important constant over my career. It is so easy to get distracted by buzz phrases like “emerging technologies” and “latest sources of risk in the market” that we can easily lose sight of why it all matters. Yet logistics and supply chain is all about getting products and services of value to customers, and that fundamental perspective continues to shape how I go about the day-to-day work of preparing future supply chain and logistics leaders. Sure, gaining efficiencies through a new technology or distribution point is exciting and “cool” … but what does it matter if it’s not contributing to a better customer experience?
Q: What is the one experience you’ve had that has had the greatest impact on your career?
A: Narrowing it down to one is tough … but I would have to say my experience serving as a logistics manager for Hallmark Cards Inc. What was most noteworthy about my time as a “Hallmarker” was our launch of the very first Hallmark.com online retail order-fulfillment operation. It was an exciting time, when online ordering and direct-to-consumer fulfillment were fresh and new, when there were no Amazons to point to as templates, when it was all about trial and error.
That was the most impactful because, although I didn’t realize it at the time, I was directly on the front line of a seismic shift in the industry. We rolled up our sleeves and figured it out, delighting in the newness of it all.
I pursued my Ph.D. on the heels of that experience, and much of my teaching and research as a scholar over the years is rooted in my experiences standing up that operation. Even today, I study last-mile logistics and online order fulfillment, due in large part to the passion for this area that I gained at Hallmark.
Q: What advice do you give to students who are about to enter the logistics or supply chain profession?
A: The soft skills are often the hard part! The ability to navigate MS Excel and apply the latest software to network design and optimization tasks is definitely important and vital to success; but the differentiation often lies in communication, leadership, and interpersonal relations skills. So, I advise students not to rest on their academic preparation and credentials. Those can get you into important spaces, but it’s the soft skills—treating others with kindness and cultivating the best in those around you—that will keep you in those spaces.
Q: What has been your most satisfying career achievement and why?
A: I would have to say teaching logistics in Italy. I saw a poster of Venice in my fourth-grade social studies class. It captured my attention, and I decided then and there that I’d see Italy one day.
Well, fast forward some 25 years, and my very first invitation to lecture on an international platform was in, of all places, Italy. That was indeed a full-circle moment and one of my most memorable career achievements. Now, I regularly teach in Italy, and each time that I do, I’m reminded of the power of my childhood dreams.
Jennifer Lyons
There has been much attention of late on the challenges of managing supply chains that stretch around the globe. But such concerns must seem like small matters to Jennifer Lyons, who is tasked with handling logistics to the moon and beyond.
Since 2020, Lyons has served as deputy manager, deep space logistics, for NASA’s Gateway program at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. You can think of the Gateway as an outpost or base camp orbiting the moon that will support future lunar missions and serve as a staging point for deep space exploration, such as NASA’s planned moon-to-Mars mission. Lyons leads the integration of commercial logistics missions to the Gateway, which includes oversight of the design, development, testing, and evaluation of the commercial spacecraft, launch vehicles, and integration services.
She recently led the acquisition team for the Gateway Logistics Services (GLS) contract, meaning the team responsible for procuring commercial logistics capabilities to transport cargo, equipment, payloads, and consumables to the Gateway (the team ultimately chose the SpaceX Dragon XL spacecraft as the first U.S. commercial provider). Her team met every schedule milestone throughout the process, enabling the contract to be awarded in just 12 months.
Q: How does a person become a logistics professional for NASA? Were you one of those kids who dreamed of being an astronaut?
A: I didn’t specifically dream of becoming an astronaut, but it was always my dream to work for NASA. My journey was sparked by a comment from my father as we watched the first space shuttle launch on TV. I remarked that I didn’t see any women in the launch control center, to which my father responded “Then maybe you ought to go do something about that.”
That conversation shaped the trajectory of my life. Although I applied to NASA after graduating from college, I wasn’t picked up. I took a job in the aircraft industry, moved to Florida to be close to the Kennedy Space Center, began taking space-related graduate courses at night, and kept re-applying. Eventually I was hired, and it’s been my privilege to work at the space agency for more than 30 years now.
My venture into the logistics field has been relatively recent, as part of the extraordinary Deep Space Logistics team. We are charged with providing commercial delivery services to the Gateway—a waypoint or base camp that will orbit the moon to support future crewed and uncrewed missions to the lunar surface. We’ll leverage that knowledge to then build out the cargo supply chain to Mars and beyond, using Gateway as an aggregation point for hardware and resources.
Q: What are some unique challenges you and your colleagues face that might not be readily apparent to those of us on the ground?
A: Space is an extremely harsh environment, and the basic provisions to allow humans to live and work there must be delivered from Earth. Having just celebrated 20 years of continuous human presence on the International Space Station, NASA has extensive experience delivering mission-critical crew and cargo to support ongoing operations in low Earth orbit.
For Deep Space Logistics, we’re building off the designs and lessons learned from these commercial capabilities; but instead of delivering cargo to a destination approximately 250 miles above the Earth, we’ll be transporting it to a lunar orbit approximately 250,000 miles away. This presents a whole new set of challenges, such as a more severe radiation environment and time lags in communications. The Gateway will need to be robustly designed and highly automated to account for these and other realities of operating in lunar orbit. Of course, we’ll also need more powerful launch and space transfer vehicles in order to reach more distant destinations.
Q: What advice would you give someone just starting a career in logistics and supply chain management?
A: Many traditional trades and businesses need to be broadened to enable space exploration—including manufacturing, medicine, commerce, agriculture, and energy—and all of these will require groundbreaking advances in space logistics. So, I think the future is wide open for the next generation who are interested in careers enabling the supply chains on Earth and in space. My advice would be to dream big and be persistent—because if I can do it, anyone can do it!
Ammie McAsey
Ammie McAsey found a good thing and decided to stick with it. In this case, the good thing was the company she now works for—
McAsey joined McKesson in 2007 as distribution center manager for the company’s Carol Stream, Illinois, location, where one of her first assignments was to relocate the operation to a new building in nearby Aurora. Since then, she has served as director of operations, vice president distribution operations for the North Central region, and vice president general manager of the company’s strategic distribution centers. McAsey holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska.
Q: What attracted you to a career in supply chain?
A: My supply chain career started with a part-time summer job as a shipping clerk for a third-party logistics company. I found the work interesting, as there were new problems to solve each day. I pursued a supply chain job upon graduating college and remain in supply chain today. Supply chain is constantly changing and there are always new problems to solve, but leading and inspiring teams to develop solutions to customer problems is what keeps me coming back every day.
Q: You’ve been at McKesson for over a decade now. In a world where many jump from company to company, why have you chosen to stay with one employer?
A: I was fortunate to join McKesson 14 years ago and found a company with great purpose and a set of values that aren’t just words on a wall. The [McKesson] I2CARE values—integrity, inclusion, customer first, accountability, respect, and excellence—are truly the foundation of our decision-making.
At McKesson, I found a place where I could grow, make a difference in the lives of others, and deliver on the promise of improving care in every setting.
Q: What is your proudest professional achievement?
A: My proudest professional achievement was leading the opening of a McKesson distribution center in 2009. The new automated DC replaced an aging facility, and in a two-week timeframe, $170 million worth of inventory, 1,400 customers, and 153 employees were successfully repositioned. The leadership team learned new technology and achieved zero customer service disruptions while achieving a 15% increase in productivity and a 30% improvement in operations quality.
Q: As a medical supplier, your company has been at the center of fighting the worldwide pandemic. How do you reflect on this past year?
A: The past year was one of resilience. The health-care supply chain faced multiple challenges as a result of the Covid pandemic, and with each step back, we found a way to take two steps forward. The heroes of supply chain during the pandemic have been our front-line leaders and workers. These teams showed up every day for work in the distribution centers and kept the supply chain running.
Q: You are responsible for overseeing distribution from 35 different facilities nationwide. How difficult is it to manage such a large network?
A: When you have a great team, leading a nationwide distribution network is not as challenging as one might think. The leadership team and all of the facility leaders know the importance of the work we do. We have a motto emblazoned above the doors of our distribution centers: “It’s Not a Package. It’s a Patient.” We take these words seriously.
Q: What are the most significant changes you’ve seen during your time in the industry?
A: The evolution of technology has been the most significant change I’ve seen. At the onset of my career, most work was done via paper and pen or for those of us who remember—green bar reports. Today, it is rare to walk into a distribution center without seeing some form of automation—A-frames, wire-guided vehicles, smart conveyance, robots, and the technology that powers the automation. The analytical and visualization platforms available today have improved and accelerated decision-making, which in turn has sped up supply chain.
Q: Do you have any advice for a young person just starting a career in logistics and supply chain management?
A: My advice to those just starting out is “Don’t be afraid to ask questions, learn as much as you can about the business, about leadership, about everything … Don’t be in such a hurry to get promoted or climb the ladder that you miss an opportunity to learn.”
Yossi Sheffi
Reading through Yossi Sheffi’s biography feels a bit like running down the ultimate bucket list for a career supply chain professional: Earn a Bachelor of Science degree from the Technion in Israel and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Check. Inspire and mold young minds as a professor. Check. Write six award-winning management books. Check. Create a logistics and supply chain center at one of the most prestigious institutions in North America. Check. And he’s not done yet!
An expert in systems optimization, risk analysis, and supply chain management, Sheffi is director of the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) as well as MIT’s Master of Engineering in Logistics program. Under his leadership, the MIT CTL has launched a number of educational, research, and industry/government outreach programs, including its online offering, the MITx MicroMasters program in supply chain management. Sheffi has also worked to expand the program internationally, establishing academic centers around the world.
Outside of academia, he has consulted with numerous governments and manufacturing, retail, and transportation enterprises and founded or co-founded five successful companies.
Q: What attracted you to the logistics/supply chain field, and what motivates you to continue your work each day?
A: The logistics field is the most challenging one I can think of. It involves processes, physical movement, people, and technology. On top of that, the playing field is global, making it even more interesting.
Q: What are some of the biggest challenges facing logistics and supply chain professionals today?
A: Wow. There are so many. The top one is probably the pressure to reinvent the profession in order to respond to multiple challenges of the market—sustainability, resilience, rising service expectations, trade restrictions, etc.—while taking advantage of new technologies and a very dynamic environment.
Q: What is one project or initiative you’ve worked on through the MIT CTL that you found particularly memorable?
A: Developing our group of five international centers (and soon-to-be sixth). These centers, which we call the SCALE (Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence) global network, include academic centers in Colombia, Spain, Luxembourg, Malaysia, and China.
Q: What advice would you give someone just starting a career in logistics and supply chain management?
A: The best time to enter is now. Most people now know how important the profession is, and the stature of the profession has risen in most companies.
Q: What has been your most satisfying career achievement and why?
A: Building the MIT CTL into a $20 million center with many leading research labs and a world-leading education program whose graduates can be found in leadership positions all over the world.
Steven Van Roestel
Steven Van Roestel
Steven Van Roestel set out to solve real-world problems when he embarked on a supply chain career 25 years ago. And as vice president of distribution operations for
Van Roestel’s experience includes his previous role as associate vice president of e-commerce fulfillment for the Canadian retail company, which sells everything from auto parts to hardware, sports and leisure equipment, and housewares. In that post, Van Roestel oversaw the long-term design and implementation of the company’s e-commerce fulfillment capabilities, all while navigating the fast-changing consumer landscape. He drew on a wealth of previous experience with the company to meet those goals, including roles in finance and operations. Van Roestel directed operations for three of Canadian Tire’s Express Auto Parts distribution centers—in Calgary, Vaughan, and Montreal—and also oversaw the company’s 1.4 million-square-foot Brampton, Ontario, distribution center operations.
Van Roestel earned a Bachelor of Mathematics degree from the University of Waterloo and is on the advisory board for supply chain consulting firm Fortna.
Q: What drew you to a career in logistics and supply chain?
A: I’ve been an operator my entire life. I grew up on a pig/cash crop farm, then moved to construction, then to manufacturing, and finally to supply chain distribution. I found great satisfaction in seeing logic evolve and things move to completion. After graduating with a mathematics degree heavily weighted in theory, I wanted to tackle real-life problems with the theories I learned.
Q: In what ways has the industry changed over the years?
A: I believe as operators, we must constantly balance three competing commitments—to our people, our customers, and our shareholders. All three have seen changes over the years. [We’ve seen] a meaningful shift in people who want to do our fulfillment work, as one example, and Covid-19 has accelerated [fulfillment] automation solutions. Customer expectations within the channel and speed have accelerated the use of predictive analytics, the IoT [internet of things], and digitization strategies. Finally, shareholders need more certainty in OPEX [operating expense] as a percentage of revenue, putting pressure on costs, asset management, and resiliency.
Q: So much has changed in the way consumers shop and do business. How do you ensure the customer experience is consistent across all consumer touchpoints?
A: Answering this question during a global pandemic is very different from pre-pandemic; so much has changed. Our experience is that our customers want options—curbside pickup, deliver to home, deliver to lockers, etc. As supply chain leaders, we must build capabilities with consistent experiences across our family of companies—safely—for our customers and employees, at the lowest possible cost to our shareholders.
Q: Looking ahead, what excites you about retail and the supply chain?
A: I’ve always believed that enabling supply chain capabilities and capacity at the lowest possible cost will win. We are at the doorstep of the biggest innovation era in our industry. The problems we must solve are big, and the solutions are complex; there has never been a better time to be in the retail supply chain.
Colin Yankee
For Colin Yankee, the supply chain is all about teamwork.
Yankee is executive vice president and chief supply chain officer for Tractor Supply Co., where he is responsible for the end-to-end supply chain, including merchandise planning, inventory management, vendor operations, transportation, and distribution operations. As a military veteran, Yankee knows the power and value of strong teams and says he recognized the need for those qualities right away when he transitioned to a civilian opportunity at a Target distribution center.
Yankee’s broad supply chain experience includes serving in a variety of roles at Target following that first job, and as vice president of logistics for Neiman Marcus. He served as an officer in the U.S. Army after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. He earned a Master of Science degree in supply chain management from Michigan State University and also holds an advanced management certification from Columbia Business School.
Q: What drew you to a career in supply chain?
A: When I left the military, I didn’t seek out supply chain as a career field. My focus wasn’t on a specific job or function during my transition to corporate America; I was more focused on finding a company culture that valued servant leadership, personal development, and operational excellence. Those are the things I liked about the Army, so that’s what I looked for in a company culture.
Through a fellow veteran, I was connected to an opportunity to work in a Target distribution center, and I am grateful that I was able to start my career in a strong team environment. After a couple years working in DC operations, I took a role in domestic transportation, and that opened my eyes to the interconnectivity between merchandising, planning, inventory management, and logistics. I was fascinated by all the tradeoffs supply chain managers need to make and the variety of roles in supply chain. That’s when I decided to make supply chain a career.
Q: What would you say are the biggest challenges that retail distribution operations face?
A: The goal of a retail supply chain leader isn’t to optimize any one single part of the supply chain; it is to connect and coordinate the activities across all the players in the network—vendors, distribution centers, and carriers—to get the right product in the right place at the right time, at the best landed cost.
That’s always been complex, and it’s only getting more complex: figuring out how to best support physical and digital sales; understanding when, where, and how to position inventory; developing resilience and managing efficiency in the face of cost pressures; making bets on automation and rapidly advancing supply chain technologies; managing the need for faster response times across a global supply chain; and meeting the elevated environmental, social, and governance expectations of customers and shareholders. All these things are defining the work within the retail supply chain today.
Q: What are some of the most important economic contributions of the logistics industry and the broader supply chain?
A: I grew up in the Inland Empire area of California. Today, it’s a region known for being a major distribution hub, but back then, there were tons of orange groves. I remember my grandfather talking about growing up during the Great Depression and how as a kid, he would get an orange in his Christmas stocking. To him, getting a fresh orange was special because they were hard to come by in Maine.
I look around today at the access, the variety, the abundance, and the amazing progress that comes from capitalism and connecting local, regional, and national comparative advantages. Logistics is the key that unlocks those regional advantages—it’s the reason why getting an orange in Maine isn’t considered so special anymore. It’s the reason why we can get products grown and manufactured all around the world onto the shelf or delivered to the doorstep of a Tractor Supply customer.
I think every person who works in supply chain has a special appreciation for how hard it is to make all that happen, and with the massive supply chain disruptions of 2020 and 2021, people who never gave a single thought to logistics have a new appreciation for the people who work in supply chain operations.
Q: How has your military experience influenced your business career?
A: Serving in the Army was a life-changing experience. Sebastian Junger wrote a book called Tribe that I think describes the feeling well. In it he said: “What would you risk dying for—and for whom—is perhaps the most profound question a person can ask themselves. The vast majority of people in modern society are able to pass their whole lives without ever having to answer that question, which is both an enormous blessing and a significant loss.”
The soldiers I served with were all volunteers; they came from all across our country and from all kinds of backgrounds. The shared hardships and the reliance on one another builds a sense of connection and belonging that showed me the elements of being a good teammate and building strong teams. While it’s difficult to replicate the intensity of the military, the ingredients are much the same.
Working in supply chain is hard; there’s always some new obstacle. Strong teams rise to those challenges, and weak teams get broken by them.
Q: What is your proudest professional accomplishment and why?
A: I get to work for the team members that help customers in our stores, that do the heavy lifting in our distribution centers, and that bring their talent to our store support center every day. It’s a team effort; I am privileged to serve and represent the team.
