August 15, 2023 • 36 mins
"Hope is not a strategy."
In this episode, we are joined by Kathy Fulton, Executive Director of the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN), who discusses her work connecting private-sector resources with disaster response needs: a "gray sky" response, after a disaster hits. For instance, if a supplier has excess food they need to offload, ALAN will connect them with a warehouse with the capacity to accept the delivery. ALAN forges partnerships between various players in the supply chain as well as between the public and private sectors, which, along with information sharing among all parties, are critical to fostering collaboration in order to respond effectively to a disaster and to strengthen future disaster preparedness.
Hosts: Tim Russell & Lauren Finegan Executive Producer: Benjy Kantor Marketing Writer & Producer: Dan McCool Sound Editor: David Benjamin Sound Audio Engineer: Kurt Schneider
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
(cheerful instrumental music)
- Thank you for joining
us on CTL's "Supply Chain Frontiers".
I'm Lauren Finegan, a research associate
in the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab,
which is part of theCenter for Transportation
and Logistics at MIT.
- Hi, I'm Tim Russell,
research engineer at the Centerfor Transportation Logistics
in the Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab.
Today we're gonna be talkingabout disaster response,
(00:22):
and especially how the public
and private sectors can come together
for the most effectivelogistical responses
in the wake of a disaster.
For this conversation, we'retalking to Kathy Fulton,
who serves as the Executive director
of the American Logistics Aid Network,
otherwise known as ALAN.
Kathy, it's a pleasureto have you with us.
- Thanks for inviting me, Tim.
Glad to be here.
(00:42):
- Why don't we start by askingyou to tell us a little bit
about the American Logistics Aid Network
and the work that you do.
- Sure, so American LogisticsAid Network, or ALAN,
is a nonprofit organizationthat was formed
by the industry associations.
It happened, really, rightafter Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
a group of industry professionals were
(01:04):
together at a conference.
They saw everything that washappening along the Gulf Coast,
and realized that it wasreally a logistics problem.
There was actually quitea bit of frustration
that as supply chain professionals,
we could move widgets aroundthe world within a day,
but it was a challenge just to get food
and basic necessities to the Superdome.
(01:25):
So a group came together, andthat's how we got our start.
Since that time, we've really been active
in just about everydisaster that has occurred
here in the United States.
Some of the work that we do really centers
around helping nonprofitorganizations connect with donated
or discounted logistics servicesfor their response efforts.
(01:47):
As we were doing that, we realized,
hey, if we want thesebusinesses to help nonprofits,
we've gotta ensure that those businesses
themselves stay in business.
So that led to us really working
towards providing businesses
with the right types of information.
And as we were doingthat, we realized that,
hey, we're collecting a lotof information from businesses
(02:07):
about how they'reresponding during disasters.
And so, we've, since, really after 2017,
and Harvey, Irma and Maria turned
that into helpinggovernment, especially FEMA,
understand what's happening
with private sector supplychains during disaster response.
So we do all kinds of things.
We coordinate those logistics solutions.
(02:28):
We convene, we bring people together.
We do a little bit of education
because who doesn't love education around?
If we weren't learning andsharing that knowledge,
what good would it be?
And then that informationmanagement really helping
to get that information pushed
out to the various communities.
- Thanks, Kathy.
(02:49):
Where are you active now in disasters,
or where have you been active recently
in supporting disasters through ALAN?
- Yeah, that's a great question,Lauren, thanks for asking.
It feels like there's anew disaster happening
every single day.
Earlier this year, weresponded to tornadoes
across the South centralarea and southeast.
The flooding,
(03:10):
just this crazy floodingthat happened in California.
And then last year, probablythe biggest event we've had
in a few years was Hurricane Ian,
and just responding to theneeds in Southwest Florida.
Like I said, it feels likethere's something going
on every single day,
and whether we're preparingfor, actively responding,
or helping someonerecover from a disaster,
(03:31):
that just the work never stops.
- Hey, Kathy,
could you say a littlebit about Operation BBQ
and the work you did withthem after Hurricane Ian?
- Yeah, they're really interestingnonprofit organization.
They provide feeding supportfor both first responders
and disaster survivors.
And so, there were a coupleof really interesting
(03:53):
things that they needed.
They buy all of theirfood in mass quantities,
or get it donated in a lot of cases.
So we were helping themwith the transportation
from the producers,
whether it was corncoming from the Midwest,
or there's a breadfactory that was sharing
some frozen rolls.
(04:13):
And really, we were helping
them with all those inboundlogistics activities,
just so that they couldthen have the resources
there to set up their hugekitchen and cook delicious,
hot meals.
They call it the onehot meal that matters.
The really interesting thingabout that is we've built
such a great relationship
with them that earlier this spring,
(04:35):
I got a call at two o'clockon a Friday afternoon.
Just kind of this frantic call saying,
"Hey, we have this fabulousdonation of six truckloads
of pork butts, but wehave to have it in a,
we have to be able to acceptit by Monday morning."
And that's almost unheard of, right?
In the logistics world,things tend to shut down
(04:55):
sometimes early afternoon on Fridays.
And so, I'm like,
"I don't know, but we'regonna put the word out."
And within two hours,
we had actually found a warehousespace in Dallas for them.
And it's just an amazing story,
because not only didthat food get rescued,
it meant that sometime laterthis year when they cook,
(05:16):
and they're gonna have to cookand they have been cooking,
half a million people aregonna have a delicious,
hot meal that matters simplybecause a warehouse said,
"Yeah, we can take that stuff.
It's no problem for us,it's a few pallet positions,
and maybe a little bit of logistics,
but it's doing a lot of good."
- Yeah, I absolutely love that story.
I tell it all the time,
and when someone asks me what ALAN does
(05:38):
or how we're involved.
So when you put it in thecontext of how many people will
be served, I think that'sjust, it's amazing.
- Yeah.
- So that's a great example of connecting
the donation with a space that can handle
it on the logistics side.
How does ALAN broadly thinkabout making those connections
and ensure that the privatesector actors are connected
(06:00):
with the right organizationsduring a disaster,
and in this example, kind ofblue sky times, if you will?
- Yeah, so there's an old adage,
you never wanna exchangebusiness cards at a disaster.
And we ascribe to that, absolutely.
We do a whole lot tohelp build relationships,
build trust before a disaster happens.
(06:24):
But we also know that thatbattle buddy mentality,
and I kind of hate that analogy,
but it's a true one in that,
hey, if we can work togetherto solve a common challenge,
especially during a disaster,
I'm gonna have a stronger bond,
I'm gonna have a strongeremotional connection
with that person.
So we can do all we wantto introducing people.
(06:46):
And Tim and Lauren, you guyshave both been so helpful
with the calls that we have,
where we bring the privatesector actors together,
and just get them together whena disaster's not happening.
But we also know that whenthey can work together,
they can solve that problem together,
it's gonna drive somethingin them to want to do
that again and again and again.
(07:07):
So that's an actually an example
of kind of private-privateactivities coming together.
We also do work, private-publickind of activities.
You're both very involved
in the SCAN, Supply ChainAnalysis Network work.
You guys have the hard job ofactually looking at the data
and trying to figure out what it means.
(07:27):
I get the easy job oftalking to people and saying,
"Hey, does all this analysisthat the smart folks
at MIT did, does this makesense to you in your business?"
So that's kind of also somethingwhere we're able to use
those conversations,
help share informationwith the private sector.
And then that information gets reflected
(07:47):
back to government officials
to help with their decision making.
So it's building those connections,
it's the give and take of relationships.
So it's also kind of aninteresting perspective
on how information flow reallyaids with relationships.
(08:07):
- Yeah, and I think even backto the early days of COVID,
when we were all learningabout supply chains
because of the challenges ofgetting food on the table.
And so, I think that's a really great way
to recognize those individuals,
because I have to imagine thatis what helps drive people
to continue to work with ALAN.
So I'm curious what you hearfrom people in a disaster,
(08:30):
before a disaster aboutwhy they're engaged.
- Yeah, it's reallyinteresting when we ask people,
"Hey, what is important toyou, why are you doing this?"
The number one answer we always get is,
"It's the right thing to do."
There's a community mindedness to it.
We do have a few who arehonest with us and say,
Hey, "We see a brand opportunity here."
(08:53):
I've had a couple of themsay that to me, right?
"It's our business."
But mostly, the people who aredoing it are not making money
off of it, for sure, right?
This is just a way for them to give
back to their communities.
It's a way to do somethingusing their expertise.
It's using the stuff thatthey do every single day
(09:14):
to make money for their businesses,
to make a difference in the world.
And I think that that'swhat resonates with people.
It's like, "Oh, I can move a widget
and somebody's gonna enjoyplaying with that widget.
Or I can move food
and somebody's gonna have a meal tonight."
So, I think that connectingit to my day job.
(09:36):
Being able to say, "Hey,this is something that I do,
and maybe I don't feel like it,
makes a huge difference every single day.
But I know during a disaster,
I know that what I'm doingis making a difference.
I think that people appreciate that.
- If there's people outthere that are interested
in helping in a disaster,
what can they do or how could they connect
with you to be able to do that good
(09:57):
that you're talking about?
- Well, they can offer up their services,
their transportation, their warehousing,
their material handling equipment.
They can do that on ourwebsite, alanaid.org.
Reach out to us, we're alwayshappy to add more people.
We're pre-positioning those relationships.
And instead of pre-positioning supplies,
(10:17):
we're pre-positioning those services.
So alanaid.org is gonna bethe best way to reach us.
And then we'll just take it from there.
We wanna help people do thegood that they wanna do.
We wanna get them engaged in the geography
with the services, helping thepeople that they wanna help.
We want it to be a win-win, win, win,
win all the way around.
- So you mentioned, thisis pivoting a little bit,
(10:38):
but you mentioned earlier
about the information sharingaspect of what ALAN does
and how you realized you were getting
a lot of information in,
and the value of thatinformation for your partners
and stakeholders.
Can you talk a little bit
about the supply chainintelligence center?
- Yeah, so our supplychain intelligence center
is a partnership with a groupcalled Everstream Analytics.
(11:02):
And it's, honestly,
it's one of those back ofthe napkin bar conversations
that happened very early in COVID,
actually about March 12th of 2020.
Where we're sitting around going,
"This is crazy.
Every governor, every mayorhas decided to implement
all of these differentnon-pharmaceutical interventions."
(11:23):
Whether it's a curfew,
or you have to wear personalprotective equipment,
or truck drivers can't go into businesses,
whatever that is,
it's gonna cause frictionin the supply chain.
And so, we needed a way to track that.
Well, Everstream's platform is GIS based.
And so, we were able totake every major city
(11:45):
and every county in theUnited States and map them,
and track every NPI that was in place.
So at one point in time,it was 160,000 data points
or something that were getting refreshed
every 24 to 48 hours.
Now we're using it primarily
to look at all of the weatherdata that's out there.
We are just starting to addevents like civil unrest.
(12:09):
The event that happened in Philadelphia
with the bridge collapse.
And what happens is you cansee all of the infrastructure
in the United States,
you can see ports and airportsand major intersections,
the top 100 supply chain bottlenecks,
you can see all of those.
And you can see what may be disrupting
(12:30):
them at any point in time.
It's free, right?
Everstream has just been really generous,
and anybody who wants tosign up for that can do so.
I was at a nonprofit conferencea couple of weeks ago,
and someone walked up to me and said,
"I look at your map every single day.
It was a food bank.
We're moving food out toour partner food pantries
every single day.
(12:51):
I wanna know what the weatherlooks like on those routes.
I wanna know what my truckdrivers are gonna be facing,
so that if they're departingour facility at eight o'clock
in the morning
and not delivering till twoo'clock in the afternoon,
what's the weather gonna look
like at two o'clock in the afternoon,
do they need to reschedule that delivery?"
So it's been really fun toknow that it's making an impact
(13:11):
on daily lives.
It wasn't just a COVID thing,but people are still using it.
- So I was looking at the ALAN,
I pulled up the ALAN webpage,
and I saw the informationon Super Typhoon Mawar.
And I'm curious if youcan talk a little bit
about if you were involved in any response
for Super Typhoon Mawar,
and if you can talk a little bit
(13:32):
more and more about howa response to an OCONUS
or outside of the contiguousUnited States disaster
is different than a disaster
within the contiguous United States.
So, I think about Puerto Rico,Hurricanes Irma and Maria
in Puerto Rico in 2017,
as well as recently, Super Typhoon Mawar.
(13:55):
- Yeah, so I'll talk alittle bit about our work,
and then I'll talk about howjust response is different
when you get into an island situation.
So for ALAN, we're primarilyworking domestic, US,
lower 48, let's say, activities.
But what we find is thata lot of our partners
(14:16):
who are based here in thelower 48 want to respond.
And so, they need that firstmile logistics support.
Whether that is a placeto stage their supplies,
a warehouse to stage it near a port,
or transportation to that port or airport.
So we are going to get involved with that.
(14:36):
The reason we activated for Typhoon Mawar
is because we weren't surewhat that was gonna look like.
We needed to be ready in caseany of our partners decided
that they're gonna ship stuff.
It hasn't happened yet,that doesn't mean it won't.
Recovery is a long process, right?
And the damage that was donefrom Mawar with the floods
(14:57):
and winds, they're gonna needsupport for quite some time.
So the second part of thequestion you asked, Lauren,
is how does that differ?
Well, boats get involved andplanes get involved, right?
And we don't do a whole lot with that,
we have some amazing partners
who do ocean and air transport.
But anytime you areconstrained by the ways
(15:21):
in which you can get supplies to an area,
that's gonna complicateyour response efforts.
And you guys know this far better than me,
but it just reduces your options, right?
Especially in Guam with Mawar,
where they don't grow mostof their resources, right?
They don't grow most of their food,
most of it's coming from somewhere else,
(15:41):
whether that's Asia Pacific
or the West Coast of the United States.
So it takes a long timeto get there, right?
It has to go by boat,it has to go by plane.
Even by plane, it's a,I don't even know for,
if you're sending something from Seattle,
how long does that take?
Hours and hours and hours, right?
So when you talk about the logistics
and the response to island situations
(16:04):
or remote situations where you're cut off
from land-based transportation options,
that's just gonna complicate matters
because it limits your abilityto move a lot of things.
You can't take trains,you can't take trucks.
And boats and airplanesonly have so much capacity,
and so many landingslots, and and, and, and,
and it just so is a ripple effect
(16:24):
of how much you can push through.
This is where the critical node analysis
that your team is workingon is so important.
It's gonna help us all betterunderstand why those nodes
are critical and what thethroughput is for them.
- When you first startedtalking about ALAN activating
in response to the storm in Guam,
you mentioned something that I think
(16:45):
that is also really important.
Not just the critical node pieces,
but you mentioned that you were activated
to see what you didn't know,
to see about the demands that were there.
Maybe you could talk a littlebit about that importance
of connecting that supplyand the demand pieces.
- Yeah, I'm constantlyhaving to remind people
(17:06):
that you don't wanna ship
something if nobody needs it, right,
'cause it's just gonna cause a problem.
So being very demand focused.
Modern commercial supply chains,
for the most part, aredemand focused, right?
There are still placeswhere we're trying to create
a market with a product,
but we wanna respond towhat's really needed.
So we're constantly asking our partners.
(17:28):
We have a couple of organizations we work
with who do have members on the ground,
they have all come through fine.
But understanding, hey,what are the needs?
Because if we're sendingthings that you don't need,
then it becomes a waste problem.
And an island like Guam,
there's no excess place to put that.
We saw this problem in PuertoRico after Irma and Maria
(17:51):
with plastic water bottles, right?
So much water was sent over,
and there's a wholeother story about that.
But it was because therewas no true understanding
of what was really and truly needed.
So thinking about that,working with our partners,
talking to people whoare as local as possible.
And then once our responsepartners are on the ground,
(18:15):
understanding from themtheir situational awareness.
Having those conversationswith them so we can say,
this is not necessarilysomething where we need
to get involved,
or yes, we absolutelyneed to get involved.
- I also like how during disasters,
these conversations that we have with ALAN
and the associationsin the private sector,
(18:35):
you're able to complete that loop
and let the federal government understand
the needs of the private sector.
It's a different set of supply and demand,
but what does the private sector need
to be able to stand back up?
- Oh yeah.
I'm gonna say somethingmore about Mawar first,
and then I wanna talkabout that a little bit.
Because with Mawar, when we didask our association partner,
(18:57):
"Hey, what do your members need?"
The response we got back, andit was a logistics company
who said, "What we needis more freight to move.
We're open, right, we're in business.
Just tell us what you need moved,
and connect us to the federal government
and other organizations whocan help us make money."
Which is great, I'm notknocking that at all.
(19:18):
But it was very obvious thatrecovery was well underway
for that organization.
So, yeah,
when you think about thethings that businesses need,
oftentimes they relate in some way
to supply chain activities.
They need debris cleared, orin the case of Philadelphia,
(19:38):
I hate to keep going back to that,
or they need a bridge rebuilt, right?
Or they need power so thatthey can get their factory
back up and running sothat they can produce
those critical items ratherthan government having to bring
in the short term relief items, right?
And it's understanding things,really, as an ecosystem.
(19:59):
And understanding thatthings that were provided
by private sector beforea disaster should,
to the extent possible,
continue to be provided byprivate sector after disaster.
The national academy's report
that the humanitarian supply chain lab did
a lot of work on back in 2018, 2019, 2020,
really showed that restoration
(20:20):
of those preexisting supplychains is the best way
to serve communities after disaster.
But if government who is controlling
some of the restorationpriorities is unaware
of what they are, then we're at odds.
I think that after disaster,
we all kind of want the same things.
We just have different ideas
(20:42):
about how they should happen, right?
We want everybody to have nutrition,
and hydration, and medical care,
but sometimes governmentthinks that they should
be the ones providing
it in the immediateaftermath of a disaster.
And private sector, bothfor financial reasons,
but also because they're better
at it if they've been doing it,
they think that they shouldbe the ones doing it.
(21:04):
So it's just a matter of, hey,we all want the same thing.
Let's have a conversation about it.
Let's figure out how we remove barriers
so we do what's in the bestinterest of the community.
- So building on thisdiscussion about government
and private sector workingtogether after disaster,
in an earlier segment of this podcast,
(21:24):
we talked about the role ofgovernment during a disaster.
And a lot of ALAN's work,
or part of ALAN's work atleast focuses on bringing
together the public and private sectors
for an optimal disaster response.
Can you talk a little bitabout that partnership
and how it can realize its full potential?
- Yeah, and I'll goback to something I said
(21:46):
about we all want the same things, right?
We want people to have nourishment,
we want people to have hydration.
We want people to have medical care.
We want to restore our communities
back to where they werepreviously, or even better.
I hope that we want them tobe better in a lot of cases.
But bringing peopletogether can be a challenge
(22:07):
because we are all busywith our day jobs, right?
Absent a disaster,
we're all running in different directions
on our own projects.
So how do we stop and think about,
okay, what is it that we'regonna ask you for in a disaster?
What is private sector goingto ask for during a disaster?
(22:27):
And it comes down to just a handful
of things over and over and over again.
They want things so thattransportation goes smoother,
right?
They want those hours of servicewaivers and weight waivers,
and things that aregonna help them respond
to the additional demandthat they're seeing
at the beginning of a disaster.
They want things that can help
(22:48):
their employees get back to work,
and that can be a whole suite of things.
In Hurricane Ida in Louisiana,
one of the big challengeshad to do with fuel.
And lots and lots of reasons for that,
which I'm sure Tim can elaborate
on for hours and hours, right?
But the workers in the grocerystores had to wait in line
(23:08):
to get fuel.
Now, there was fuel, it wasslowly being pushed out,
but the lines to get it were long.
The grocery stores were open
either because they had generators
or because power hadbeen restored to them.
But if you can't staff a grocery store,
it doesn't matter how muchproduct is on the shelves,
you can't do anything about it.
And so, sometimes from agovernment perspective,
(23:30):
is fuel for grocery store workerssomething that they should
be worried about?
It's a private sector problem,it's a business problem.
It's not really somethingthat that government should
ever really be thinking about,
except that if you don'tget the grocery stores open,
it means you have topass out more meals ready
to eat, right?
So then you have to calculatewhat's the expense of helping
(23:54):
these workers access fuel
versus the expense of memoving meals ready to eat
or bottled water to people?
So again, looking atthings as an ecosystem
and understanding what's gonnabe best for this community.
Is it to do something maybea little bit out of the norm
to help these grocery storeworkers get access to fuel?
(24:14):
Or is it, I'm following mychecklist that I've always done.
And so, I think that'sone of the challenges.
That's where I think theconversation needs to center,
is really on that common ground.
What's best for the survivor,what's best for the community,
what is best for everybody'sbudget, quite honestly, right?
(24:35):
'Cause in the end,
it ends up being cheaper ifyou can help people access food
in the way that they'veaccessed it all along.
- Yeah, I feel like the conversation,
at least since we've been inthis conversation with ALAN
and the government since 2017,
it's progressed and it's making progress.
When the pandemic first started,
we saw this desire to get the right people
(24:59):
on the essential workers list,
to get truck drivers in there,to get warehouses in there,
to get the ability for logistics to flow.
We got that push from the private sector,
and then we heard thepublic sector want to listen
to this concern, and be ableto take it and run with it.
The conversation'sreally improving, right?
- It is, and one of the really interesting
(25:20):
things about that is the conversation
is actually really improvingon the private sector side,
amongst themselves.
We're talking to lots ofdifferent private sector people
all the time, and where they can,
where they're legally allowed to,
and there are exceptionswhere they can't collaborate.
They're figuring out how to come together
(25:43):
and have that one voice to say,
"Hey, this isn't just aproblem with grocery store X
or grocery store Y,
all of the grocery storesare having this problem."
And they're actually,
there's mutual supportthat happens between them.
The major grocery storein Texas will ship water
to the major grocery storein Florida, and vice versa,
(26:04):
during major events.
So we're seeing that collaboration,
especially when there'snot direct competition.
But even when there is direct competition,
we're seeing those businesses figure
out how to work together.
When they can come together with one voice
and talk to government andsay, "Here's the problem."
Like at the beginning of COVIDwhen everybody was screaming,
(26:25):
"Hey, can't do anything ifyou don't have truck drivers,"
I think that that's when thereal progress is gonna be made.
I hope that we don't haveto wait for another pandemic
or a major catastrophic event.
I'm hopeful for some of the conversations
that are happening aroundthe country right now,
but it's that agreeing to worktogether across all sectors
(26:45):
that's gonna make a difference.
- So, Kathy,
you just mentioned thefuel wholesaler association
that did a good job of trying to reach out
and bring people in after Hurricane Ida.
Who else is doing reallygood work in this area?
- Yeah, so Energy MarketersAssociation, right?
That team has figured it out,
they can do something nationwide.
(27:06):
Another group that's reallydoing interesting things
is FMI, the Food Industry Association.
They work at the retail store level,
and they've started someinformation sharing initiatives.
They've started someeducation initiatives.
They're really figuringout that they wanna take
those best practices from their members
(27:28):
who have unfortunatelylearned because of challenges
that they've been through,
but they wanna make that a standard
across all of the membersin their association.
I really applaud that.
I applaud the workthat's being done there.
I know that there areothers who are out there.
These are just a coupleof examples of groups.
I'll also say thatwe're seeing FEMA trying
(27:49):
to be smarter about this as well, right?
FEMA really has a desire to listen
and learn from private sector.
I think that was part of the big push
behind Supply ChainAnalysis Network, SCAN.
Is to really say, "Hey,we know that business,
you guys are doing logisticsand supply chain every day."
FEMA does it a few days a year,
(28:09):
hopefully only a few days a year, right?
"We wanna stay out ofyour way, do no harm,"
as Mr. Dorko says.
Jeff Dorko,
who leads FEMA's logisticsmanagement directorate,
is always saying, "Hey, first do no harm.
We wanna stay outta business this way."
And so, when we're seeingthat from government,
we hope that it can have an influence
(28:31):
across all of the agencies in government.
FEMA gets called in to coordinatea lot of things, right?
And they are the disaster agency,
but there are other groups
who have supply chaininitiatives happening.
From the White House, to Congress,
and the Congressional Supply Chain Caucus,
wherever it is,
we just hope that they arelistening to the right partners
(28:53):
and listening to the pros,
literally the people who dosupply chain every day, right?
Let us as an industry help inform
what those policies end up being.
- As we head into the hurricane season,
what are your hopes and your fears?
(Kathy sighs)
- Hopes and fears?
(29:13):
Hope is not a strategy.
So, really, I do hope thatit's a quiet season, right?
I hope that the modelsthat the weather service
and the hurricane center have hold out,
and that we have lesshurricanes this year.
But what I really hope isthat people will decide
(29:34):
that they wanna get involvedif something does happen.
That they'll look to the bestpart of themselves and say,
"What is it that I can dothat's gonna make a difference
and not cause additional problems?"
So that's what I hope.
- Yeah, I haven't seen thatdisaster fatigue play out yet.
It seems like people arestill willing to help,
and people are still willing to reach out
(29:57):
and to do for others.
- Yeah, yeah.
It's really interesting
because we're in this verystrange time in logistics
and supply chain right now, right?
Just really strange time.
If you look at the numbers,
and the number of loads that are moving,
and this kind of, this post pandemic,
where what's really happening out there,
(30:19):
does that mean that there's more capacity
and more opportunities forpeople to do good, I hope so.
I hope that they won't waittill something happens.
But you're right, disasterfatigue, we've not seen that,
I hope we don't. (laughs)
That's another hope, I don't know.
But again, it's not a strategy,
so we're still all gonnabust our backsides trying
(30:39):
to make sure that peopleknow how they can help.
- So, Kathy, you talked about education.
You talked about this information flow
and building these connections,
maybe you could say a little bit
about the Humanitarian LogisticsAwards that you guys have.
- Yeah, thanks for asking
about our Humanitarian Logistics Awards,
or as my team affectionatelycalls them behind the scenes,
(31:01):
our HULAs.
So it's something we startedback in 2017 or 2018.
It's really aboutrecognizing the amazing work
that is getting done bysupply chain professionals
and logisticians tosupport the advancement
of humanitarian activities.
So maybe these businesses or individuals
(31:23):
that we're recognizing,
maybe their primary jobisn't humanitarian response,
but they've figured out thatsomething about it drives them.
There's something thatinterests them for it.
We've been fortunate to recognize
the Humanitarians Supply Chain Lab
as one of our previous recipients
after our work together in 2017on Harvey, Irma, and Maria.
(31:45):
I'm just thrilled that thatrelationship has just continued
to grow and expand.
So the awards recognize either businesses,
individuals, educators who arejust doing good in the world
through their skills andexpertise and knowledge.
- Yeah, I think that recognitionis so important to really,
especially in the disaster space,
(32:05):
when people a lot of timeshave their heads down
and are constantly responding,
to step back and acknowledgethat hard work is so important.
- Logistics is,
and supply chain are alwaysbehind the scenes, right?
So, even after we've beenthrough the last three years
of the pandemic,
where supply chain was inthe news every single day,
people think that theyunderstand what logistics
(32:28):
and supply chain is,but they really don't.
And so, we wanna takesomething that can be seen
as a frustration for people
who likes to be stuckbehind a truck, right,
or who likes the noise thathappens at the warehouse
down the street, right?
Those are things that can benuisances in the community,
or seen as nuisances.
And what we wanna do is say,
(32:49):
"Hey, if it weren't for these things,
you wouldn't have food on your table.
And oh, by the way, evenmore so after a disaster,
when logistics is everything."
The statistics that everybody cites,
60 to 80% of humanitarianspending goes towards logistics,
well, we just wanna recognizea little piece of that, right?
(33:10):
We want people to knowthere are people out there,
really smart people,
really dedicated peoplewho are doing so much good,
let's tell the world about them.
- So, Kathy, I'm curious tolearn a little bit about you.
So in your professional life or elsewhere,
what gets you outta bed in the morning?
What keeps you running, literally?
(33:31):
(Kathy chuckles)
- Boy, I wish I were doinga whole lot more running
than I am these days.
But what gets me out ofbed is the opportunity
to show love to people,and in practical ways.
I often say that I have theabsolute best job in the world.
I truly believe that because I get to work
on a different type ofchallenge every single day.
(33:53):
I never know what my day is gonna look
like when I get up in the morning, right?
I get to work with really cool people,
people who are passionateabout what they do,
people who are incredibly smart,
people who are incredibly dedicated,
people who just wantto do the right thing.
And I would say finally,
I know that the work thatwe're doing makes a difference.
(34:17):
I know that,
to go back to the OperationBBQ relief example,
I know that half a millionpeople are gonna get a hot meal
at some point this year justbecause I took five minutes
and made a phone call, right?
That's the easy, I havethe easy job, right?
I just have to make a phonecall or send an email,
and people respond.
So, what gets me outta bed inthe morning is the opportunity
(34:43):
to live out love in practical ways.
And sometimes love is an email,
sometimes love is a phone call.
But that's what gets me going.
- I love that.
So, Kathy, thank you somuch for joining us today.
Is there anything else you wanna add
as we wrap up this conversation?
- Yeah, Lauren, Tim,
I just wanna say thank youfor all that your team does.
(35:06):
It is so much fun to get towork with the two of you,
and Jared, and Chelsea, and Charlotte,
and everybody else who had the opportunity
to hang out with at the cool kids table
over the past few years.
Just we couldn't,
ALAN couldn't do what we dowithout the volunteer time
that you put towards our organization.
So we're super grateful for that.
(35:27):
I love the partnership,
and I'm just so thankfulthat we get to work with you.
- We are too.
We really like workingwith you, Kathy. (laughs)
- Yeah, I can't imagine doingthe work without you guys.
- Thank you, Kathy.
I know I've learned a lot aboutALAN in this conversation,
and I really appreciateyou taking the time
to talk to us today.
- Yeah, thanks, Lauren andTim, it's been a real pleasure.
(35:47):
- Thanks, Kathy.
Well, thanks for joining
us on CTL's "Supply Chain Frontiers".
I am Tim Russell,
research engineer at theCenter for Transportation
and Logistics in theHumanitarian Supply Chain Lab.
- And I am Lauren Finegan,
a research associate
at the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab.
(cheerful instrumental music)
- Alright, everyone,thank you for listening.
(36:08):
I hope you've enjoyed this edition
of "MIT Supply Chain Frontiers".
My name is Arthur Grau,
communications officer for the center,
and I invite you to visitus anytime at ctl.mit.edu.
Or search for "MIT Supply Chain Frontiers"
on your favorite listening platform.
Until next time.
(cheerful instrumental music)
(cheerful instrumental music)
- Thank you for joining
us on CTL's "Supply Chain Frontiers".
I'm Lauren Finegan, a research associate
in the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab,
which is part of theCenter for Transportation
and Logistics at MIT.
- Hi, I'm Tim Russell,
research engineer at the Centerfor Transportation Logistics
in the Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab.
Today we're gonna be talkingabout disaster response,
(00:22):
and especially how the public
and private sectors can come together
for the most effectivelogistical responses
in the wake of a disaster.
For this conversation, we'retalking to Kathy Fulton,
who serves as the Executive director
of the American Logistics Aid Network,
otherwise known as ALAN.
Kathy, it's a pleasureto have you with us.
- Thanks for inviting me, Tim.
Glad to be here.
(00:42):
- Why don't we start by askingyou to tell us a little bit
about the American Logistics Aid Network
and the work that you do.
- Sure, so American LogisticsAid Network, or ALAN,
is a nonprofit organizationthat was formed
by the industry associations.
It happened, really, rightafter Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
a group of industry professionals were
(01:04):
together at a conference.
They saw everything that washappening along the Gulf Coast,
and realized that it wasreally a logistics problem.
There was actually quitea bit of frustration
that as supply chain professionals,
we could move widgets aroundthe world within a day,
but it was a challenge just to get food
and basic necessities to the Superdome.
(01:25):
So a group came together, andthat's how we got our start.
Since that time, we've really been active
in just about everydisaster that has occurred
here in the United States.
Some of the work that we do really centers
around helping nonprofitorganizations connect with donated
or discounted logistics servicesfor their response efforts.
(01:47):
As we were doing that, we realized,
hey, if we want thesebusinesses to help nonprofits,
we've gotta ensure that those businesses
themselves stay in business.
So that led to us really working
towards providing businesses
with the right types of information.
And as we were doingthat, we realized that,
hey, we're collecting a lotof information from businesses
(02:07):
about how they'reresponding during disasters.
And so, we've, since, really after 2017,
and Harvey, Irma and Maria turned
that into helpinggovernment, especially FEMA,
understand what's happening
with private sector supplychains during disaster response.
So we do all kinds of things.
We coordinate those logistics solutions.
(02:28):
We convene, we bring people together.
We do a little bit of education
because who doesn't love education around?
If we weren't learning andsharing that knowledge,
what good would it be?
And then that informationmanagement really helping
to get that information pushed
out to the various communities.
- Thanks, Kathy.
(02:49):
Where are you active now in disasters,
or where have you been active recently
in supporting disasters through ALAN?
- Yeah, that's a great question,Lauren, thanks for asking.
It feels like there's anew disaster happening
every single day.
Earlier this year, weresponded to tornadoes
across the South centralarea and southeast.
The flooding,
(03:10):
just this crazy floodingthat happened in California.
And then last year, probablythe biggest event we've had
in a few years was Hurricane Ian,
and just responding to theneeds in Southwest Florida.
Like I said, it feels likethere's something going
on every single day,
and whether we're preparingfor, actively responding,
or helping someonerecover from a disaster,
(03:31):
that just the work never stops.
- Hey, Kathy,
could you say a littlebit about Operation BBQ
and the work you did withthem after Hurricane Ian?
- Yeah, they're really interestingnonprofit organization.
They provide feeding supportfor both first responders
and disaster survivors.
And so, there were a coupleof really interesting
(03:53):
things that they needed.
They buy all of theirfood in mass quantities,
or get it donated in a lot of cases.
So we were helping themwith the transportation
from the producers,
whether it was corncoming from the Midwest,
or there's a breadfactory that was sharing
some frozen rolls.
(04:13):
And really, we were helping
them with all those inboundlogistics activities,
just so that they couldthen have the resources
there to set up their hugekitchen and cook delicious,
hot meals.
They call it the onehot meal that matters.
The really interesting thingabout that is we've built
such a great relationship
with them that earlier this spring,
(04:35):
I got a call at two o'clockon a Friday afternoon.
Just kind of this frantic call saying,
"Hey, we have this fabulousdonation of six truckloads
of pork butts, but wehave to have it in a,
we have to be able to acceptit by Monday morning."
And that's almost unheard of, right?
In the logistics world,things tend to shut down
(04:55):
sometimes early afternoon on Fridays.
And so, I'm like,
"I don't know, but we'regonna put the word out."
And within two hours,
we had actually found a warehousespace in Dallas for them.
And it's just an amazing story,
because not only didthat food get rescued,
it meant that sometime laterthis year when they cook,
(05:16):
and they're gonna have to cookand they have been cooking,
half a million people aregonna have a delicious,
hot meal that matters simplybecause a warehouse said,
"Yeah, we can take that stuff.
It's no problem for us,it's a few pallet positions,
and maybe a little bit of logistics,
but it's doing a lot of good."
- Yeah, I absolutely love that story.
I tell it all the time,
and when someone asks me what ALAN does
(05:38):
or how we're involved.
So when you put it in thecontext of how many people will
be served, I think that'sjust, it's amazing.
- Yeah.
- So that's a great example of connecting
the donation with a space that can handle
it on the logistics side.
How does ALAN broadly thinkabout making those connections
and ensure that the privatesector actors are connected
(06:00):
with the right organizationsduring a disaster,
and in this example, kind ofblue sky times, if you will?
- Yeah, so there's an old adage,
you never wanna exchangebusiness cards at a disaster.
And we ascribe to that, absolutely.
We do a whole lot tohelp build relationships,
build trust before a disaster happens.
(06:24):
But we also know that thatbattle buddy mentality,
and I kind of hate that analogy,
but it's a true one in that,
hey, if we can work togetherto solve a common challenge,
especially during a disaster,
I'm gonna have a stronger bond,
I'm gonna have a strongeremotional connection
with that person.
So we can do all we wantto introducing people.
(06:46):
And Tim and Lauren, you guyshave both been so helpful
with the calls that we have,
where we bring the privatesector actors together,
and just get them together whena disaster's not happening.
But we also know that whenthey can work together,
they can solve that problem together,
it's gonna drive somethingin them to want to do
that again and again and again.
(07:07):
So that's an actually an example
of kind of private-privateactivities coming together.
We also do work, private-publickind of activities.
You're both very involved
in the SCAN, Supply ChainAnalysis Network work.
You guys have the hard job ofactually looking at the data
and trying to figure out what it means.
(07:27):
I get the easy job oftalking to people and saying,
"Hey, does all this analysisthat the smart folks
at MIT did, does this makesense to you in your business?"
So that's kind of also somethingwhere we're able to use
those conversations,
help share informationwith the private sector.
And then that information gets reflected
(07:47):
back to government officials
to help with their decision making.
So it's building those connections,
it's the give and take of relationships.
So it's also kind of aninteresting perspective
on how information flow reallyaids with relationships.
(08:07):
- Yeah, and I think even backto the early days of COVID,
when we were all learningabout supply chains
because of the challenges ofgetting food on the table.
And so, I think that's a really great way
to recognize those individuals,
because I have to imagine thatis what helps drive people
to continue to work with ALAN.
So I'm curious what you hearfrom people in a disaster,
(08:30):
before a disaster aboutwhy they're engaged.
- Yeah, it's reallyinteresting when we ask people,
"Hey, what is important toyou, why are you doing this?"
The number one answer we always get is,
"It's the right thing to do."
There's a community mindedness to it.
We do have a few who arehonest with us and say,
Hey, "We see a brand opportunity here."
(08:53):
I've had a couple of themsay that to me, right?
"It's our business."
But mostly, the people who aredoing it are not making money
off of it, for sure, right?
This is just a way for them to give
back to their communities.
It's a way to do somethingusing their expertise.
It's using the stuff thatthey do every single day
(09:14):
to make money for their businesses,
to make a difference in the world.
And I think that that'swhat resonates with people.
It's like, "Oh, I can move a widget
and somebody's gonna enjoyplaying with that widget.
Or I can move food
and somebody's gonna have a meal tonight."
So, I think that connectingit to my day job.
(09:36):
Being able to say, "Hey,this is something that I do,
and maybe I don't feel like it,
makes a huge difference every single day.
But I know during a disaster,
I know that what I'm doingis making a difference.
I think that people appreciate that.
- If there's people outthere that are interested
in helping in a disaster,
what can they do or how could they connect
with you to be able to do that good
(09:57):
that you're talking about?
- Well, they can offer up their services,
their transportation, their warehousing,
their material handling equipment.
They can do that on ourwebsite, alanaid.org.
Reach out to us, we're alwayshappy to add more people.
We're pre-positioning those relationships.
And instead of pre-positioning supplies,
(10:17):
we're pre-positioning those services.
So alanaid.org is gonna bethe best way to reach us.
And then we'll just take it from there.
We wanna help people do thegood that they wanna do.
We wanna get them engaged in the geography
with the services, helping thepeople that they wanna help.
We want it to be a win-win, win, win,
win all the way around.
- So you mentioned, thisis pivoting a little bit,
(10:38):
but you mentioned earlier
about the information sharingaspect of what ALAN does
and how you realized you were getting
a lot of information in,
and the value of thatinformation for your partners
and stakeholders.
Can you talk a little bit
about the supply chainintelligence center?
- Yeah, so our supplychain intelligence center
is a partnership with a groupcalled Everstream Analytics.
(11:02):
And it's, honestly,
it's one of those back ofthe napkin bar conversations
that happened very early in COVID,
actually about March 12th of 2020.
Where we're sitting around going,
"This is crazy.
Every governor, every mayorhas decided to implement
all of these differentnon-pharmaceutical interventions."
(11:23):
Whether it's a curfew,
or you have to wear personalprotective equipment,
or truck drivers can't go into businesses,
whatever that is,
it's gonna cause frictionin the supply chain.
And so, we needed a way to track that.
Well, Everstream's platform is GIS based.
And so, we were able totake every major city
(11:45):
and every county in theUnited States and map them,
and track every NPI that was in place.
So at one point in time,it was 160,000 data points
or something that were getting refreshed
every 24 to 48 hours.
Now we're using it primarily
to look at all of the weatherdata that's out there.
We are just starting to addevents like civil unrest.
(12:09):
The event that happened in Philadelphia
with the bridge collapse.
And what happens is you cansee all of the infrastructure
in the United States,
you can see ports and airportsand major intersections,
the top 100 supply chain bottlenecks,
you can see all of those.
And you can see what may be disrupting
(12:30):
them at any point in time.
It's free, right?
Everstream has just been really generous,
and anybody who wants tosign up for that can do so.
I was at a nonprofit conferencea couple of weeks ago,
and someone walked up to me and said,
"I look at your map every single day.
It was a food bank.
We're moving food out toour partner food pantries
every single day.
(12:51):
I wanna know what the weatherlooks like on those routes.
I wanna know what my truckdrivers are gonna be facing,
so that if they're departingour facility at eight o'clock
in the morning
and not delivering till twoo'clock in the afternoon,
what's the weather gonna look
like at two o'clock in the afternoon,
do they need to reschedule that delivery?"
So it's been really fun toknow that it's making an impact
(13:11):
on daily lives.
It wasn't just a COVID thing,but people are still using it.
- So I was looking at the ALAN,
I pulled up the ALAN webpage,
and I saw the informationon Super Typhoon Mawar.
And I'm curious if youcan talk a little bit
about if you were involved in any response
for Super Typhoon Mawar,
and if you can talk a little bit
(13:32):
more and more about howa response to an OCONUS
or outside of the contiguousUnited States disaster
is different than a disaster
within the contiguous United States.
So, I think about Puerto Rico,Hurricanes Irma and Maria
in Puerto Rico in 2017,
as well as recently, Super Typhoon Mawar.
(13:55):
- Yeah, so I'll talk alittle bit about our work,
and then I'll talk about howjust response is different
when you get into an island situation.
So for ALAN, we're primarilyworking domestic, US,
lower 48, let's say, activities.
But what we find is thata lot of our partners
(14:16):
who are based here in thelower 48 want to respond.
And so, they need that firstmile logistics support.
Whether that is a placeto stage their supplies,
a warehouse to stage it near a port,
or transportation to that port or airport.
So we are going to get involved with that.
(14:36):
The reason we activated for Typhoon Mawar
is because we weren't surewhat that was gonna look like.
We needed to be ready in caseany of our partners decided
that they're gonna ship stuff.
It hasn't happened yet,that doesn't mean it won't.
Recovery is a long process, right?
And the damage that was donefrom Mawar with the floods
(14:57):
and winds, they're gonna needsupport for quite some time.
So the second part of thequestion you asked, Lauren,
is how does that differ?
Well, boats get involved andplanes get involved, right?
And we don't do a whole lot with that,
we have some amazing partners
who do ocean and air transport.
But anytime you areconstrained by the ways
(15:21):
in which you can get supplies to an area,
that's gonna complicateyour response efforts.
And you guys know this far better than me,
but it just reduces your options, right?
Especially in Guam with Mawar,
where they don't grow mostof their resources, right?
They don't grow most of their food,
most of it's coming from somewhere else,
(15:41):
whether that's Asia Pacific
or the West Coast of the United States.
So it takes a long timeto get there, right?
It has to go by boat,it has to go by plane.
Even by plane, it's a,I don't even know for,
if you're sending something from Seattle,
how long does that take?
Hours and hours and hours, right?
So when you talk about the logistics
and the response to island situations
(16:04):
or remote situations where you're cut off
from land-based transportation options,
that's just gonna complicate matters
because it limits your abilityto move a lot of things.
You can't take trains,you can't take trucks.
And boats and airplanesonly have so much capacity,
and so many landingslots, and and, and, and,
and it just so is a ripple effect
(16:24):
of how much you can push through.
This is where the critical node analysis
that your team is workingon is so important.
It's gonna help us all betterunderstand why those nodes
are critical and what thethroughput is for them.
- When you first startedtalking about ALAN activating
in response to the storm in Guam,
you mentioned something that I think
(16:45):
that is also really important.
Not just the critical node pieces,
but you mentioned that you were activated
to see what you didn't know,
to see about the demands that were there.
Maybe you could talk a littlebit about that importance
of connecting that supplyand the demand pieces.
- Yeah, I'm constantlyhaving to remind people
(17:06):
that you don't wanna ship
something if nobody needs it, right,
'cause it's just gonna cause a problem.
So being very demand focused.
Modern commercial supply chains,
for the most part, aredemand focused, right?
There are still placeswhere we're trying to create
a market with a product,
but we wanna respond towhat's really needed.
So we're constantly asking our partners.
(17:28):
We have a couple of organizations we work
with who do have members on the ground,
they have all come through fine.
But understanding, hey,what are the needs?
Because if we're sendingthings that you don't need,
then it becomes a waste problem.
And an island like Guam,
there's no excess place to put that.
We saw this problem in PuertoRico after Irma and Maria
(17:51):
with plastic water bottles, right?
So much water was sent over,
and there's a wholeother story about that.
But it was because therewas no true understanding
of what was really and truly needed.
So thinking about that,working with our partners,
talking to people whoare as local as possible.
And then once our responsepartners are on the ground,
(18:15):
understanding from themtheir situational awareness.
Having those conversationswith them so we can say,
this is not necessarilysomething where we need
to get involved,
or yes, we absolutelyneed to get involved.
- I also like how during disasters,
these conversations that we have with ALAN
and the associationsin the private sector,
(18:35):
you're able to complete that loop
and let the federal government understand
the needs of the private sector.
It's a different set of supply and demand,
but what does the private sector need
to be able to stand back up?
- Oh yeah.
I'm gonna say somethingmore about Mawar first,
and then I wanna talkabout that a little bit.
Because with Mawar, when we didask our association partner,
(18:57):
"Hey, what do your members need?"
The response we got back, andit was a logistics company
who said, "What we needis more freight to move.
We're open, right, we're in business.
Just tell us what you need moved,
and connect us to the federal government
and other organizations whocan help us make money."
Which is great, I'm notknocking that at all.
(19:18):
But it was very obvious thatrecovery was well underway
for that organization.
So, yeah,
when you think about thethings that businesses need,
oftentimes they relate in some way
to supply chain activities.
They need debris cleared, orin the case of Philadelphia,
(19:38):
I hate to keep going back to that,
or they need a bridge rebuilt, right?
Or they need power so thatthey can get their factory
back up and running sothat they can produce
those critical items ratherthan government having to bring
in the short term relief items, right?
And it's understanding things,really, as an ecosystem.
(19:59):
And understanding thatthings that were provided
by private sector beforea disaster should,
to the extent possible,
continue to be provided byprivate sector after disaster.
The national academy's report
that the humanitarian supply chain lab did
a lot of work on back in 2018, 2019, 2020,
really showed that restoration
(20:20):
of those preexisting supplychains is the best way
to serve communities after disaster.
But if government who is controlling
some of the restorationpriorities is unaware
of what they are, then we're at odds.
I think that after disaster,
we all kind of want the same things.
We just have different ideas
(20:42):
about how they should happen, right?
We want everybody to have nutrition,
and hydration, and medical care,
but sometimes governmentthinks that they should
be the ones providing
it in the immediateaftermath of a disaster.
And private sector, bothfor financial reasons,
but also because they're better
at it if they've been doing it,
they think that they shouldbe the ones doing it.
(21:04):
So it's just a matter of, hey,we all want the same thing.
Let's have a conversation about it.
Let's figure out how we remove barriers
so we do what's in the bestinterest of the community.
- So building on thisdiscussion about government
and private sector workingtogether after disaster,
in an earlier segment of this podcast,
(21:24):
we talked about the role ofgovernment during a disaster.
And a lot of ALAN's work,
or part of ALAN's work atleast focuses on bringing
together the public and private sectors
for an optimal disaster response.
Can you talk a little bitabout that partnership
and how it can realize its full potential?
- Yeah, and I'll goback to something I said
(21:46):
about we all want the same things, right?
We want people to have nourishment,
we want people to have hydration.
We want people to have medical care.
We want to restore our communities
back to where they werepreviously, or even better.
I hope that we want them tobe better in a lot of cases.
But bringing peopletogether can be a challenge
(22:07):
because we are all busywith our day jobs, right?
Absent a disaster,
we're all running in different directions
on our own projects.
So how do we stop and think about,
okay, what is it that we'regonna ask you for in a disaster?
What is private sector goingto ask for during a disaster?
(22:27):
And it comes down to just a handful
of things over and over and over again.
They want things so thattransportation goes smoother,
right?
They want those hours of servicewaivers and weight waivers,
and things that aregonna help them respond
to the additional demandthat they're seeing
at the beginning of a disaster.
They want things that can help
(22:48):
their employees get back to work,
and that can be a whole suite of things.
In Hurricane Ida in Louisiana,
one of the big challengeshad to do with fuel.
And lots and lots of reasons for that,
which I'm sure Tim can elaborate
on for hours and hours, right?
But the workers in the grocerystores had to wait in line
(23:08):
to get fuel.
Now, there was fuel, it wasslowly being pushed out,
but the lines to get it were long.
The grocery stores were open
either because they had generators
or because power hadbeen restored to them.
But if you can't staff a grocery store,
it doesn't matter how muchproduct is on the shelves,
you can't do anything about it.
And so, sometimes from agovernment perspective,
(23:30):
is fuel for grocery store workerssomething that they should
be worried about?
It's a private sector problem,it's a business problem.
It's not really somethingthat that government should
ever really be thinking about,
except that if you don'tget the grocery stores open,
it means you have topass out more meals ready
to eat, right?
So then you have to calculatewhat's the expense of helping
(23:54):
these workers access fuel
versus the expense of memoving meals ready to eat
or bottled water to people?
So again, looking atthings as an ecosystem
and understanding what's gonnabe best for this community.
Is it to do something maybea little bit out of the norm
to help these grocery storeworkers get access to fuel?
(24:14):
Or is it, I'm following mychecklist that I've always done.
And so, I think that'sone of the challenges.
That's where I think theconversation needs to center,
is really on that common ground.
What's best for the survivor,what's best for the community,
what is best for everybody'sbudget, quite honestly, right?
(24:35):
'Cause in the end,
it ends up being cheaper ifyou can help people access food
in the way that they'veaccessed it all along.
- Yeah, I feel like the conversation,
at least since we've been inthis conversation with ALAN
and the government since 2017,
it's progressed and it's making progress.
When the pandemic first started,
we saw this desire to get the right people
(24:59):
on the essential workers list,
to get truck drivers in there,to get warehouses in there,
to get the ability for logistics to flow.
We got that push from the private sector,
and then we heard thepublic sector want to listen
to this concern, and be ableto take it and run with it.
The conversation'sreally improving, right?
- It is, and one of the really interesting
(25:20):
things about that is the conversation
is actually really improvingon the private sector side,
amongst themselves.
We're talking to lots ofdifferent private sector people
all the time, and where they can,
where they're legally allowed to,
and there are exceptionswhere they can't collaborate.
They're figuring out how to come together
(25:43):
and have that one voice to say,
"Hey, this isn't just aproblem with grocery store X
or grocery store Y,
all of the grocery storesare having this problem."
And they're actually,
there's mutual supportthat happens between them.
The major grocery storein Texas will ship water
to the major grocery storein Florida, and vice versa,
(26:04):
during major events.
So we're seeing that collaboration,
especially when there'snot direct competition.
But even when there is direct competition,
we're seeing those businesses figure
out how to work together.
When they can come together with one voice
and talk to government andsay, "Here's the problem."
Like at the beginning of COVIDwhen everybody was screaming,
(26:25):
"Hey, can't do anything ifyou don't have truck drivers,"
I think that that's when thereal progress is gonna be made.
I hope that we don't haveto wait for another pandemic
or a major catastrophic event.
I'm hopeful for some of the conversations
that are happening aroundthe country right now,
but it's that agreeing to worktogether across all sectors
(26:45):
that's gonna make a difference.
- So, Kathy,
you just mentioned thefuel wholesaler association
that did a good job of trying to reach out
and bring people in after Hurricane Ida.
Who else is doing reallygood work in this area?
- Yeah, so Energy MarketersAssociation, right?
That team has figured it out,
they can do something nationwide.
(27:06):
Another group that's reallydoing interesting things
is FMI, the Food Industry Association.
They work at the retail store level,
and they've started someinformation sharing initiatives.
They've started someeducation initiatives.
They're really figuringout that they wanna take
those best practices from their members
(27:28):
who have unfortunatelylearned because of challenges
that they've been through,
but they wanna make that a standard
across all of the membersin their association.
I really applaud that.
I applaud the workthat's being done there.
I know that there areothers who are out there.
These are just a coupleof examples of groups.
I'll also say thatwe're seeing FEMA trying
(27:49):
to be smarter about this as well, right?
FEMA really has a desire to listen
and learn from private sector.
I think that was part of the big push
behind Supply ChainAnalysis Network, SCAN.
Is to really say, "Hey,we know that business,
you guys are doing logisticsand supply chain every day."
FEMA does it a few days a year,
(28:09):
hopefully only a few days a year, right?
"We wanna stay out ofyour way, do no harm,"
as Mr. Dorko says.
Jeff Dorko,
who leads FEMA's logisticsmanagement directorate,
is always saying, "Hey, first do no harm.
We wanna stay outta business this way."
And so, when we're seeingthat from government,
we hope that it can have an influence
(28:31):
across all of the agencies in government.
FEMA gets called in to coordinatea lot of things, right?
And they are the disaster agency,
but there are other groups
who have supply chaininitiatives happening.
From the White House, to Congress,
and the Congressional Supply Chain Caucus,
wherever it is,
we just hope that they arelistening to the right partners
(28:53):
and listening to the pros,
literally the people who dosupply chain every day, right?
Let us as an industry help inform
what those policies end up being.
- As we head into the hurricane season,
what are your hopes and your fears?
(Kathy sighs)
- Hopes and fears?
(29:13):
Hope is not a strategy.
So, really, I do hope thatit's a quiet season, right?
I hope that the modelsthat the weather service
and the hurricane center have hold out,
and that we have lesshurricanes this year.
But what I really hope isthat people will decide
(29:34):
that they wanna get involvedif something does happen.
That they'll look to the bestpart of themselves and say,
"What is it that I can dothat's gonna make a difference
and not cause additional problems?"
So that's what I hope.
- Yeah, I haven't seen thatdisaster fatigue play out yet.
It seems like people arestill willing to help,
and people are still willing to reach out
(29:57):
and to do for others.
- Yeah, yeah.
It's really interesting
because we're in this verystrange time in logistics
and supply chain right now, right?
Just really strange time.
If you look at the numbers,
and the number of loads that are moving,
and this kind of, this post pandemic,
where what's really happening out there,
(30:19):
does that mean that there's more capacity
and more opportunities forpeople to do good, I hope so.
I hope that they won't waittill something happens.
But you're right, disasterfatigue, we've not seen that,
I hope we don't. (laughs)
That's another hope, I don't know.
But again, it's not a strategy,
so we're still all gonnabust our backsides trying
(30:39):
to make sure that peopleknow how they can help.
- So, Kathy, you talked about education.
You talked about this information flow
and building these connections,
maybe you could say a little bit
about the Humanitarian LogisticsAwards that you guys have.
- Yeah, thanks for asking
about our Humanitarian Logistics Awards,
or as my team affectionatelycalls them behind the scenes,
(31:01):
our HULAs.
So it's something we startedback in 2017 or 2018.
It's really aboutrecognizing the amazing work
that is getting done bysupply chain professionals
and logisticians tosupport the advancement
of humanitarian activities.
So maybe these businesses or individuals
(31:23):
that we're recognizing,
maybe their primary jobisn't humanitarian response,
but they've figured out thatsomething about it drives them.
There's something thatinterests them for it.
We've been fortunate to recognize
the Humanitarians Supply Chain Lab
as one of our previous recipients
after our work together in 2017on Harvey, Irma, and Maria.
(31:45):
I'm just thrilled that thatrelationship has just continued
to grow and expand.
So the awards recognize either businesses,
individuals, educators who arejust doing good in the world
through their skills andexpertise and knowledge.
- Yeah, I think that recognitionis so important to really,
especially in the disaster space,
(32:05):
when people a lot of timeshave their heads down
and are constantly responding,
to step back and acknowledgethat hard work is so important.
- Logistics is,
and supply chain are alwaysbehind the scenes, right?
So, even after we've beenthrough the last three years
of the pandemic,
where supply chain was inthe news every single day,
people think that theyunderstand what logistics
(32:28):
and supply chain is,but they really don't.
And so, we wanna takesomething that can be seen
as a frustration for people
who likes to be stuckbehind a truck, right,
or who likes the noise thathappens at the warehouse
down the street, right?
Those are things that can benuisances in the community,
or seen as nuisances.
And what we wanna do is say,
(32:49):
"Hey, if it weren't for these things,
you wouldn't have food on your table.
And oh, by the way, evenmore so after a disaster,
when logistics is everything."
The statistics that everybody cites,
60 to 80% of humanitarianspending goes towards logistics,
well, we just wanna recognizea little piece of that, right?
(33:10):
We want people to knowthere are people out there,
really smart people,
really dedicated peoplewho are doing so much good,
let's tell the world about them.
- So, Kathy, I'm curious tolearn a little bit about you.
So in your professional life or elsewhere,
what gets you outta bed in the morning?
What keeps you running, literally?
(33:31):
(Kathy chuckles)
- Boy, I wish I were doinga whole lot more running
than I am these days.
But what gets me out ofbed is the opportunity
to show love to people,and in practical ways.
I often say that I have theabsolute best job in the world.
I truly believe that because I get to work
on a different type ofchallenge every single day.
(33:53):
I never know what my day is gonna look
like when I get up in the morning, right?
I get to work with really cool people,
people who are passionateabout what they do,
people who are incredibly smart,
people who are incredibly dedicated,
people who just wantto do the right thing.
And I would say finally,
I know that the work thatwe're doing makes a difference.
(34:17):
I know that,
to go back to the OperationBBQ relief example,
I know that half a millionpeople are gonna get a hot meal
at some point this year justbecause I took five minutes
and made a phone call, right?
That's the easy, I havethe easy job, right?
I just have to make a phonecall or send an email,
and people respond.
So, what gets me outta bed inthe morning is the opportunity
(34:43):
to live out love in practical ways.
And sometimes love is an email,
sometimes love is a phone call.
But that's what gets me going.
- I love that.
So, Kathy, thank you somuch for joining us today.
Is there anything else you wanna add
as we wrap up this conversation?
- Yeah, Lauren, Tim,
I just wanna say thank youfor all that your team does.
(35:06):
It is so much fun to get towork with the two of you,
and Jared, and Chelsea, and Charlotte,
and everybody else who had the opportunity
to hang out with at the cool kids table
over the past few years.
Just we couldn't,
ALAN couldn't do what we dowithout the volunteer time
that you put towards our organization.
So we're super grateful for that.
(35:27):
I love the partnership,
and I'm just so thankfulthat we get to work with you.
- We are too.
We really like workingwith you, Kathy. (laughs)
- Yeah, I can't imagine doingthe work without you guys.
- Thank you, Kathy.
I know I've learned a lot aboutALAN in this conversation,
and I really appreciateyou taking the time
to talk to us today.
- Yeah, thanks, Lauren andTim, it's been a real pleasure.
(35:47):
- Thanks, Kathy.
Well, thanks for joining
us on CTL's "Supply Chain Frontiers".
I am Tim Russell,
research engineer at theCenter for Transportation
and Logistics in theHumanitarian Supply Chain Lab.
- And I am Lauren Finegan,
a research associate
at the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab.
(cheerful instrumental music)
- Alright, everyone,thank you for listening.
(36:08):
I hope you've enjoyed this edition
of "MIT Supply Chain Frontiers".
My name is Arthur Grau,
communications officer for the center,
and I invite you to visitus anytime at ctl.mit.edu.
Or search for "MIT Supply Chain Frontiers"
on your favorite listening platform.
Until next time.
(cheerful instrumental music)
Popular Podcasts
Amy Robach & T.J. Holmes present: Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial
Introducing… Aubrey O’Day Diddy’s former protege, television personality, platinum selling music artist, Danity Kane alum Aubrey O’Day joins veteran journalists Amy Robach and TJ Holmes to provide a unique perspective on the trial that has captivated the attention of the nation. Join them throughout the trial as they discuss, debate, and dissect every detail, every aspect of the proceedings. Aubrey will offer her opinions and expertise, as only she is qualified to do given her first-hand knowledge. From her days on Making the Band, as she emerged as the breakout star, the truth of the situation would be the opposite of the glitz and glamour. Listen throughout every minute of the trial, for this exclusive coverage. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Aubrey O’Day, Covering the Diddy Trial, an iHeartRadio podcast.
Betrayal: Season 4
Karoline Borega married a man of honor – a respected Colorado Springs Police officer. She knew there would be sacrifices to accommodate her husband’s career. But she had no idea that he was using his badge to fool everyone. This season, we expose a man who swore two sacred oaths—one to his badge, one to his bride—and broke them both. We follow Karoline as she questions everything she thought she knew about her partner of over 20 years. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-3 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.