Port Chaos, Tech Tension, and Tariff Drama with The Maritime Professor

Episode Transcript
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Blythe Brumleve (00:05):
Welcome into another episode of Everything is
Logistics, a podcast for thethinkers in freight. My name is
Blythe Milligan. We wereactually just talking about this
ahead of time of trying to keepyour new last name straight
anytime you do publicappearances or podcasts or
anything like that. But now thatI got that little I guess,
almost slip out of the way, weare proudly presented by SPI

(00:26):
logistics, and we've got a greatepisode for y'all today, because
we a re talking with LauraBeagen. She is the founder of
the Maritime Professor SquallStrategies, and host of by land
and sea. And we are going to betalking about all maritime
topics today, and this is,frankly, a segment of the
logistics industry that I'm notthe strongest in. And so I love

(00:49):
learning from people likeLauren. And so Lauren, welcome
back to the show.

Lauren Beagen (00:53):
Thank you. So happy to be here. And you know,
that's why I'm here, right, tohelp break all this down. I'm
trying to bridge, to bridge thegap between surface
transportation and oceantransportation, because I'm
still learning the surface side,and I'm learning from you and
all the other voices. And, youknow, that's, that's it. We're
all just working together tryingto get better educated on what
the heck's happening.

It's definitely a lot, because I wanted to
record this show actually, youknow, towards, you know, late
2024 early 2025 just becauseeverything that was going on
with the port strikes, and isthere going to be one? Is it
there going to be one? Or, youknow, nobody really knows. And
so we avoided it. But are thereany sort of residual effects of

(01:37):
what has happened since the portstrike was avoided in January,
2025 I

Unknown (01:41):
mean, oh god, yes. And no, I we were talking about
this. I think I talked aboutthis with everybody, like the
word unprecedented has taken ona more neutral tone to me these
days, right? Because, like,everything is unprecedented
these days, we are just in onceyou hit a series of

(02:02):
unprecedented times, does itjust become the times like, does
it just become normal? So Ithink that that's part of what's
happening. So yes, the portstrike was a big deal. We almost
had a port strike, if youremember, on the west coast just
a few years ago, and then we didhave the three day port strike
on the East Coast. I think thatthere will just continue to be

(02:23):
the conversation of how muchtech and advancement can we have
at the port to make us efficientand competitive on the global
stage, paired with the the needand desire to keep people real
people working at the ports,right? I mean, it's an
incredibly dangerous job. Youdon't just get hurt, you get

(02:43):
killed. And so that's the thingabout working at any port, is if
we can find tech advances thathelp with safety and security
and just ways of making surethat people don't get hurt,
slash killed, that's a goodthing. But on the other hand, at
some point, you have to also bea business, and you have to make
sure that you're still beingcompetitive on a global stage,

(03:04):
because every port is competingagainst the other port next to
them, that how can you have thatcompetitive advantage? And some
of it is through throughput andefficiency. Some of that's
paired with labor, and some ofthat is is alternative advances.
So that will continue to be theconversation. And I think that
now that there's a mastercontract in place for the six

(03:24):
years with some kind ofprotections for I think there's
like, a group that can reviewand, quote unquote, like,
approve some of the new techadvances. There's at least some
buy in from the Labor when techstarts coming to the ports and
when that efficiencyconversation starts happening.

And so what were some of those things, I
guess, that were a major hangup, because for folks who I
guess, to put it in perspective,from what I understand, the
ports are all around thecountry, not this country, but
all around the globe. I shouldsay it's almost eerie that you
can go and see a port andthere's no humans working. It's
all automated everything fromthe cranes to the trucks to

(04:04):
everything is automated andreally controlled by people
sitting in almost like a roomfull of video game controllers.
They're just operating the portthat way, versus an American
port where there's probably1000s of workers everywhere, and
to your point, you know,sometimes very dangerous
situations are port workerswanting to work in those

(04:25):
dangerous situations. Or is thata situation where they would
want to have, you know,automation, takeover or
technology come in and help, ordo they maybe get more money if
they work in those dangerousjobs? Like, what? What is the
incentive of, I guess keepingsome of this tech out. Yeah, I
mean,

Unknown (04:42):
so I think there's two points that I want to bring on.
This one is fully automated. Weright. We have long beach
container terminal at LongBeach, so that is pretty close
to that's very automated port.
And then we also have anotherone, I believe it's in Virginia.
But in general, across theworld, we only have about seven.
Percent that are fully, fully,fully automated. So people, you
know, it's a little bit of amisnomer to think that

(05:06):
everywhere else is fullyautomated, and we're not,
because, for the most part,right? 93% then the other side
of that would be, are not fullyautomated. But then I think you
also start to talk about there'sprobably a generational split.
And maybe it's a split rightaround COVID pandemic, of those
who want butts in seats, rightor like, want to be in person,

(05:28):
seven to three, you know, itmatters if you show up. And then
we kind of have this newgeneration of people who want
the flexibility and the workfrom home and the you know, they
doesn't have to always be inincredibly dangerous positions,
and there's a camaraderie thatyou lose with that. Sure, I
totally agree. I teachorganizational behavior as one
of my classes at Massachusettsmaritime Academy's master's

(05:50):
program, and that's one of thebiggest things that comes up,
is, what do you lose from notbeing in person? Because some of
these students that are comingout have never had an in person
job, they've only hadinternships that were virtual,
or they've only had, nowentering the workforce, real
jobs that they're still entirelyvirtual. So like they may never
know that camaraderie. And Ithink it looks like we're having

(06:11):
a shift back towards in person,right? We're five years post
pandemic, or five years sincepandemic started, almost to the
day. Oh, that's a little eerie,right? I think it was Friday the
13th that that New England shutdown. So I was

right around St Patrick's Day. We're recording
this on on March 11. So yeah,almost five years old,

Unknown (06:31):
wild, but, but I think that we have a little bit of a
generational divide on peoplewant a little bit more
flexibility, if it's possible,and so remote control might be
that that, like, kind of, that,like, break in the chasm of of
trying to figure out, how do youin an otherwise have to be there
in person position, how do youfind a way to have a little bit

(06:52):
more flexibility? I think that'sgoing to be balanced with just
general workforce and generallabor practices that are
happening across the board. Arewe going to continue to push for
work, for work from home, or arewe going to move more toward
everybody's in the office as adefault? I think it's going to
be a balance, right?
Everything's going to be apendulum swing for a while. But
that being said, the newgeneration might not be, and I

(07:13):
don't know this for sure, butthey there might be an
opportunity where they see somebenefit to some of this tech
advancement so that they canhave the flexibility, you know,
that otherwise wasn't there. Youhad to be there in person,
steering that wheel, perhapsnow, like you're saying, you
could be on a remote control,you know, and working from home,
at least in, like, a few of thejobs. And I don't know if that's

(07:34):
you know, that that certainlywasn't the message coming out.
But there's something to be saidabout a generational divide.

So it's a generational divide that's going
on with a lot of the workers.
What is sort of, can you give usa sense of maybe, and I don't
know if you know this, butmaybe, like, the average age of
a port worker, because, like intrucking, it's that big debate
that goes on between, like,younger drivers and trying to
get younger drivers to even beinterested in truck driving as a
profession. But the average ageof a truck driver is, like, 56
years old. Are we seeing some ofthose same I guess discrepancies

(08:03):
in age range for port workerstoo.

Unknown (08:09):
You know, I think that we have similar I think it's a
parallel industry where you tendto have an aging workforce. We
certainly see that in maritimegenerally, across the board. So
I can only imagine that it'sequally true for port workers.
But, I mean, I think that youstill have a large desire for
port workers to enter the portfield and to enter the maritime

(08:30):
workforce, because I think thatthere's this sense of adventure
and kind of, you know, maybe thedanger is a little appealing
too, right? I mean, I can't sayit enough. It is incredibly
dangerous job. I mean, thesegiant boxes, whether they're
empty or filled, if they fall onyou, like, that's it, right? And
I have many, many friends whohave said, the first day they
started on the job, somebodydied or, you know, just, it's

(08:53):
wild, how? And perhaps that,security, safety, advances that
have happened in the past, youknow, 2030, years, have helped
alleviate some of that, but it'sstill, I think there's still
this kind of adventure, youroutdoors, right there. There's
kind of all those good thingsthat are associated with some of
those more have to be in personpositions. I think that we still

(09:15):
see a desire to work in theindustry. But yeah, I think that
that's across the board, werehaving trouble filling all
roles, right, with the youngergeneration. So

we're, we talked a little bit about, you
know, sort of the technologyaspect of, you know, I guess the
the dispute between port workersand whoever they were, whoever
they're negotiating with,

Unknown (09:36):
yeah? So it's the employers, so the, yeah, yep. So
basically, that's kind of howyou generally capture it. Us.
Maritime Alliance was the EastCoast. Pacific maritime
association was the west coast.
But you basically, kind of saythe workforce versus the
employers.

And then how did those, how did those two
associations? Because I heardyou say on another interview,
and I know I'm kind of jumpingaround here a little bit, but it
just popped into my head thatthere's something like 200 The
maritime associations within themaritime industry.

Unknown (10:04):
Oh, like, what kind of associations do you mean, like,
all different kinds

of associations. So you just
mentioned, like, the East Coastand the West Coast. But I
imagine some of the otherassociations maybe aren't as
powerful as those two, and theyjust exist to, you know, sort of
be an informational resource ornetworking resource,

Unknown (10:21):
yeah? So those associations, so yeah, the US
maritime Alliance, or Pacificmaritime Association, those are
kind of associations oralliances of of the employers
themselves. So, you know, that'show they're they're kind of the
counterbalance. But similar tosurface transport, there's
associations for all sorts ofsubcategories within the
maritime industry, right? Imean, we have ports

(10:43):
associations, we have regionalports associations. We have
commodity based associations andcouncils, right? I mean, any
just similar right to to maybetrucking associations that might
be regional or national. So youcertainly have that on the
maritime side. And I think thatit's important to have that,
because sometimes you have broadbrushstroke things that are

(11:03):
happening, which is kind oftaking it a little bit away from
the US maritime Allianceconversation, but more into,
like the value of associationsbased on commodity or similar
workforce, because there'sissues that come up that you
know, sometimes it takes alarger collective I mean, you
have to be very careful, though,because at some point that turns
into collusion, that turns intomonopolistic behavior, if you

(11:26):
start to get that competitiveadvantage because you're sharing
trade secrets or some of thatconfidential business
information, not legal advice,but just be very careful. But
that's but that's where you knowthe associations do well,
because they can take some ofthose trends that are happening
across the industry, maritime,or wherever, whatever subset and
raise those as larger issuesthat should be addressed.

And so, were there any, I guess, permanent
changes that happened after thenegotiations outside of
technology, and, you know, just,you know, maybe allowing those
that those advancements on acase by case basis, was there
anything else that came out ofthe negotiations that now affect
the industry today? I mean, theincreased

Unknown (12:07):
wages is going to have, you know, it was. It was a very
valuable thing for theworkforce. They haven't had an
increase in the past six years,right? Because every these
master contracts are negotiatedover six years, so the the
increases are built in, butthey're kind of stagnant within
the contract. So certainlysalary increases is good for the
immediate workforce. But thenalso that means that that port

(12:29):
and that workforce now is alittle bit more expensive, and
so that does impact the rest ofthe industry of Okay, now we
have to kind of absorb that. Sowhether that's the ocean
carriers or the terminals, oreven the shippers and the BCo is
the best of Chicago ownersactually moving the goods
anytime, anywhere, as you know,right in the supply chain
ecosystem, anytime anywhere,gets a little bit more
expensive, then that can have aknock on effect, and it gets

(12:52):
shared around. We're probablyseeing it similarly with with
some of the tariff scares andsome of the actual tariffs going
into place. Well,

speaking of tariffs, I mean, that's a good
segue into the next question Iwanted to talk about, because
you just got back from TPM. AndTPM is from what I've never been
but I've always heard that thisis one of the best conferences
to go to. You know, we weretalking before we hit record on
on all of your videos that youposted from it looks like a
super fun event. So for folkswho don't know what TPM is, can

(13:20):
you kind of give us an overview,and then what your first time
experience was like? Yeah,

Unknown (13:25):
so Trans Pacific maritime is what the conference
is called, but TPM, everyonejust calls it TPM. It's a
conference of Joc or S and PGlobal. So it's an S and P
Global tends to be kind of moreshipper focused, but it's
basically all ocean shippingrelated issues. So there's some
surface transport, but it reallystays focused on the ocean

(13:48):
shipping side of things. Thisconference is so good, I'm
telling you, like thisconference was top life
experience. While I was there, Ikept saying, this is ocean
shipping nerd camp. I never wantto leave toward the end of the
week. You know, like when youwere a kid and you were kind of
like, Oh, man. Like, oh, man,I've had so much fun at this,
like, sleep, way camp. That'show I felt. And I was like,
lamenting that it was coming toan end. And then, you know, you

(14:10):
kind of have like, one or twolast events. And there was a co
hosted event by the Port of LAand the dcsa Digital container
shipping Association. And itkind of felt like that last
lunch that your mom lets you goto with all of your friends from
camp and like, it's, it's likethe best lunch. That's kind of
how that last event felt, thatit just was the best, the

(14:30):
overall best experience. I'lltell you that I got years worth
of networking done within a fewdays. That's how amazing this
conference has become. I'veheard that it's always been
amazing, but every year it getsa little bit more impactful and
really kind of dynamic, I guessis as terrible as that word is,
but it really, I mean, like thetruest sense of that word, this

(14:51):
is such an all encompassingeverybody in the industry of
ocean shipping is there, and ifthey're not, they're staying
closely engaged. Engaged onLinkedIn to kind of create the
illusion that they're stillthere. I have so many special
LinkedIn friends, is what I wascalling them, that I was finally
meeting in person, that, youknow, I had close relationships

(15:11):
with some of these people, and Ijust never met them in person.
And so it was, it was almostlike, Oh, I didn't realize they
were so tall, you know, becauseI just never met them. I didn't
know how tall they were.

So Steve Herrera, shout out to him. Yeah,
exactly tall. I didn't

Unknown (15:27):
know he was super tall, but I, but I've kept in touch
with him for the past four orfive years. Like, I feel like
we're special, LinkedIn,friends. Yeah, it was, it was, I
mean, like, I'm not even beingoverly boastful. I am not a paid
advertiser. Like, that's justtruly my experience. It was
phenomenal. That's

and so is it just, I don't want to say just
the US community, but it feelslike it's more of a global
community, because I echo yourstatements every time I leave
manifest. And like I'm walkingout of the last session, I feel
kind of sad, because it's like,all the signage and all of the
other thing, you're just walkingout and you're seeing it for the
last time, and it's like, oh,you have so many good memories.
So I imagine that thatexperience is the same at TPM.

(16:08):
And is it more of like a globalaudience, or is it mostly US
based,

Unknown (16:11):
yeah, global. I mean, we had, you know, some of the
ocean carriers CEOs were therein person, giving presentations
on panels. I mean, we had Sorentalked to wall. All these, all
this tariff news, and all thisocean shipping and ship
building, right? We have thejoint session present speaker
speaking to Congress. When Trumpwent and spoke to Congress, that

(16:31):
happened in the middle of TPMthat, like, the very next day,
everybody was like, did you hearthere's an office of
shipbuilding gonna be stood up?
And everyone's like, this is themost maritimes ever been in a,
you know, address to Congress,like, you know, just like
nerding out on the little thingsthat. Like, had you been back at
your own house? Like your kids,your parents, you're like, your
husband, wives, they don't wantto hear about that. Like,
they're like, oh, cool, the shipbuilding.

Let's talk about some of those, I guess,
bigger topics that that youexperience or were discussing
with other people, Office ofship building. What exactly is
that going to be? Because I sawthe announcement too. Friend of
the show, Salma cogiano, wasvery excited. John Conrad, of
course, as well, big movers, andI guess online with facilitating
that discussion to the forefrontof people. And so it's cool to

(17:18):
hear that it was just asexciting for the folks at TPM.
So what is the office ofshipbuilding?

Unknown (17:23):
Yeah, so it's still being stood up, so it's kind of
a little bit amorphous now onwhat it's ultimately going to
be, but, and there are people,you know, being stood up in the
office, but until it kind ofgets it's like formal
announcement and formal here'sour mission. It's hard to
totally say, but how into Imean, the thing about maritime
ship building in the US is wehave fallen so far off the map

(17:45):
on kind of a competitive playerof us built ships that we are
down to God, I want to say wehave maybe 60 or less ships that
are us, flagged us, like Youknow, us, built or manned, or
any of that. So, you know, weget to this point where it's
very much like, if we don't haveships, we're not prepared. And

(18:10):
it used to be, if you ruled theseas, you ruled the world,
right? And that was kind of likeall these Netherlands at one
point. They ruled the seasbecause they ruled or they ruled
the world because they ruled theseas. We just don't have the
capacity. We do haveshipbuilding, it's still
happening, but that's somethingthat we just don't have the
capacity anymore to turn vesselsaround and really get them out

(18:31):
there. And so that's not evenjust from a military
perspective, but that's kind ofthe part that's been attached to
why maritime security isnational security. Because if we
don't have vessels to eitherwe're still creating and
building naval vessels, and sothat's happening, but we need
vessels to support that. Andthat's where you build into sea
lift operation sealscapabilities, which is basically

(18:53):
the support vessels that go outand help the military vessels
that are out there. And so if wedon't have our own vessels to go
out and do that then, you know,we're at a, at a military
competitive disadvantage. Butthen that's not even speaking
about the commercial side. Imean, the US flag fleet, we
talked about all the oceancarriers, and they have, and I
think, unfairly, been clumpedinto these foreign bad guys,

(19:16):
right? I mean, they're, they're,they're the only ones out there,
and we don't have a US presencein in a significant way for this
kind of commercial fleet. Soeverybody, of course, is going
to be a foreign guide to us.
Wouldn't it be wild? And I thinkthat's part of the directive
here, is if we became not onlylike a competitor again, but
like a competitive competitor,where we had US flag vessels and

(19:38):
now all those foreign oceanshipping companies, maybe it's
just all the ocean shippingcompanies in the US is one of
them, right? Like so then youget, you kind of control a
little bit of the messaginghere. And I say, I don't think
that the ocean carriers arenecessarily the bad guy. I think
there's been differences ofopinion on how, you know,
charges and surcharges andthings. Like that, and it's

(19:59):
being worked out, right? That'spart of what the FMC is working
through, is making sure thatsurcharges are appropriately
assessed in a way that everybodykind of understands is the
appropriate way, right? There'sa little bit of incentive
principle and like making surethat it's for the fluidity of
the movement of the goods. Butyou could almost distill it down
that some of the disagreementsover the years have been just

(20:21):
differences of interpretation.
Should it be for lost business?
Should it be for, you know, ifthey still need the box, or they
still need the the equipmentmoved, you know, if it's sitting
there with somebody else's goodsin it, is that a competitive
disadvantage for that oceancarrier who's trying to, you
know, continue to get businessand continue to move stuff? So,
you know, I've kind of seguedinto a little bit of the side

(20:43):
here, but you know, that's wherethe alliances are important,
because they really are a way tomonitor the movement and
creation of the ocean shipmentsand the ocean carriers in a way
that we can see. Because thealternative is then they all
start buying each other up, andthen that's mergers and
acquisitions, and then youreally do have monopolistic
behavior. So But getting back toit, us being a competitive

(21:04):
player in that field, like weused to be, and we used to have
sea land, APL, you know, we havea certain a couple of others
that are, that are in the world,but we just need more vessels.
And so where do you start? Isship building. We also need more
vessels to train more mariners,because we have a significant,
severe Mariner shortage rightnow and but you can't really

(21:25):
train the the mariners unlessyou have the ships. You can't
really have the ships unless youhave the mariners. So it's kind
of a often set a chicken and eggproblem. So just the fact that
we're taking steps forward withthe we will have shipbuilding as
a priority of this White Houseis, I mean, mind blowing,
because maritime has rarely beentalked about. I remember when

(21:45):
Biden, under one of hiscongressional addresses, said,
you know, the ocean carriers,and this is probably why I was
talking about carriers so much.
He said, I want to bop him inthe nose. And everybody was
like, I don't even care what hesaid. He mentioned maritime.
Like, I'm like, This is soamazing. And so, you know, that
was wild, and that was kind oflike a negative connotation.

(22:06):
Here we are moving, you know,couple years forward, and we
have, like, something that we'rebuilding, something that we're
creating. You know, how it'sgoing to happen, all of that
still kind of being worked out,but just the intention of we
will be a ship building nation,again is wild. I love it. I
mean, anytime that you arepumping money into maritime and

(22:26):
for a US fleet is going to besomething that will, in my
opinion, bring dividends back tothe country. And

that's such a great point to bring up,
especially among therelationships, because it's
completely opposite of what sortof trucking is in the US, where
there are so it's, I think it's93% of the carriers in this
country have seven trucks orless. And so it's very few
companies that control a lot ofthe trucks on the road, where

(22:55):
it's the inverse, on ocean, onthe ocean carrier side, where
it's a handful of companies thatcontrol all of the ships. And so
I'm curious, Why would, whywould the United States ever,
like, I guess, look away fromthat strategic advantage. What?
Why did they let the timeprogram and ship building kind
of fall to the wayside over thelast, I guess, few decades?

Unknown (23:16):
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different reasons, but I
would say part of it is it wascheaper labor, less stringent
workforce requirements, right? Imean, there was probably some,
some bottom line decisions beingmade around there, and there's
other reasons too, but I mean,that was part of it as everybody
was moving toward this, like,cheaper, faster, you know,

(23:39):
model. Part of that becameoffshoring and then moving it
faster and cheaper, and it justkind of all snowballed into it
became more expensive to have,you know, good paying jobs, or
American, you know, Americanlevels of wages, American levels
of workers. And you know, that'swhere the Jones Act sometimes

(24:01):
comes into the conversation. Ofwhere it's it falls on both
sides, right? I think there'sarguments against it, there's
arguments for it, but reallywhat it does is it ensures that
we have this American workforceon American vessels. But in
order for the Jones Act toreally be successful, you have
to also fund it. You have toalso have the industry funded

(24:21):
behind it. And so as fundingkind of dried up for
shipbuilding programs, and, youknow, kind of that long term
viability, I think that theJones Act kind of suffered
through that. And, you know, Ithink that we're going to see,
we're going to see this continueto move forward, and I think
that the shipbuilding initiativeis, is really such a significant

(24:43):
and successful step one? The

only thing that worries me, I guess, about it,
though, is that, is this justgoing to be a priority for four
years, and is, is the nextadministration going to come in
and, you know, completely guttedagain, because it takes a while
to build these ships, right?

Unknown (24:57):
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, we're not going to have
100 vessels in four years.
Dollars, right? So, but thenhaving CMA CGM come out the
other day and say that they'reinvesting $20 billion through
kind of different initiatives ofinvesting in the US flag fleet
and shipbuilding and kind ofdifferent areas that is money
that they're not soon going tobe turning away from in four
years, right? So I think thatthere's, it's It's everybody's

(25:18):
like, Why is everything movingso quickly? And I think, to me,
that's part of the the theme,right? I see, when we change
administrations, you know, I trynot to get too worked up about,
okay, what is the change?
Because, look, it's theadministration. Like, we're
moving forward. Let's, let's seewhat's going on. When we
switched from to Biden lastadministration, it was okay, so

(25:39):
what's the new theme that'shappening here? It was going to
be diversity. It was going to beenvironment. Now we're switching
over to Trump. And okay, what'sthe new theme here? What's going
to be appealing, kind of, what'sthe theme that you want to tag
on to seems like it's if itmakes business sense, it makes
overall sense to him, right?
Like creating the business case,and that USA first seemed to be
the kind of two major themesthat I'm seeing. And so bringing

(25:59):
it back around, I think thatthat's part of it is, okay. So
CMA CGM is, is investing $20billion into this USA I don't
want to say USA first, becausethey're, they're a foreign
company, but like this USAinitiative, and so if there's
going to be a further increasein the USA flag fleet. Now
they're part of it right, andnow they can continue to be part

(26:22):
of it. And so I don't thinkwe're going to end the at the
end of this four years. I don'tthink we're going to end at this
60 vessels only. I think we'llhave kind of sufficient
contracts in place so that thosevessels want this once they're
built, have a place to go, havethings to do, and have kind of a
smart business case associatedwith them, so that they can

(26:44):
sustain

and who is this company, I guess, what? What
country are they from?

Unknown (26:50):
Yep, CG CMA, CGM.
They're out of France, sothey're out of Marseille. Yeah,
so there's a few different,yeah, like MSC is with, yeah,
there's a few different. If youlook at these ocean carriers, I
mean, they're, yeah, they're,Costco is from China. They're,
they're kind of associated withwith countries. They're not only
that country, right? But, youknow, I mean, but wouldn't that
be wild if the US can now belike, Oh, well, you know, I

(27:13):
don't know if we're going tocontinue to call it sea land,
because sea lion actually gotbought by Mayor way back when.
But maybe we'll kind of comearound to like, I mean, let's be
silly here. Maybe it's the theGold Group. I feel like
everything Trump's creating islike gold. So maybe it'll be
like the gold fleet. Oh, they'rebased in the US, you know, like,
red white fleet, or, you know,something red wine, blue fleet,

(27:36):
yeah, but, I mean, but that'sit. Like, it we've gotten so far
away from that, and I thinkthat's why Sal really kind of
digs in on this, is like he evensaid it the other day. It's been
outside of his lifetime thatwe've been a competitive force
in shipbuilding or just sailingon high seas. And so to be able
to get back to that just createsso many more opportunities. And
when things go real wild in theindustry, you can still, I mean,

(27:59):
you have to be careful, becauseyou're not going to the FMC is
flag neutral. So that'simportant to know. So the
federal Maritime Commission thatI often talk about, who's really
kind of the competitionauthority for ocean shipping,
they're flag neutral. So evenflag neutral to us, flag they're
just looking for competitionthings. And so they are for the
promotion, or they're for thebenefit of the US, importer,

(28:21):
exporter and consumer. So that'sreally who they're focused on,
who they're trying to protect.
But that's flag neutral. So, youknow, I just say that because I
think that we still need to,even if the US were to become,
become a competitive player inthis field, it wouldn't be able
to now all of a sudden be like,Oh, rates are high. We're only
taking us cargo, and we're goingto just protect our own like you

(28:43):
still have to be careful there.
And

so if you if everything goes to plan, and I
guess tentatively right now,what is a realistic expectation
of how many ships we could seefrom this administration at the
end of year four? Hard

Unknown (28:59):
to say, because I also, I'm waiting for, potentially, a
conversation about techadvances, because I've also
heard that he doesn't just wantpaper weight vessels, right?
Like, he doesn't just want,like, the the big steel hold. I
think that there's a push forresearch and development for
tech advanced vessels, so thatit's kind of like the coolest

(29:19):
ships out there. And obviouslythose are going to be more
expensive and take more time,but maybe they won't right,
like, maybe there's somethingthat we're not even really
talking about on a larger scalethat could make this faster. I
don't know, right? I don't know.
I mean, he's got some big technames associated with him these
days, and they make things. Imean, Elon makes spaceships, so,
you know, a spaceship layingdown is kind of like a vessel in

(29:42):
water. I, I don't know, but Imean all that to say, I wouldn't
be surprised if we heard somesome announcements or something
along the lines of, like, there,there's also, as we're doing
this ship building, we're goingto recreating some of the.
Regular vessels that we've cometo know and love. But then there
might also be some advancedvessels that I don't know, I

(30:04):
don't know. Hopefully it's

a good variety, you know, of the big vessels the
smaller vessels you know, to beable to compete with all the
different ports, because notevery port can take, you know,
some of the giant vessels thatyou know have been created in
the last couple of years, but,but then some of them are, you
know, cater to smaller ships. Ithink we, we saw a lot of that
during, you know, just that allthe shipping drama that's
happened in the last like fiveyears, yeah, yeah,

Unknown (30:29):
well, and that was part of the diversification of entry,
right? And being able to go to,instead of just shipping all of
your goods out of the largestports in the country, going and
finding some of the smaller tomedium port size ports, so that
way you can control a little bitof that backlog, if there's, if
there's congestion, or, youknow, they may be those smaller
or medium ports might be lesslikely to feel the congestion

(30:50):
when it hits big time. You know,the other thing that this
administration keeps talkingabout is icebreakers. And I know
that you and Grace areparticularly, particularly
interested in the ice breaking.
Actually, I am too. I used towork a little bit on extended
continental shelf project of theArctic, and that is something
that we desperately need, right?

(31:10):
Because there's only the twoicebreakers, large icebreakers,
and really one, and she's oftenin and out of dry dock getting
fixed up anyway. So like, wehave a desperate need for ice
breaking and ship building inthe ice breaking category. And I
don't think that he saidspecifically, I maybe he said 30

(31:30):
very large icebreakers. It was,it was a little bit of kind of a
general statement, but, yeah, Iknow that there's an intention
for ice breaking capability aswell. Well, you, because you

worked on, I think mapping, like the Arctic
shipping lanes, is that? Am Igetting that right? No,

Unknown (31:45):
yeah, that's yeah. So it wasn't the shipping lanes,
but it was so I actually teachlaw of the sea at Roger Williams
School of Law. So that's partlywhy the maritime professor came
in, because I'm, like, teachingall these courses anyways. But
yeah, I used to work on the USextended continental shelf
project, and so it was acontracted position. But what
that position was, was lookingat the underwater. So like, you

(32:06):
have the water, and you have theland, and then you have the
continent basically dips under,and that's where the sand is,
and then it keeps going out, andthen at a certain point, it
dives even further out, andthat's the extent. So you got
the continental shelf, and thenbeyond that, it's the extended
continental shelf, and there'ssome numbers associated with how
far out, 200 nautical miles, andthen up to 350 nautical miles,

(32:28):
but like really far offshore.
But in those areas, that's wherethey're finding manganese
nodules, that's where they'refinding diamonds. In some
respect, that's where they'refinding some of those,
potentially oil and gasdeposits, all sorts of things
that we don't even know what'sout there, but that was part of
the project was kind of mappingwhat we have, the hydrography,
the geological sediment that'sunder there, kind of making the

(32:50):
case for how far out. And itwasn't just in the Arctic. It
was basically anywhere we have acontinental shelf. So us, East
Coast, West Coast. I mean,everywhere. Hawaii. So, yeah, so
it was, but it was the Arcticthat was, like, I was
particularly interested in, but,so, yeah, I got to know kind of
the the the world of Arctic andice breaking and the need for

(33:11):
it. Oh, my God. And that was1015, years ago. And I'm like,
we still need to be having theseconversations, right? Like we
still need these icebreakerslike we needed them yesterday,
but also today.

And that's because, you know that, I guess,
for folks who may notunderstand, a lot of the Arctic
ISIS melting, so it's opening upnew trade lanes that could
drastically reduce the shippingtime from, especially from East
Asia and Russia over to theUnited States and vice versa. Do
I have that kind of right? Yeah.

Unknown (33:42):
But the trouble is, there isn't a lot of search and
rescue operations that areavailable up there. But then
also, you know, if, if you havean oil spill, it's a different
salinity, it's a differentdensity, you know, just the
environment that you're in upthere is a lot harsher. So the
commercial viability of newshipping routes is probably not

(34:05):
quite there yet, mostly becauseI think you have to really be
careful, like, Well, whathappens if, and you know,
anywhere, right? You don't wantoil to go anywhere, but it's, it
kind of has this connotation ofpristine up in the Arctic,
right? And so you don'tnecessarily want, that's just a
concern. But then also, I mean,if you get stuck right, like,
if, if something happens,there's not a lot of options for

(34:27):
being able to just come and,like, helicopter you in and out,
like, medivacu. So that's also,it's, it's incredibly dangerous
without the support that youmight need. So there are, I've
been hearing of, there's here,and there cruise ships that are
going through, but I thinkthey're kind of on a limited
basis, and there's interest init certainly, because it would

(34:49):
cut down time. But I don't know,I don't know, the viability of,
like tomorrow, all of this justswitching over, but it's
certainly something that peopleare looking at,

and especially from the I guess. The Greenland
aspect too, which obviously wewere recording this in the
middle of March. So who knows,you know what, what has happened
by the time that you've listenedto this? But there's also the, I
guess, the Greenland argumenttoo, that kind of ties into, you
know, the Arctic shipping lanesand wanting to secure those
natural resources, and, I guess,more solid land, because to to

(35:19):
your point, if something doeshappen in the Arctic. You can't
get a truck up there because theroad, just roads are too sloshy,
and then the closest thing thatyou can get is another ship. And
if you don't have anyicebreakers, and you're stuck in
the ice, like, what are yougoing to do? So it's kind of
this, you know, I guess,combination of a bunch of
different terrible things thatcould go on. But hey, there's
tourists that are paying a lotof money, you know, to, I guess,

(35:41):
to go on one of theseicebreakers and to get off and
kind of walk on the ice for alittle bit. Yeah,

Unknown (35:47):
yeah. They call it the god, what? It's something like
the polar bear walk, orsomething like to be able to get
out, yeah? I mean, that's thething is. So, you know, the
Greenland conversation is sointeresting, because when that
was first presented, maybe a lotof people thought about
Greenland as maybe this, like,Okay, what do we need about
Greenland, right? There's nomajor cities. Like, what are we

(36:09):
talking about Greenland for?
Because of my, I guess, exposureto the Arctic and the vastness
of the of the resources. I mean,my instant thought was, oh, my
God. Like, that's, I mean, ifthat happens, that's wild. Like
there's so much opportunity andavailability. I'm not getting
into the geopolitics, right?
Like, I don't you know thatthat's for everybody else to

(36:30):
figure out whether Greenlandwants to or doesn't want to, and
you know, all all of that kindof how that politically works
out. But just from a land massperspective, there is so much
that Greenland has available toit in natural resources, and
there's, like, politicalpositioning and all of that. But
I mean, like we're sayinganything that's up in the Arctic

(36:52):
is really kind of this untappedresource, and I think it feels
like we're moving closer andcloser to the Arctic becoming
more of a central playing zonethan we ever had in the past. I
mean, it's still permafrost,right? I mean, it's still going
to be significantly isolating,but wouldn't you rather have all
the preparations made, right?
Like going back to theicebreaker conversation,

(37:13):
wouldn't you rather have allthose kind of pieces laid out in
advance before we need them. AndI think that's part of the
conversation for why shipbuilding is so important in
general, right? If we ever needmore vessels across the world,
that might be something that,let's make sure that we have
those vessels now and they'reready to go, then when we need
them, and they take, you know,couple years, five to 10 years,

(37:35):
to get the fleet going. So yeah,I mean, all of this is it's just
so exciting to have maritime inso many large conversations. And
I'll tell you, I have not talkedabout maritime more with my
family than I have in the pastyear or so. It's making national
news, which it never used to dothat before. I mean, even the

(37:56):
port strike, it took until oneor two days before the actual
strike, and everybody in theindustry was like, Oh, my God, I
think, I think we're going tohave a strike on the first time.
Yeah, I think it was

like, even, like, a poly market bet as well,
where you could bet on if thepart the port workers were going
to strike or not. And so I thinka lot of people lost money if
they voted in favor of a strike.
But I mean that, you know, teachtheir own so Okay, so we've
talked about, we talked aboutTPM, we talked about Greenland.
We talked about shipbuilding,icebreakers for the fifth, I
guess, sort of complicatedtopic. Let's talk about tariffs.

(38:30):
Who knows what's going to happenby the time that you actually
like listen to thisconversation. The tariffs are
very much like, on and offagain, versus Canada versus the
Mexico versus the rest of theworld. How are you helping? I
guess maybe your clientsnavigate some of these just
confusion and and just Yeah, Ithink confusion is probably the

(38:54):
best word for

Unknown (38:56):
it, yeah. I mean, right now is a very sticky time,
right? There's a lot going on,and I think there's a lot of
political posturing that'shappening from tariffs, and I
think that we're seeing thatplay out, right? I mean, one day
we have tariffs, the next day,you know, there's been a new
political positioning taken fromthe administration because of
the tariffs. So, you know,getting into the actual
specifics of what's good andwhat's bad, I tend not to do

(39:17):
that, what I do. And I think Ikind of mentioned this. When
administrations come in, Ialways kind of advise my clients
to look for the themes, right.
Look for the themes. And insteadof pushing against what's
happening, find opportunitieswith those new themes. And so,
like I said, it was, it waspreviously, it was environment,
it was diversity. Was very muchthe theme of how you can, you
know, kind of create businessopportunities under the Biden

(39:41):
administration. Now the businessopportunities are going to be
coming in the form of makingbusiness cases, right, like
running things true tobusinesses, running the what
we're seeing it looks like isthe United States being turned
into a business and and kind ofrunning it so that it no longer
runs at a deficit. And. So, youknow, the argument is okay, so
the tariffs are going to bedoing that. I'm not saying

(40:03):
whether that's good or bad, theright decision or not, but what
I'm advising my clients is tryto find those themes and try to
find ways to parallel with them,because you'll find less
resistance. You'll find,hopefully, opportunities in
those areas. In the meantime,though, like, what do you do
tomorrow? It makes it reallytough, because there's a lot of
uncertainty. We saidunprecedented times are now just

(40:25):
becoming precedented times. Andso what does that mean? I mean
in general, right? The way yourun a business during
unprecedented times oruncertainty, diversification,
that's that's always right? Wewere saying diversification of
income. You can't always do thatwith with a business, but
sometimes, when the portcongestion was happening, maybe
diversification of the ports ofentry might be one way to start

(40:45):
looking. So that way, if oneport has something that gets
impacted, you have otheroptions. Or East Coast versus
West Coast, right when you'rehaving the labor discussions
trying to diversify some ofthose ports of entry to either
side of the US might be anavenue. It might be more
expensive one side or the other,but if one side goes down with a
port strike, you have the otherside to kind of rely on. We're

(41:07):
at least four years away fromthe next conversation about port
strikes, but now might be thetime to start having those
conversations aboutdiversification of how you kind
of approach that you don't butthe other thing is, it's easy to
say diversification of ports ofentry, but some of these
commodities need certainwarehouses or need certain
systems around the port thatthey only get in certain areas.

(41:29):
And so maybe now part of theconversation is increasing
engagement with some of theother areas that you might want
to diversify your ports of entryto, and saying, Hey, what do you
have to offer this industry?
Right? This is an area that wewould like to diversify where we
come in. You know, are there anyopportunities to do that? We
have a lot of infrastructuredevelopment happening around the

(41:49):
ports in general. So I thinkthat we're still going to see
port infrastructure developmenthappening with this
administration. I think thatwe're probably going to see
perhaps a little bit moretowards strategic ports, which
is money, funding toward ports,that they can be turned into
military or military helpfulports. That's something that
strategic ports is kind of aterm of art. So that's something

(42:11):
that's already available. Notevery port out there has the
strategic ports, but there mightbe some funds available along
those lines. One thing that wesaw there's the ships for
America Act that came out. Itwas the Kelly waltz Bill
previously it, but it turnedinto the ships act. So that was
Mark Kelly, Democrat senatorfrom Arizona, and Mike waltz, a

(42:32):
Republican congressman fromFlorida. Ultimately, when the
bill was presented, Mike waltzhad turned into the National
Security Advisor to the Trumpadministration. But it also says
to me, when he was working as acongressman on this bill, it was
a lot of push toward militaryreadiness. Military security is
national security, right? That'sone of the themes that I keep
seeing, that if you're movingtoward military assistance or

(42:57):
military promotion within theindustry, that's going to be
supported, it seems like, bythis administration, especially
because he became the nationalsecurity advisor. So at the
time, I was like, well, at leastwe know maritime will come up in
the conversation. Now we have,you know, now we have the
maritime I think there's anactual maritime person in the
national security advisory area.
Then you also have this office,the shipbuilding. It was so much

(43:18):
maritime. So just a few weeks,but all that to say. So what do
you do with the tariffs? I mean,obviously, continue to watch
them, but it's going to be, itfeels like it's going to be a
little bit of a wild ride forthe time being. Maybe some of
the best things that you can dois, like I said, I mean, you
don't want to overreact rightthere. And I say that very

(43:40):
cautiously and carefully,because I don't want to say that
reacting at all is overreacting,because some of these things are
might put people out ofbusiness, right? I mean, that's
that's part of the if youweren't able to sustain some of
this movement, then some ofthese are going to have some
major impact. It feels like, inthe short term, though, it feels
like the conversation keepscoming back to this is going to

(44:01):
be a short term thing for a longterm gain. So what do you do?
Find ways of aligning with thetheme, right? Find ways of, kind
of creating new businessopportunities where you can
align with what's going on, sothat you know if, if and when. I
mean when, right. We can't havepresidents that stay forever. So
when we have the nextadministration change, same

(44:22):
thing. Don't fight against thegrain there, right? Go with the
theme that's developing, andfind ways of really kind of
aligning and finding businessopportunities there. I mean,
it's, it's gonna, it's gonnafeel a little wishy washy,
right? It's gonna feel a littlependulum really swinging. And so
maybe you just kind of stay inthe middle of it all and keep
your head down. I mean, maybe,if it's not affecting you

(44:45):
directly, maybe you just kind ofcontinue business as is, and
then hopefully you find morebusiness opportunities when the
dust settles a bit. I'm, youknow, I'm not saying anything
people don't know, right? It's,it's, it feels like a wild time.
But you also. Want to assumethat the administration that's
in is doing the best they canand trying to help the overall
American people. And so whetherthat was the Biden

(45:08):
administration or now the Trumpadministration, you know, maybe
it's looking at it with Okay,what does success look like to
them? What does winning looklike to them as the
administration and finding waysof meeting them at the finish
line there, I don't know, justdifferent ways of looking at it.
Well,

I think it, it kind of all sounds like,
whenever shit hits the fan, likethis, that it really comes down
to finding really great, maybeconsultants, really great
internal, you know, experiencedemployees, probably also
technology, and combining all ofthose to, you know, try to stay
ahead and and create contingencyplans. Is all of that sort of

(45:48):
playing a role when, when stufflike this happens like because I
would imagine this is a perfectuse case for AI to, you know,
find different sourcing of yourmaterials. Find the ports with
the warehouses that are close bythat can store those goods
trying to avoid as many tariffsas possible. Is that, does that
solution exist on the market, oris it really just combining,

(46:09):
like the consultants with thesubject matter experts and
technology? I think

Unknown (46:13):
it's all right. I think it's all of it. I mean,
obviously AI feels like itcertainly, I mean, significantly
speeds things up. But on theother hand, you have to know
what you're talking about,because it could be speeding up
bad data, right? I mean, I've,I've looked through and, you
know, I'll admit to it, I whenI'm doing some of my podcasting,
if I'm kind of struggling withhow I want to word things, I'll

(46:34):
throw it into AI, see what itcomes up with. And then
sometimes, I mean, it even justthe other day said, well, the
FMC, Dan chairman, Dan Mafe. AndI was like, that's bad
information. Like it's, it's Lusola. He's been the chairman for
a while now, you know. So it'sif you didn't know that you
would have just taken that astruth. And so creating a
business based on AI outputs isa dangerous game if you don't

(46:59):
know the game. And so that'swhere having the consultants, if
you don't know the gameyourself, bringing consultants
in to help augment your yourexpertise in the game, because
you can make pretty bad mistakesby just not quite knowing what
the heck's going on. And youhave to follow it pretty
diligently and obsessively,almost to really kind of know

(47:21):
what's happening, and that'swhere you know, even, even me as
an ocean shipping consultant,and really kind of helping, I
help my my clients, kind ofnavigate global ocean shipping
regs. That's not tariffs, right?
That's not necessarily customs,that's not all these other
places that feel like they'reall part of the same thing. And
I kind of obsessively watchocean shipping, and that's why I
love 2pm last week, but that'sit. Is finding people who are, I

(47:42):
mean, pretty connected to what'shappening, pretty clued into
what's happening, maybeconnected, not the right word,
really clued into what'shappening and watching it,
almost in this obsessive sense,so that you can have the best
information around you for youto make that business decision.
Because the consultants don'tmake the business decisions for
you. They just give you a largerlike coloring of the of the

(48:05):
coloring book so that you canfully understand, okay, I know
that Santa's belt is black. Youmight not have known that had
you not known. Maybe it's red.
No, his jackets red, right?
Like, that's kind of the theconsultants help you find out
what you firm up, what you mayor may not know, so that you can
make a business decision insomewhere that like might not be

(48:26):
totally clear.

That makes a ton of sense. And I feel like
that's such a great sound bite.
Like waiting to happen. You seeme like riding off to the side.
I'm writing down timestampsevery time you said something
good, and we're running out ofroom over here on, on the post
it note. Okay, last couplequestions here. Is there
anything else that it was a, Iguess, a an important topic to
your clients, also at TPM. Isthere anything else that is

(48:52):
going on in maritime right nowthat other factors of the
logistics audience or segmentsshould know whether it's
warehousing or trucking, becausethey all, you know, intertwine
and play a role together. Butwas there any other themes or
takeaways that you thought wereimportant? Yeah.

Unknown (49:09):
I mean, I think every obviously, everything, right,
everything that's happening outthere, I think the biggest thing
that anybody can do is justeducate themselves on what's
going on. So whether that'shiring consultant or, you know,
maybe shameless plug here, butI'm gonna have E courses coming
out on just general informationabout what I do. So my
consultancy is really the directapplication, right? It's that

(49:33):
that's where you bring thelawyer in the direct application
of what the ocean shipping regsare doing and how that relates
to the specific environment thatyour company is going through.
But then sometimes you just wantto know, like, Who the heck is
the federal Maritime Commissionanyways, right? Like, who might
have just started in theindustry? And you're like, there
is no reliable 101, like, whatare alliances? Why are they

(49:53):
better than the alternative? Soyou know that that's part of the
classes that I'm going to bepushing out with the maritime
professor. I do. Live webinarson that, and that's just so that
you can kind of have a firststop approach. Of, I want to
know a little bit about oceanshipping. I don't necessarily
need to hire somebody directly,but I do need to stay informed
on what's happening out there.
And so that's where I, you know,I've kind of found a an opening

(50:14):
where there really wasn't thatavailable, and we have surface
transport kind of, but there'sthis world of, I just want good
information, and I need it tostill down so that I don't have
to listen to somebody, you know,ramble on about a topic for four
hours in a class. I just want,like, half hour, 45 minutes of
what's going on. What do I needto know? And so that's part of

(50:37):
what I do with the maritimeprofessor is finding those
trends and help saying, Hey, payattention to this case, right?
Holidays and weekends is onething that's happening at the
FMC right now. They've beenworking through whether or not
you should be charging fordemurrage or detention. There's
a case TCW versus evergreen.
It's still very much fluid. Itwent out to US Court of Appeals

(50:59):
for the DC Circuit. It's comeback to FMC now. FMC just
recently put out a decisionsaying that they kind of double
down saying, you know, if you'reclosed, it's, it's, it's not
aligned with the incentiveprinciple. And that's one thing
that the FMC has been saying.
It's like fluid, fluidity ofmovement is the incentive
principle. You should not becharging. This is what the FMC

(51:20):
kind of is arguing. You shouldnot be charging for detention
and demurrage unless it'sactually providing that
incentivization of the movementof goods, like so if your box is
sitting there, and I mean, theassumption is you don't care
about it, unless you startgetting charged for it, now, all
of a sudden it becomes top ofmind, and you're like, Oh, I got
to get that out. I you know, I'mgetting charged. But like the
FMCS argument here is, if theport is closed on a holiday or

(51:43):
weekend, you can't get itanyway. So no amount of of
demurrage or detention is goingto actually get you to move it,
because you're like, dang it,it's a Saturday. I want to move
my stuff, but I can't. So that'sthe FMC side of it, the other
side of it. The the argument onthe other side is that, well,
isn't that an incentive itself?
Because now you know, if it's aweekend plus a Monday Holiday,

(52:06):
if you don't get it out on thatFriday, you're gonna have three
days of charges that you reallydon't want, and so it makes you
move even faster to get it outon Friday. So that's the crux of
what's going on with thisholidays and weekends case worth
paying attention to that'ssomething that I think will
really have some strongoperational impacts. Of, are you
going to be charged thisdetention demurrage? Because

(52:28):
that's been one of the biggestissues since COVID congestion,
of, how do I mitigate or how doI plan for detention and
demurrage? Or how do I get outso that I'm not part of the
detention and demurrage world?
Because it adds up quickly. Andif you have more than 10 boxes,
and then per box every day, Imean, those are big charges, and
at some point you come to apoint of, well, the demerge, or

(52:49):
the detention is more than thecontents of the box itself, and
so you might have abandonment.
That's the balance effect ofdetention merge. But that's
something definitely worthwatching. It wasn't totally
talked about at TPM, but also,there was a lot going on at TPM.
There's just in general, youknow, I think there was some

(53:10):
talk about the new alliances andhow those are structured. The
Gemini cooperation has more of ahub and spoke model. That's kind
of a newer is it? You know, thequestion is, is it more of a
marketing thing, or is it anactual new operational you know,
the idea is they come to, kindof the hub ports, and then they
transload and move it around.
From there, they're saying thatthey have 90% 90% reliability in

(53:33):
their schedule because of thehub and spoke model. And that
was the whole promotional pieceof trying out the Hub and Spoke
bottle. They were saying we willhave significantly increased
reliability in rivals and yourgoods moving. So that was a big
conversation piece is, is thisGemini cooperation, you know,
working the new kind ofreshuffling of some of the

(53:54):
alliances? What that means? Whatthose Alliance reshuffles mean?
I think one of the biggestthings over the past few years
for ocean shipping and thealliances, though, is the
realization that, and it's notalways clear, not all of those
companies fleets, are part ofthese vessel sharing agreements.
And that's what these alliancesare, is their vessel sharing
agreements. So like MSC cameout, I think there was a report

(54:17):
saying that they have 900vessels. Not all 900 vessels
were part of that 2m alliancethat they were part of, and that
because you kind of see, okay,well, they're 40% or 57 market
like that. You know, as acompany, they had a large
significant portion of the ofthe market share, but it wasn't,
it didn't go into the wholeAlliance. And so that's why that
alliance probably isn't asnefarious as people were saying,

(54:42):
right? Like, oh, they're justguys, like, they're all just
combining. And this is justanother name for a monopoly. It
really wasn't. It was really theintention was that they were
trying to get better serviceavailability. You know, instead
of five vessels going across thesame route, now you have two
vessels. Was going across thesame route with some of their
competitors cargo on it. They'rejust sharing vessel space, so

(55:04):
that you have two full vesselsinstead of five, not as full
vessels, and then the otherthree can now go to smaller
ports. And there you have it,some of that diversification of
ports of entry or availabilityof ports. So that might be great
for companies too, because itmight be closer to their
warehouses, you know, if they'reable to go to these smaller,
medium ports abroad, and I think

it just speaks to your your earlier point about
the importance ofdiversification, and, you know,
protecting your own business.
And you know, if you got cargowaiting around for a while, plus
tariffs, plus, you know, all ofthese other different, you know,
things that are impacting youknow, global shipping may can
get expensive really quick, andthen who pays for those things
at the end of the day? It's theUS consumer, or maybe it's the

(55:44):
carrier. Probably not thecarrier is probably going to be
the consumer at some point oranother. Lauren, this has been
an incredible discussion, and Ithink it just sort of really
rings home true of payingattention to consultants like
yourself, professionals likeyourself. I'm curious, as we
kind of round out the thisconversation, you know, are
there any besides yourself, ofcourse, which will put links in

(56:07):
the show notes to where you canwatch all of your content and
sign up for the maritimeProfessor all that. But I'm
curious, are there any other, Iguess, sort of sources that you
pay attention to as well, orother, you know, creators that
can explain things in a way thatyou do, which is, you know, an
easier way to understand it, andalso, you know, make the
business case too, yeah. I mean,

Unknown (56:26):
obviously all your stuff, right? I mean, you're,
you're right on the heart of it,and you're helping me to learn a
lot more about the surfacetransportation side, which I
totally appreciate. GraceSharkey, right? Obviously, she
does a great job with the techside of things. And any freight
waves is wonderful. Joc iswonderful any of those major
publications, but Salmacogliano, we've talked about him
a few times. He does such a goodjob, and he's a professor

(56:48):
himself too, that he does such agood job of just distilling down
what's going on, and he's amaritime historian, so we've
really kind of increases theunderstanding by coloring the
rest of why is this important?
What happened in the past? Howdoes this all relate? Now, you
know, he's much more precise onsome of those numbers. Of you
know why we had vessel fleets inthe certain number before, and

(57:08):
now what they look like andwhere things have gone. So he is
a phenomenal source to followhimself so, but there's all
sorts. Matt Leffler does areally good job. He's often
talking about chassis andtrailer maintenance and surface
transport and tech. And, youknow, we actually used to talk
quite a bit. My podcast iscalled by land and by sea. At

(57:30):
one point he was helping tobring in some of that by land
conversation. So that was kindof the intention of bringing
over that podcast really doesmean I, obviously, I focus a lot
on federal Maritime Commission,but part of the podcast is
really kind of helping, as Isaid at the outset, bridging
that gap between surfacetransport and ocean transport, I
was getting a lot of questionsright around that pandemic of
what happens on the other sideof the gate? Right? You're

(57:53):
either on one side of the gateor the other, and so what
happens on the other side? Andso I'm still learning the
surface side, although I have amuch larger appreciation for the
warehousing and the rail and thedrayage providers and everything
that happens on the other sideof the gate, and that was kind
of my personal interest inlearning more there. But on the
ocean side of things, whathappens inside the port? What
happens on the other side onceit gets on the vessel? How does

(58:15):
all of that work together?
Because it was kind of thisblack hole, but as long as it
showed over the port. Peopledidn't really care once COVID
congestion happened and we weregetting detention, demurrage,
all these different things. Andwait a second, I want to know
more. And they kept peeling backthe onion. You know, it was, it
was this, how do I learn more?
What? What is there to learn?
How do I become a bettereducated just user of the

(58:38):
industry, and really, that's thename of the game. Is educating
yourself on as much as you canso that you're in the best
position to make decisions whenyou need to. Oh,

perfectly said, What mic drop moment like?
That's such a great point to endthis conversation, because I
feel like I could talk to you,you know, for hours and hours
more, but, you know, I want tobe respectful of your time. And
Lauren, where can folks, youknow, follow the podcast I
mentioned? I'll leave it in theshow notes, but go ahead and
tell us anyway. Yeah. So

Unknown (59:05):
go ahead and look at the maritime professor.com
that's where you can find thepodcast on there. That's where
you can find the E courses, allof the the live webinars, all
the different content that'spurely based on creating open
and accessible supply chainknowledge for all. But then if
you do have a legal question, ifyou would like to hire, you
know, for legal purposes, notnecessarily litigation, but kind

(59:25):
of navigating, how to do B to B,and kind of pre litigation side
of things, or how all of theglobal ocean shipping regs work
toward you. I have client basednavigation of those global ocean
shipping and it's through smallstrategies.

Amazing.
Lauren, this was an incredibleconversation. I think we both
should start maybe a fan clubfor Salma cogliano, so we can,
you know, just just continue,like pumping up his his his
tires, for the content that heputs out, because I think he
makes all of us smarter. Andthen obviously, with you and all
of your content, you make all ofus smarter. And this industry is
just like you said. It's anonion. Every time you peel back

(01:00:00):
a layer, there's several morelayers to go. So appreciate your
time, appreciate your insight,and we look forward to having
you back on again in the future.
Thanks so much. I hope youenjoyed this episode of
everything is logistics, apodcast for the thinkers in
freight, telling the storiesbehind how your favorite stuff

(01:00:22):
and people get from point A toB. Subscribe to the show. Sign
up for our newsletter and followour socials over at everything
is logistics.com and in additionto the podcast, I also wanted to
let you all know about anothercompany I operate, and that's
digital dispatch, where we helpyou build a better website. Now,
a lot of the times, we hand thistask of building a new website

(01:00:43):
or refreshing a current one offto a co worker's child, a
neighbor down the street orstranger around the world, where
you probably spend more timeexplaining the freight industry
than it takes to actually buildthe dang website. Well, that
doesn't happen at Digitaldispatch. We've been building
online since 2009 but we're alsoearly adopters of AI automation

(01:01:04):
and other website tactics thathelp your company to be a
central place, to pull in all ofyour social media posts, recruit
new employees and give potentialcustomers a glimpse into how you
operate your business. Our newwebsite builds start as low as
$1,500 along with ongoingwebsite management, maintenance
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(01:01:26):
marketing and sales contentsimilar to what you hear on the
podcast. You can watch a quickexplainer video over on
digitaldispatch.io, just checkout the pricing page once you
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on a strong foundation. Untilthen, I hope you enjoyed this
episode. I'll see you all realsoon and go jags.

Unknown (01:02:02):
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