November 16, 2023 • 41 mins
In this month’s episode, Ted Stank and Tom Goldsby speak with Jim Newsome, former president and CEO of the South Carolina Ports Authority, at the 27th Supply Chain Forum.
The episode was recorded in front of a live audience on November 7, 2023, in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Newsome (‘76, ‘77) earned both a bachelor’s and MBA in transportation and logistics from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, before embarking on a more than 40-year career in container ships, ports, and international transportation. He was recently named the 2023 Distinguished Alum by the Haslam College of Business. At the forum, the Global Supply Chain Institute also recognized him as a Distinguished Fellow.
Listen as our co-hosts speak with Newsome about his work as an executive at South Carolina Ports, cast a vision for the future of supply chain management, and discuss visibility, sourcing, the labor market, and the evolution of UT’s business education from transportation to today’s highly regarded end-to-end supply chain management model.
Watch a video version of this podcast on YouTube.
Related links:
- U.S. economic growth accelerated to 4.9% last quarter
- Domestic manufacturing output rose in September.
- Container imports continue rising, outpacing pre-pandemic levels
- Labor market added 150,000 jobs in October, shows signs of cooling
- Holiday spending outlook is sluggish across retailers
- United Auto Workers secure historic contracts
- Alan Amling in FreightWaves on the unintended consequences of the UPS-Teamsters agreement
- What is hydrogen energy, and can it help fight climate change?
- Jim Newsome honored with the 2023 Distinguished Alum Award from the Haslam College of Business
- SC Ports’ record numbers in 2020 and 2021
- Drought saps the Panama Canal, disrupting global trade
- China exports decline, takeaways from September data
- SC Ports handle
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Advertisement (00:00):
Are you an ambitious business professional
ready to take the next steptoward advancing your career?
It takes just 14 weeks tounlock your true potential with
the SEM Leadership Academy fromthe University of Tennessee
Knoxville's Global Supply ChainInstitute.
Get immediate access tocutting-edge resources and
invaluable industry connectionswith our convenient online
(00:23):
format.
Secure your spot for ourupcoming sessions starting on
January 31st by following thelink in the show notes or
visitingsupplychainmanagementutkedu.
Accelerate your journey tosuccess with the SEM Leadership
Academy.
Introduction (00:39):
Welcome to the Tennessee on Supply Chain
Management podcast.
Listen in as co-hosts Ted Stankand Tom Goldsby set sail into
the world of end-to-end supplychain management, diving deep
into today's most relevantbusiness topics.
They'll share insights andpressing industry issues and
tackle the challenges keepingsupply chain professionals up at
night.
If you're enjoying the ride,download and subscribe to
(01:02):
Tennessee on Supply ChainManagement on your favorite
podcast platform now.
Tom Goldsby (01:07):
Hello and welcome to another edition of Tennessee
on Supply Chain Management.
It's great to be with youComing to you live from the
supply chain form at Rocky TopUniversity of Tennessee,
downtown Knoxville, tennessee.
Tom Goldsby here, your co-host,joined by my good friend and
co-host, dr Ted Stank.
Hey, ted, how you doing?
Ted Stank (01:24):
Doing great, tom.
Thanks, hi everybody, how y'alldoing.
Tom Goldsby (01:27):
Yeah, just point out, we do have a live in-studio
audience for this.
So a special edition of thepodcast and also a very good
friend on hand in Mr Jim Newsom.
That we're going to get to inshort order.
But let's go ahead and kind ofdo a little bit of recap here
just to get things started.
Certainly a lot going on in theworld, in the business world,
(01:48):
in the supply chain realm.
Where do you think we ought toget started?
Do you want to take ongeopolitics or where do you want
to go?
Ted Stank (01:53):
Let's start a little bit.
We'll start closer to home.
We'll start with, like US GrossDomestic Product Growth, some
things going on in our economyright now.
I think one of the moreinteresting articles I read was
an economist article Tom sent mea week or so ago.
That says economists can'tfigure out what's going on and
they don't know why they've beenwrong.
So much about predicting what'shappening with inflation when
(02:14):
we're going to come out of agrowth period and go into
recession.
They keep getting surprised.
One of the latest surprises waslast quarter's US Gross
Domestic Product was almost 5%4.9%.
Who saw that coming right.
Manufacturing starts last monthup about 2%, Even in Jim.
This will get into yourterritory, but I just saw that
(02:37):
October container imports was upa couple of percent.
So a lot of good signs, despiteinflation.
Jobs report in September defiedeveryone's expectations, Not so
high in October, but stillpretty healthy.
Growth doesn't seem to indicaterecession and yet we all feel
(02:57):
those clouds on the horizon.
Tom Goldsby (03:01):
You all do I tell you what?
Go back into the archives.
I've been saying, for one thing, I know that the economists are
stumped.
I'm an economist in training, Iknow we're trained to look at
these typical barometer readings, but I've said it's kind of
bunk to some extent.
Right, you got some that arepointing up, some that are
pointing down.
I continue to focus on it rawemotion and the consumer, and
(03:24):
the consumer continues to spendand that's going to drive the
economy.
Ted Stank (03:29):
You have.
We've been doing this podcastfor over two years now and Tom
has consistently said no, we'regood, no, we're good, and I have
just attributed it to him justbeing an optimistic kind of guy.
Tom Goldsby (03:39):
I am an optimist.
Ted Stank (03:40):
Whereas I'm the pessimist.
I guess we're really goodteammates.
Tom Goldsby (03:42):
Yeah, no, I guess, I guess I'm like the world's
gonna end.
Ted Stank (03:45):
We're all gonna die.
Tom Goldsby (03:46):
Now I guess maybe I've been reading into the
positives.
You know, and as you pointedout you know, jobs report, so
okay.
So unemployment ticked up to3.9%, which you know, generally
speaking economists feelingpretty good when it's 4% or
south of that right so we'restill good.
Seems like things arestabilizing.
Yeah, I do see businessspending slowing down but you
know, in gross that's 30% of theeconomy, consumer spending 70%
(04:10):
and I'm seeing indications it'sgoing to be a big holiday, I
think.
I just think that again.
When all that money got in thehands of the consumer in
pandemic what do you know?
They spent it and they likedspending money and I think
they're going to keep going.
Ted Stank (04:24):
You know, the Amazon Prime days is always a
bellwether for holiday season.
And that was up and that was up, and that was up.
Tom Goldsby (04:28):
Yeah, it was way up .
Ted Stank (04:29):
So we'll see.
Yeah, that was you know.
You look at inventory levels,which is another traditional
kind of leading indicator ofwhat's happening with the
economy, and we've seen highinventory levels and they have
kind of balanced to a morestable traditional level of
inventory, particularly headinginto the holidays.
So I mean that's an indicatorthat maybe we will have a decent
(04:50):
holiday.
Tom Goldsby (04:50):
I know our friends in transportation, particularly
domestic transportation,trucking, rail and so forth,
have pointed out to this notionof bumping, hitting bottom
things, kind of leveling off andwaiting for things to tick
upward.
And again we understood it wasgoing to take some time for that
inventory to burn off.
I mean, you and I had that WallStreet Journal piece we
predicted in spring of 21, we'regoing to have this bullwhip
(05:12):
effect.
Okay, so maybe now you know 22,.
We experienced it and theeconomy starting to feel a
little bit more like normal.
Ted Stank (05:18):
I mean, I tend to think about what happened.
It's a giant system, right, andthere's so many interrelated,
complicated parts and COVID justcompletely disrupted so many
different parts of it.
So if you think of any systemthat once it gets turned off and
then you turn it back on, itoscillates for a while, with
some highs and lows, until itfinds a steady state.
(05:39):
And I think we're still kind oftrying to find that steady
state.
Tom Goldsby (05:42):
Maybe we got through that sputter After that
shock, yeah.
Yeah, but we're getting there.
And so you know, again, Icontinue to be pretty optimistic
about things and I throw away alot of my economics training,
frankly, to focus on the rawemotions of people.
And we have recognized again,consumers spend a lot of
different ways, but again yougot to tuck in those elbows.
(06:04):
You've been on a plane lately.
I mean people are traveling andgetting out in the bounce.
That's good.
Ted Stank (06:08):
You want to talk a little bit about the UAW deal
and maybe that has on broaderlabor.
Tom Goldsby (06:13):
Yeah, absolutely so .
Since we last spoke, I mean,that was red hot, Seemingly they
were nowhere close to a deal.
And suddenly, you know, I tellyou about this UAW strategy of
selectively shutting downoperations, particularly things
like the Ford plant andLouisville select truck plants
in particular that are veryprofitable operations.
That seems like in Tennessee.
(06:33):
That said, it seems to bringthe OEMs to the table.
Ted Stank (06:37):
Well, the whole strategy of striking all three
of the major US automakers atone time was innovative as well,
I think.
Though, talking aboutbellwethers, I think that the
UPS contract, the West Coastports contract Jim will touch on
Gulf and East Coast portscoming up and the UAW contracts
have all been relative wins inthe UAW case, major wins for
(07:00):
labor, and I think that that isa bellwether of labor,
management relations and theforeseeable future.
A number of unions are talkingabout taking a tougher stance
Next time their contracts comeup, because I think they're
recognizing that there's thisimbalance in terms of the number
of jobs versus the number ofpeople available for those jobs,
and they're seeing that as anopportunity for labor to maybe
(07:23):
regain some strength in theirnegotiating positions with
management.
Frankly, they've lost over thelast few decades.
Tom Goldsby (07:30):
I think that's true .
However, we're also at thatinflection point with electric
vehicles, evs.
Putting together an electricvehicle is a little bit more
like playing with Legos.
You don't need as many peopleto turn a wrench on an EV.
Something like a Tesla enginehas like 20 parts, compared to
more than 300 parts that go intoa conventional engine.
Ted Stank (07:50):
Shaking my head.
I ain't buying EVs man.
I'm not buying that they arethe Beall and Dahl, and by 2030
we're all going to be drivingthat no, I don't think by 2030,
but they're coming.
The US electrical grid can'tsupport it, the infrastructure
is not out there for it and youknow, a couple of the big auto
manufacturers bet heavily on EVsand guess what they have on
(08:11):
their lots?
Evs, and nobody can get gas orhybrid cars.
I've been looking for a goodhybrid of the brand that I like
to drive and they don't havethem.
They don't sell them here, so Idon't know.
I'm not completely sold on EVs.
The supply chain for EVs isundeveloped and scary, frankly,
in terms of where we're going toget those minerals from.
(08:32):
So I'm just not a totally soldone.
Tom Goldsby (08:34):
Well, I mean, this is where a multi-billion dollar,
cojillion dollar sort ofindustry is redefining itself,
and they darn well better get itright from an end-to-end
perspective to your point, right, I mean, in terms of being able
to define, you know that,end-to-end supply chain.
Ted Stank (08:50):
One word for you, young man.
Remember this movie theGraduate and the Plastics right.
Hydrogen, hydrogen.
The big gas companies, exxonMobile, are investing in
hydrogen.
They see hydrogen as the realalternative fuel for the future.
I don't know enough of the.
Tom Goldsby (09:08):
I rode in a hydrogen taxi in Germany a few
months ago.
It was phenomenal.
Advertisement (09:13):
Really, and I heard this sloshing.
Tom Goldsby (09:14):
Did it fly?
It did not fly, which that wasdisappointing.
I don't know if it would, but Iheard the sloshing as I opened
and closed the door and thedriver said well, that's where
the water's stored.
Ted Stank (09:24):
Really yeah, the water.
Tom Goldsby (09:25):
That's the byproduct of that.
That's right, interesting, sopretty cool.
So I saw a little bit of aglimpse of the future, so you
might be right there.
Ted Stank (09:32):
What else do we have here, tom?
Well, I'm just talking about Acouple other topics I want to
hit before we get to Jim.
One of them let's save becauseit's about the Panama Canal.
So we'll save that for you, jim.
The last one I'm going to savethis one for you too, because
you told me one time don't buyinto this.
I'm talking about Convoy goingbankrupt, flexport struggling
and all these kind of digitalbrokerage companies, and you
(09:54):
were not bullish on them whenthe venture capital industry was
.
So let's bring Jim, let's do it.
I have to read this.
I'm going to pick it up andread this.
Jim Newsom is our guest.
Jim Newsom is the recentlyretired president of South
Carolina Port's authority.
Previous president of Hapag.
North America has just doneamazing things in his career,
(10:15):
but I want to read some of hisaccolades South Carolina Public
Servant of the Year.
National TransportationCoalition Person of the Year.
Rainmaker.
International Maritime Hall ofFame inductee Order.
I love this one.
Order of the Palmetto, southCarolina's highest civilian
honor.
That's really cool.
(10:35):
And then, just as of Fridaynight, the Haslum College of
Businesses Distinguished Alumniof the Year, which I had the
great honor of awarding to Jimin a wonderful ceremony.
So let's get Jim's take on somechanges in the global supply
chain environment and thingshappening in international trade
(10:55):
.
Jim literally has connectionsall over the world.
He has introduced us to peoplein Europe, asia, middle East,
south and Central America.
I've had dinner with you at afew of those different
continents.
They've always been good.
So, jim welcome.
Jim Newsome (11:11):
Well, thanks for having me.
Tom and Ted Really appreciateit.
It's an honor to be here.
Tom Goldsby (11:15):
Well, let's just go ahead and cut to the chase.
Where did we get it right,where did we get it wrong in
those opening?
Jim Newsome (11:20):
seven minutes.
The best story about aneconomist is the best thing is a
one-handed economist, becausethey can't keep saying on the
other hand.
But no, I think you've got itessentially right.
I think that, if I look at whathappened in the shipping and
port industry, I was in Asia.
I used to go to Asia rightafter Chinese New Year every
year, and it was March of 2020.
(11:41):
And we would normally go toChina and COVID this thing
called COVID had started.
We didn't know what it was inChina, so I bagged that part of
the trip.
I was just coming back and thevirus was following me back home
and then we had to make abudget because we were July
through June fiscal year.
So we had never managed in apandemic.
What did a pandemic mean?
For container flows, containervolumes?
(12:04):
Gee, I was really pessimistic.
I figured we'd lose 25% of ourvolume, whatever.
That's what I told our board.
And, of course, what I didn'trealize is that in a couple of
months, everybody would be bored.
They couldn't go anywhere.
They were doing 10 hours worthof Zoom calls a day to look at
their couch and say this is theugliest couch I've ever seen.
I need a new one.
So furniture was the number onecommodity and we had 20 months
(12:29):
of and we measure volumes in ourshipping industry by imports
about 20 months of 2.5 millionTUs when the port industry had
about 2 million.
Us port industry had about 2million TUs.
So we stretched every elementof the supply chain to its
limits, meaning we had days wecouldn't unload ships until we
(12:50):
took containers out.
Basically, Shipping lineschartered every ship Even if it
wasn't a container ship, they'dchartered a ship.
Truckers were expandingcapacity.
We had ships waiting 20 days incertain ports not Charleston,
but in other ports.
So we went through this boomcycle that really showed how
fragile the import global supplychain, the total US global
(13:12):
supply chain, is, and I thinkwhat has happened is we have
sort of returned to normal,normal being 2019.
Ted mentioned it.
We were about 3% up year onyear through the totality of the
year.
I think October was about 11%up according to data mine, and
that's about 2.3 million TUs.
(13:33):
And I think what happened?
The big retailers were facingthe same thing.
They didn't know what demandwould look like and they were
seeing shortages on shelvesbecause the supply chain was
getting bogged down.
So what was their solution?
They just ordered more Order,more.
Deal with it later and we'restill.
That's about it, thank you,thank you.
I think the major thing we'restill dealing with today is this
(13:53):
inventory overhang in the goodcycle, because people switched
to going back to Italy takingtrips, so we've still got this
big overhang of goods if youlook in a lot of the warehouses
and stuff.
So there's.
I think the other point you gotright is we're at an inflection
point.
We really don't know wherewe're headed.
I mean, every indicator says weshould have a consumer
(14:14):
recession, but we don't see thatyet.
But there are some things interms of population trends,
workforce trends, power trends,evs that we can talk about a
little bit.
I think that would beproductive.
Ted Stank (14:27):
Yeah, let's do that.
A couple of things I want toput out there.
First, what is your take on?
You and I talked for a longtime over the last I don't know
six, eight, almost eight years.
Right, the new locks in thePanama Canal opened in 2016,.
Right, and the projection wasthat increasing amounts of
freight from Asia Pacific weregoing to go through that new
(14:48):
locks of the canal and inboundGulf and US east coast ports,
and we have seen that bump inimports considerably over that
time.
But now Panama Canal is facingsome pretty dire circumstances
with drought.
I think.
The number is typically 42ships per day and a normal
(15:08):
operation cut to, I think, 30per day today and predictions of
down to 18 per day comeFebruary.
All bulk and oil petroleumships have been denied access.
They're going to have to goaround.
I saw recently there was alottery for a slot and a company
paid two and a half million forthat slot.
(15:29):
The container ships seem to beokay because they pre-book those
.
What's your take on some ofthat stuff, Jim?
Jim Newsome (15:35):
Well, I saw I mean, I knew Alberto Alamon very well
, know him very well demandedthe was the impetus behind
building the third set of locksand they knew they could have
some water issues.
It was not unknown, they didn'tknow that they would be this
bad.
But I think what's happenedover time?
When containerization startedand I've old enough to have seen
(15:58):
it speed was important.
We took a lot of cargo off onthe west coast and railed it at
whatever cost across the countryin containers and over time, as
containerization particularlyduring the pandemic, as
containerization was seen asless reliable for a number of
reason ships waiting, whatevercongestion I think companies
(16:19):
decided that the way toreestablish reliability is to
get the cargo closer to whereit's needed.
So it was meaning 70% of thepeople live east of the
Mississippi River.
13 states of a millionpopulation or more are growing
and they're mainly in thesoutheastern Gulf.
So there's been a toleratedacceptance of longer transit
(16:39):
time to establish reliability,even if the absolute days are
longer.
And what's happened since 2019,the east coast in Gulf has
gained 5% of share points versusthe west coast on imports.
We predicted that it's about50-50.
And I don't think it's evergoing back the other way and
everybody said well, the strikeis over on the west coast, all
(17:00):
the freight's going to go backto the west coast.
There's no evidence that thatever happened and there's no
evidence that that ever willhappen.
So you're right, the containerships are getting priority.
However, I read yesterday it isstarting to affect container
ships.
They're starting to route someships via the Suez Canal, which
is a longer transit time, andpart of that is also that
(17:23):
nothing stands alone in thisindustry.
It's also tied up with a trendof shifting manufacturing from
China to Southeast Asia, becausethat you know geography.
Those ships in Southeast Asianeed to go via the Suez anyway,
and we've seen that China'sshare of US imports has gone
from 48% to 38% in a reallyshort period of time.
Ted Stank (17:44):
And that's a percentage of a big number.
Jim Newsome (17:46):
Percentage of a big number.
So China's not going away.
But this China plus one thingis kind of inculcated in global
sourcing today.
So that feeds.
So lines will go to the path ofleast resistance.
So the Panama Canal getscongested, they will reroute the
ships.
Ships are mobile assets.
They'll reroute the ships viathe Suez Canal, which takes
(18:09):
longer, probably takes an extraship, but that's not a problem
today because the lines havemore capacity on order than
they've ever had on orders.
30% of the world fleet of 28million TUs is on order today.
And those are not small ships,they're 10,000 TUs and above and
they are being delivered rightnow.
So for a shipping line, addinganother ship to a string is a
(18:30):
way to soak up excess capacity.
So I think the impact of it canbe minimized through those
types of steps.
Ted Stank (18:40):
You talked about the China plus one strategy that a
lot of companies are looking atfrom a sourcing standpoint.
Where do you see the bigwinners?
Jim Newsome (18:49):
Well, I mean Vietnam, thailand, Indonesia,
india a question, given thathighly educated nature of the
Indian society, if they trulywant to be that big a
manufacturing player, butapparently they do.
But certainly Vietnam gainedinitially Thailand, everything,
indonesia.
Everything moves south, butscale wise.
(19:11):
I think what most people don'tRemember is that China spent 25
years developing a very reliablesupply chain.
They built the Yangshan bridgeyou know, from Shanghai, 32
Kilometer bridge in like 18months.
It would take us 20 years tobuild that and with massive
government Investment to.
So China is not going away.
The Chinese economy is veryExport-dependent and it has a
(19:34):
lot of problems today.
Yeah, so so they have to keepbeing a player and I think, if
you talk to Walmart or Target orthe big importers, they can't
abandon China.
That's really not possible,right.
Tom Goldsby (19:48):
Hey, jim, you were talking about pre pandemic
through pandemic, the Buildup ofall those container ships
sitting off the West Coast ports.
I think you in the past youkind of suggested that having
40% of us imports come into twoports are located Next door to
each other's maybe asinine myword, not yours and so it
(20:08):
presented tremendous opportunity.
Again, the migration to thesoutheast people are living here
in mass Distribution capacityis following.
How did you all ramp up andprepare to absorb that 5% share
gain that you saw?
I know that certainly beentremendous investments in South
Carolina ports as well as othersoutheastern Corridors.
(20:30):
But how were you able to evenembrace the opportunity when it
presented itself?
Jim Newsome (20:35):
Well, the good news I would say is we saw it coming
.
It was fairly obvious wherepeople were moving.
It was fairly obvious thatships were getting bigger.
When I started with the port in2009, the biggest ship we had
was a 5020 foot equivalent ship.
Today we had 16,000 and we youdon't hide ships when they're
(20:56):
being built, they announce theorder book so you can see
they're being, they're bigger.
So we recognized immediatelythat we had to deepen our harbor
.
When the first 13,000 tu shipcame to Charleston, we had two
cranes that could work the shipat full height.
The rest were too short so wehad to raise cranes by new
cranes.
So we ended up investing, withthe help of our state, about two
(21:17):
billion dollars in ten years.
And that same story is inVirginia, it's in Savannah, it's
in Houston.
The operating ports haveinvested heavily because they're
not land constrained and theysee the benefit of ports for
economic development and theyknow this that we knew the South
was going to grow.
We always said I I'm not aneconomist, I never knew what
(21:37):
trade flows are going to do.
I said, but will Be double theUS port volume in the southeast
because we should grow Above themarket.
Unfortunately, we were able todo that.
So a lot of blood, sweat andtears and permitting and
building infrastructure, whichis never easy, improving our
rail network and really tryingto expand the reach of the port
(21:58):
to and all along hoping we wereright.
Ted Stank (22:01):
Yeah, could you expand on that, jim?
I think one of the one of thereally innovative things you did
was the the inland port concept, especially if you realize
Charleston and the geography ofCharleston is a peninsula, so
it's you can only get there fromone direction, so that was a
constraint well, rail,intermodal rail and what a lot
of people make a mistake.
Jim Newsome (22:21):
They look at a rail network and they think
containers can move on everyinch of rail.
They really move on about fivepercent.
It's very high density sort ofoperation.
And we had some land up inGreer, south Carolina, which is
Greenville in the north orsouthern wanted to convert the
BMW container traffic to rail,intermodal container rail, and
(22:41):
we wanted to build an inlandport.
We'd seen the one in front orRoyal Virginia, and we knew the
Greenville area, being betweenAtlanta and Charlotte on the 85
Carter, which is probably the ifyou've driven it, you know it's
probably the densest freightquarter around.
So in 2012 they asked us if wewould work together and we said
yes.
The big tension point was theysaid they wanted to run the
(23:05):
inland port.
We said no, we don't like theway you run inland terminals, we
want to run it more like a port.
So we invested a lot of money Imean it's close to a hundred
million dollars, there'snothing's cheap in our world and
built a essentially a groundedcontainer facility which could
take chassis out of play and themain catalyst was to serve BMW.
But I would say today that lessthan 50% of the freight is BMW.
(23:28):
It's very diverse and it'sactually export dominant, which
is the only one like it, becauseBMW at today we didn't foresee
it then.
They export more than theyimport because of CKD and SKD.
So just to give you some orderof magnitude, I figured that In
five years time that inland port.
First of all many people toldme it was a stupid idea.
(23:50):
I mean, that's the way ideaswork and I kept a few of those
emails for I select a group offriends that I'll show them one
day at their retirement.
But anyway, I thought it mightdo a hundred thousand lifts in
five years.
I knew it'd be successful.
It's up to a hundred and sixtythousand.
The port after I left hasmeanwhile expanded it.
(24:10):
The northern, southern isexpanded.
I think it easily can do twohundred and fifty thousand lifts
and At a hundred sixty thousandlists is three times bigger
than any other inland port.
So it's port owned inland port.
So it's been a amazing success,you see, being Santa Fe going
in this direction in the west,kansas City, colorado, alliance,
(24:32):
now Phoenix.
So we've got to find anintelligent way to move more
containerized freight by rail.
We can't continue to have 75 or80 percent going by truck
because we're not gonna haveenough truckers we have.
We're going to have a realshortage of truckers in this
country.
Ted Stank (24:49):
Just do the demographics and just the
quality and you throw in othersocial issues like traffic
density on the highways andcarbon footprints and things
like that.
Jim Newsome (24:57):
So sure, I mean just when I was in school here
in the dark ages they called ittransportation.
You know you didn't do railingunder 500 miles, right, that was
kind of the mantra.
Well, this is a 212 mile inlandport.
We did one in Dillon for 160miles in short haul rail,
intermodal, I think, shuttlesand things of that nature, even
in urban areas, extendedcombined statistical areas.
(25:20):
I think there's a way with thefuture there.
Ted Stank (25:22):
You also built up your rail side Capabilities in
the port itself right.
Jim Newsome (25:26):
Right, we were and we were Admittedly behind in
that we had not Arranged thenear dock rail and the way that
it needed to be arranged.
But we play, playing there,playing catch up there now and,
I think, developing a verycreative solution that doesn't
rely on trucks to move from theport facility to the rail,
hopefully using a barge serviceto take trucks off the road.
(25:49):
Yeah, I've said it for years aShortage of container trucking
is going to be the Achilles heelof this industry.
If we're not careful, we, wesimply cannot continue to grow
5% a year with it.
With the same owner operatortruck model, it doesn't work.
Tom Goldsby (26:06):
Jim, let me ask you a question.
I mean, we made a reference toChina and how they're able to
Move so aggressively with acentrally controlled government.
Basically set a strategy as anation, the construction follows
.
You know, here in the UnitedStates, obviously it's private
sector, public, privateenterprise as well, but there is
no such thing as a nationaltransportation strategy or
(26:29):
policy per se.
Where do you think there aredeficiencies and maybe where
should government be involvedand where should they not be
involved?
Perhaps?
Jim Newsome (26:37):
Well, I think I always told Ted I probably have
the last national transportationpolicy book ever written in the
US, and it was written in 1970.
Tom Goldsby (26:45):
I thought it was in the 70s.
Jim Newsome (26:46):
So we don't have such a policy and I would say
that intelligently.
The best thing we can do from apublic policy strategy point of
view is intelligently buildinfrastructure In the example I
always give.
If you think about theinterstate highway system, which
was built in the 1950s,admittedly to support war, think
(27:06):
about this country without theinterstate highway system, how
you would get around here.
So it was very intelligentlydone.
The problem with infrastructuretoday, in my observation, is
sometimes it's politicized.
We don't get a lot ofinfrastructure grants in South
Carolina because it's a redstate.
We're not a swing state.
It goes to a lot of swingstates because it's politically
(27:28):
motivated, if I'm honest aboutit, and you have to pick winners
and losers and the publicsector does an incredibly lousy
job of picking winners andlosers.
How do you tell a port X, y orZ that you're not in the top 10,
you don't need to grow.
The state's not gonna like that, honestly.
And then, although we talk, Ididn't find out about making
(27:50):
permitting easier to buildinfrastructure.
It's really not Because there'sa lot of inertia within the
pipeline and the agencies thatdo this sort of thing to keep
the status quo, because that'swhat they know.
I think that commit to buildingintelligent infrastructure to
support the supply chain isimportant, and being able to
(28:11):
make the right choices and do itfaster.
The Savannah Harbor expansionproject took 25 years.
Wow, 25 years Now.
There's reasons for that.
We could go have a wholepodcast on that.
It took us from conceiving aharbor deepening in 2010 to
delivering it in 2022, 12 years.
The only thing and we deepenedthe harbor in 2004, the only
(28:35):
thing that changed between 2004and 2022 was the age of the fish
in the harbor that hadn't beencaught by fishermen, because the
harbor was exactly the same,yet it had to be restudied again
, et cetera.
So those things are notproductive in building the time.
China grew in outsourcing ofretail goods because they had a
(28:57):
scalable infrastructure.
They built big ports.
Costco grew from nothing to thenumber four line in the world,
and that was all a consciousstrategy.
Ted Stank (29:07):
Tom Menser, my predecessor here at University
of Tennessee, told the storyabout working with some guys in
the transportation ministry inChina about locating highways.
They did a location project andlocating highways between a few
major hub manufacturing citiesand he flew over to I think it
was Shanghai, maybe it wasBeijing to work with them on
(29:29):
well, like year one, let's say,to talk about this design, and
they figured out where they weregonna do it.
He flew back a year later andthey took him for a drive down
the highway.
Jim Newsome (29:38):
Yeah Well, I mean, the biggest city in China is not
Shanghai or Beijing, it'sChongqing.
It's up the Yangtze River, it'slike 35 million people and
they've built infrastructure tothat right.
And we talked about newbuildings of ships and you
talked about fuel.
This sort of 30% of ships onorder were built in spite of the
(29:59):
fact that the shipping linesdon't really know what the fuel
of the future is, and it's notLNG, it's not ultra low sulfur
fuel.
So I would echo what you said.
I think it's hydrogen.
Most people would say it.
There's some ships being builtwith biomethanol today, but most
people believe and I would saythe International Maritime
(30:20):
Organization would tell you thathydrogen is probably the fuel
of the future for ships.
Ted Stank (30:24):
Not plastics.
Jim Newsome (30:25):
Not plastics.
That's the whole other topic.
Tom Goldsby (30:28):
Yeah right, jim, you have a very impressive track
record of making some prettybig bets and having them pay off
.
I just wonder if you go on therecord with us this afternoon
and kind of cast forward what doyou see the future of supply
chain and maybe bring it back alittle bit to what we do here at
UT and what role we can have inadvancing that future, making
(30:51):
it happen.
Jim Newsome (30:52):
Again.
I was in school here in the 70s, it was called transportation.
It's now this big, enormouspart of an organization
structure called supply chain,which I think has been a great
development transportationthrough logistics to supply
chain.
So it's given great prominenceto the field.
I tell people they laugh.
It said the supply chain becamereally important when we
(31:13):
couldn't find toilet paper onthe shelves anymore.
People thought that was the endof it.
Right, so people appreciate it.
So supply chain has grown insophistication.
It has to continue to grow.
As I said, if you look at thefour operating ports, they're
building two billion or more ofinfrastructures.
We have to continue to buildinfrastructure.
(31:34):
I think one of the missingcomponents in the import-export
supply chain is visibility.
There are good companies todaythere's, some are going to be
here.
I know Project 44 is here.
I'm doing some advising forGnosis freight that are really
honed in on container life cyclemanagement, because one of my
friends at Gnosis explained toour governor here at Mastery.
(31:56):
Said you know?
Governor?
Said what do you do?
He said well, I tell peoplewhere their car is.
He says they don't know wheretheir car is.
No, they don't know where theircar is.
And we saw example after exampleof people ordering millions of
dollars of goods not knowingwhere their containers are and
paying a lot of demerge becauseof that.
I always said 80% of thequestions we got in customer
(32:19):
service in a shipping line or aport were questions you'd never
asked UPS or FedEx Where's mycontainer?
Where's the ship?
Is it custom?
Clear that all should.
So we've got to get, because ifwe can improve the visibility
we will improve the reliabilityand the efficiency of the supply
chain.
But I believe we're going tocontinue to source more foreign
(32:40):
goods.
We can't bring all themanufacturing here because
they're in the workforce.
We're losing.
I'll tell you tomorrow we'relosing two and a half million
workers a year in this country.
We have no way to makeimmigration legal.
It's not politically palatable,so we have a problem.
So Mexico and Southeast Asiathey're going to be the
beneficiaries of that.
And I think the other thing andI probably poke a raw nerve here
(33:02):
is supply chain has grown.
This procurement and operationsfunctions have sort of become
estranged a little bit.
So procurement is purchaseprice variance and operations
has to deal sometimes with thebest that procurement creates
right, and some I think the bestsupply chain organizations are
going to be the ones that getthose in good alignment.
And then the last thing youwrite so you mentioned this
(33:26):
freight forwarding thing.
So about every 10 years and Iwon't name companies, I don't
want to hurt anybody's feelingsIn 10 years someone tries to
revolutionize a basic industryby digitization and it's really
about 10 year cycles.
You can name the companies andunfortunately, unfortunately,
the world's a wash in privatecapital.
(33:47):
So a lot of these privateequity folks get really excited
about this digitization.
They will overpay for thesecompanies.
Especially when interest rateswere not when money was free,
right.
Well, money's not free anymore.
And guess what?
People that do freightforwarding are really
established expeditors Kuna,noggle, Danza's, schenker those
are really established companiesthat provide great service.
(34:08):
You're going to knock them offthe ledge because they just have
some form of digitization orwhatever.
So we have to be realisticabout what the needs are.
What can truly move the needlein improving the reliability and
efficiency of the supply chain?
Ted Stank (34:26):
You worked at a place that was relatively labor
intensive and you brought on alot of couple times about the
labor issue and we're going tolose in two and a half million
workers a year from a portstandpoint and then broader in
the supply chain.
What is your vision of howwe're going to deal with this
labor crisis?
That's not short term.
It's going to be around the ageof the youngest person in this
(34:48):
room.
It's going to be around therest of your life.
Because, that's what globaldemographics are doing.
Jim Newsome (34:53):
So I'll say too let's talk about labor on two
fronts.
You raised it earlier.
The workforce issue is severeand it wasn't caused by the
pandemic.
I go to a conference every yearin Florida.
I probably wouldn't go to thatconference in Cleveland, but
it's in Florida in January, so Igo.
And we've been talking aboutthe demographic wall that we're
hitting.
There's way more of my agepeople retiring and
(35:16):
unfortunately dying than they'rebeing born, and that's two and
a half million years.
So, number we have to have someintelligent form of legal
immigration in this country andwe probably have to stop illegal
immigration to make legalimmigration palpable.
And that's not hard to see.
But there's no answer.
(35:36):
Without doing that you can'tautomate everything.
Everybody's just automate Well,that sounds nice, but it
doesn't always work that way,right?
So that's one thing.
Labor in shipping is going to bea challenge.
East Coast and Gulf Laborsituation.
I don't think it's any secret.
Our current president has saidhe is the most union supportive
(35:58):
president that we've ever had,and this is emboldened to labor
unions.
And in East Coast and Gulf thecarriers in the union had a
chance to do an extension duringthe pandemic when they were all
making a lot of money and thatprobably could have gotten done
at pretty good wages.
But now they're going to try todo it in 2024.
The rates have in the meantimeslid.
The results, the mercs you sawthe announcement they're making
(36:22):
negative results in containershipping.
So it ain't going to be thateasy to get a 30% or 40%
increase in 2024 when thatcontract's up.
And the head of the unionyesterday basically said we will
not extend.
They've always extended ComeOctober 1,.
We'll have a contract or wewon't, and I don't doubt for a
minute that he's sincere aboutthat.
(36:44):
So it will create uncertainty,particularly when you and I want
to get to grain.
You've got a lot of foreignflag carriers and a direct
employer relationship with theunion that they don't employ.
That doesn't make any sense atall, going to create a lot of
uncertainty for big shippers.
It's hard to contingency planbecause what do you do?
You got a mill in makingGeorgia.
(37:06):
You going to ship overVancouver, no, I mean LA.
No, you're probably not goingto do that.
It's not easy to do.
I mean I think I'm pro-worker,I think we all have to be
pro-worker.
These are a given.
You have to pay today, right, Imean, if you don't pay you
won't get people.
But the pro-union side of it isreally you saw it in the UAW
(37:27):
it's emboldened the unions and Idon't think that's going to
change short of a change in theadministration.
And now, last thing I say please, just you asked me to tie it
back to UT supply chain and I'mfortunate enough to sit on the
Dean's Advisory Council, whichreally means a lot to me, as did
(37:51):
this award, you know, withreally an honor having a 50-year
association with the supplychain program here.
And I would really say a lot ofcredit goes to you folks, ted
and Tom and your colleagues, andwhat you have done to raise the
visibility of this program andthe worth of this a degree from
(38:11):
this program to the levels thatit's at today.
I give you a lot of credit forthat.
And the best years are clearlyahead.
The university is going to have70,000 applications this year.
It's a record.
And I always tell kids thedifference in transportation and
supply chain degree from the70s and now about 20,000 a year
in tuition and about 60,000 ayear in starting salary.
(38:32):
So I mean that's the difference.
Tom Goldsby (38:36):
Well, jim, we are where we are because of friends
and alums like you.
You know we have the wisdom tolisten to you and invite you in
and again to benefit from thatwisdom and put it into action.
So, thank you for pushing usbeyond, pushing us, giving us
that impetus.
Well, thank you as well.
Ted Stank (38:55):
Jim, you've been one of our closest partners for many
years now.
You're also on our advisoryboard, the supply chain
management global supply chainInstitute advisory board, and
they've given us reallyinsightful ways to improve our
programs and our initiatives,and I thank you for that.
I think this is a great way towrap this up and welcome the
folks here, and pretty soonwe're going to welcome a lot
(39:18):
more folks to the November 2023version of supply chain forum.
We're upwards north of 75companies that are forum
partners with us right now andwe're going to welcome about 300
of their people here inKnoxville this week, and I
really do believe that thepartnership we have with those
75 companies and the 300managers that come a couple of
(39:41):
times a year to meet with us arereal reason why this program
has gone where it's gone in thelast 15 years or so.
Jim Newsome (39:49):
Well, when I was with the port, I would say our
participation in the supplychain forum was one of the most
meaningful things that we did.
I mean, for a very reasonablecost we could get around some of
the top decision makers in USglobal supply chain.
So it's phenomenal what you'vedone.
One of many examples.
Ted Stank (40:08):
Well, thank you again for joining us here.
This is your second time withus.
Advertisement (40:11):
Second time.
Ted Stank (40:12):
Peter Anderson out in the audience, one of our other
really great partners.
Peter, we got our crosshairs onyou.
We're going to have to get youon as a guest soon.
Okay, Tom, I think we'll signoff.
Tom Goldsby (40:22):
Yeah, let's close off, and this is the 26th
anniversary edition and we madea big deal of observing the 25th
anniversary last year.
I'd say we got to celebrate the26th year just as big Of the
forum.
Jim Newsome (40:32):
What do?
Tom Goldsby (40:32):
you say Of the forum.
We're excited about the nexttwo days ahead of us and again,
not only our industry partnersbut all those students are going
to have access to such.
Ted Stank (40:43):
We expect about 700 people to roll through this room
in the next three days betweenour industry partners, faculty
staff and students.
Tom Goldsby (40:52):
For those of you that aren't part of the forum,
we ask you to maybe give it someconsideration.
How can you do that?
Reach us at GSCI at utkedu.
We'll get you started down thepath.
So with that, thank you so much.
Thanks for those of youattending, and we'll see you
next time.
Introduction (41:09):
Thanks for tuning in to Tennessee on Supply Chain
Management.
If you enjoyed the episode,subscribe today on your favorite
listening platform to get allof our episodes as soon as they
drop, and don't forget to take amoment to leave us a rating.
Have any questions, thoughts orfeedback?
We'd love to hear from ourlisteners.
Email us at GSCI at utkedu.
Join us next time as wecontinue pulling back the
(41:32):
curtain on the world of supplychain, educating and
entertaining you along the way.
Until then, listeners.
Are you an ambitious business professional
ready to take the next steptoward advancing your career?
It takes just 14 weeks tounlock your true potential with
the SEM Leadership Academy fromthe University of Tennessee
Knoxville's Global Supply ChainInstitute.
Get immediate access tocutting-edge resources and
invaluable industry connectionswith our convenient online
(00:23):
format.
Secure your spot for ourupcoming sessions starting on
January 31st by following thelink in the show notes or
visitingsupplychainmanagementutkedu.
Accelerate your journey tosuccess with the SEM Leadership
Academy.
Introduction (00:39):
Welcome to the Tennessee on Supply Chain
Management podcast.
Listen in as co-hosts Ted Stankand Tom Goldsby set sail into
the world of end-to-end supplychain management, diving deep
into today's most relevantbusiness topics.
They'll share insights andpressing industry issues and
tackle the challenges keepingsupply chain professionals up at
night.
If you're enjoying the ride,download and subscribe to
(01:02):
Tennessee on Supply ChainManagement on your favorite
podcast platform now.
Tom Goldsby (01:07):
Hello and welcome to another edition of Tennessee
on Supply Chain Management.
It's great to be with youComing to you live from the
supply chain form at Rocky TopUniversity of Tennessee,
downtown Knoxville, tennessee.
Tom Goldsby here, your co-host,joined by my good friend and
co-host, dr Ted Stank.
Hey, ted, how you doing?
Ted Stank (01:24):
Doing great, tom.
Thanks, hi everybody, how y'alldoing.
Tom Goldsby (01:27):
Yeah, just point out, we do have a live in-studio
audience for this.
So a special edition of thepodcast and also a very good
friend on hand in Mr Jim Newsom.
That we're going to get to inshort order.
But let's go ahead and kind ofdo a little bit of recap here
just to get things started.
Certainly a lot going on in theworld, in the business world,
(01:48):
in the supply chain realm.
Where do you think we ought toget started?
Do you want to take ongeopolitics or where do you want
to go?
Ted Stank (01:53):
Let's start a little bit.
We'll start closer to home.
We'll start with, like US GrossDomestic Product Growth, some
things going on in our economyright now.
I think one of the moreinteresting articles I read was
an economist article Tom sent mea week or so ago.
That says economists can'tfigure out what's going on and
they don't know why they've beenwrong.
So much about predicting what'shappening with inflation when
(02:14):
we're going to come out of agrowth period and go into
recession.
They keep getting surprised.
One of the latest surprises waslast quarter's US Gross
Domestic Product was almost 5%4.9%.
Who saw that coming right.
Manufacturing starts last monthup about 2%, Even in Jim.
This will get into yourterritory, but I just saw that
(02:37):
October container imports was upa couple of percent.
So a lot of good signs, despiteinflation.
Jobs report in September defiedeveryone's expectations, Not so
high in October, but stillpretty healthy.
Growth doesn't seem to indicaterecession and yet we all feel
(02:57):
those clouds on the horizon.
Tom Goldsby (03:01):
You all do I tell you what?
Go back into the archives.
I've been saying, for one thing, I know that the economists are
stumped.
I'm an economist in training, Iknow we're trained to look at
these typical barometer readings, but I've said it's kind of
bunk to some extent.
Right, you got some that arepointing up, some that are
pointing down.
I continue to focus on it rawemotion and the consumer, and
(03:24):
the consumer continues to spendand that's going to drive the
economy.
Ted Stank (03:29):
You have.
We've been doing this podcastfor over two years now and Tom
has consistently said no, we'regood, no, we're good, and I have
just attributed it to him justbeing an optimistic kind of guy.
Tom Goldsby (03:39):
I am an optimist.
Ted Stank (03:40):
Whereas I'm the pessimist.
I guess we're really goodteammates.
Tom Goldsby (03:42):
Yeah, no, I guess, I guess I'm like the world's
gonna end.
Ted Stank (03:45):
We're all gonna die.
Tom Goldsby (03:46):
Now I guess maybe I've been reading into the
positives.
You know, and as you pointedout you know, jobs report, so
okay.
So unemployment ticked up to3.9%, which you know, generally
speaking economists feelingpretty good when it's 4% or
south of that right so we'restill good.
Seems like things arestabilizing.
Yeah, I do see businessspending slowing down but you
know, in gross that's 30% of theeconomy, consumer spending 70%
(04:10):
and I'm seeing indications it'sgoing to be a big holiday, I
think.
I just think that again.
When all that money got in thehands of the consumer in
pandemic what do you know?
They spent it and they likedspending money and I think
they're going to keep going.
Ted Stank (04:24):
You know, the Amazon Prime days is always a
bellwether for holiday season.
And that was up and that was up, and that was up.
Tom Goldsby (04:28):
Yeah, it was way up .
Ted Stank (04:29):
So we'll see.
Yeah, that was you know.
You look at inventory levels,which is another traditional
kind of leading indicator ofwhat's happening with the
economy, and we've seen highinventory levels and they have
kind of balanced to a morestable traditional level of
inventory, particularly headinginto the holidays.
So I mean that's an indicatorthat maybe we will have a decent
(04:50):
holiday.
Tom Goldsby (04:50):
I know our friends in transportation, particularly
domestic transportation,trucking, rail and so forth,
have pointed out to this notionof bumping, hitting bottom
things, kind of leveling off andwaiting for things to tick
upward.
And again we understood it wasgoing to take some time for that
inventory to burn off.
I mean, you and I had that WallStreet Journal piece we
predicted in spring of 21, we'regoing to have this bullwhip
(05:12):
effect.
Okay, so maybe now you know 22,.
We experienced it and theeconomy starting to feel a
little bit more like normal.
Ted Stank (05:18):
I mean, I tend to think about what happened.
It's a giant system, right, andthere's so many interrelated,
complicated parts and COVID justcompletely disrupted so many
different parts of it.
So if you think of any systemthat once it gets turned off and
then you turn it back on, itoscillates for a while, with
some highs and lows, until itfinds a steady state.
(05:39):
And I think we're still kind oftrying to find that steady
state.
Tom Goldsby (05:42):
Maybe we got through that sputter After that
shock, yeah.
Yeah, but we're getting there.
And so you know, again, Icontinue to be pretty optimistic
about things and I throw away alot of my economics training,
frankly, to focus on the rawemotions of people.
And we have recognized again,consumers spend a lot of
different ways, but again yougot to tuck in those elbows.
(06:04):
You've been on a plane lately.
I mean people are traveling andgetting out in the bounce.
That's good.
Ted Stank (06:08):
You want to talk a little bit about the UAW deal
and maybe that has on broaderlabor.
Tom Goldsby (06:13):
Yeah, absolutely so .
Since we last spoke, I mean,that was red hot, Seemingly they
were nowhere close to a deal.
And suddenly, you know, I tellyou about this UAW strategy of
selectively shutting downoperations, particularly things
like the Ford plant andLouisville select truck plants
in particular that are veryprofitable operations.
That seems like in Tennessee.
(06:33):
That said, it seems to bringthe OEMs to the table.
Ted Stank (06:37):
Well, the whole strategy of striking all three
of the major US automakers atone time was innovative as well,
I think.
Though, talking aboutbellwethers, I think that the
UPS contract, the West Coastports contract Jim will touch on
Gulf and East Coast portscoming up and the UAW contracts
have all been relative wins inthe UAW case, major wins for
(07:00):
labor, and I think that that isa bellwether of labor,
management relations and theforeseeable future.
A number of unions are talkingabout taking a tougher stance
Next time their contracts comeup, because I think they're
recognizing that there's thisimbalance in terms of the number
of jobs versus the number ofpeople available for those jobs,
and they're seeing that as anopportunity for labor to maybe
(07:23):
regain some strength in theirnegotiating positions with
management.
Frankly, they've lost over thelast few decades.
Tom Goldsby (07:30):
I think that's true .
However, we're also at thatinflection point with electric
vehicles, evs.
Putting together an electricvehicle is a little bit more
like playing with Legos.
You don't need as many peopleto turn a wrench on an EV.
Something like a Tesla enginehas like 20 parts, compared to
more than 300 parts that go intoa conventional engine.
Ted Stank (07:50):
Shaking my head.
I ain't buying EVs man.
I'm not buying that they arethe Beall and Dahl, and by 2030
we're all going to be drivingthat no, I don't think by 2030,
but they're coming.
The US electrical grid can'tsupport it, the infrastructure
is not out there for it and youknow, a couple of the big auto
manufacturers bet heavily on EVsand guess what they have on
(08:11):
their lots?
Evs, and nobody can get gas orhybrid cars.
I've been looking for a goodhybrid of the brand that I like
to drive and they don't havethem.
They don't sell them here, so Idon't know.
I'm not completely sold on EVs.
The supply chain for EVs isundeveloped and scary, frankly,
in terms of where we're going toget those minerals from.
(08:32):
So I'm just not a totally soldone.
Tom Goldsby (08:34):
Well, I mean, this is where a multi-billion dollar,
cojillion dollar sort ofindustry is redefining itself,
and they darn well better get itright from an end-to-end
perspective to your point, right, I mean, in terms of being able
to define, you know that,end-to-end supply chain.
Ted Stank (08:50):
One word for you, young man.
Remember this movie theGraduate and the Plastics right.
Hydrogen, hydrogen.
The big gas companies, exxonMobile, are investing in
hydrogen.
They see hydrogen as the realalternative fuel for the future.
I don't know enough of the.
Tom Goldsby (09:08):
I rode in a hydrogen taxi in Germany a few
months ago.
It was phenomenal.
Advertisement (09:13):
Really, and I heard this sloshing.
Tom Goldsby (09:14):
Did it fly?
It did not fly, which that wasdisappointing.
I don't know if it would, but Iheard the sloshing as I opened
and closed the door and thedriver said well, that's where
the water's stored.
Ted Stank (09:24):
Really yeah, the water.
Tom Goldsby (09:25):
That's the byproduct of that.
That's right, interesting, sopretty cool.
So I saw a little bit of aglimpse of the future, so you
might be right there.
Ted Stank (09:32):
What else do we have here, tom?
Well, I'm just talking about Acouple other topics I want to
hit before we get to Jim.
One of them let's save becauseit's about the Panama Canal.
So we'll save that for you, jim.
The last one I'm going to savethis one for you too, because
you told me one time don't buyinto this.
I'm talking about Convoy goingbankrupt, flexport struggling
and all these kind of digitalbrokerage companies, and you
(09:54):
were not bullish on them whenthe venture capital industry was
.
So let's bring Jim, let's do it.
I have to read this.
I'm going to pick it up andread this.
Jim Newsom is our guest.
Jim Newsom is the recentlyretired president of South
Carolina Port's authority.
Previous president of Hapag.
North America has just doneamazing things in his career,
(10:15):
but I want to read some of hisaccolades South Carolina Public
Servant of the Year.
National TransportationCoalition Person of the Year.
Rainmaker.
International Maritime Hall ofFame inductee Order.
I love this one.
Order of the Palmetto, southCarolina's highest civilian
honor.
That's really cool.
(10:35):
And then, just as of Fridaynight, the Haslum College of
Businesses Distinguished Alumniof the Year, which I had the
great honor of awarding to Jimin a wonderful ceremony.
So let's get Jim's take on somechanges in the global supply
chain environment and thingshappening in international trade
(10:55):
.
Jim literally has connectionsall over the world.
He has introduced us to peoplein Europe, asia, middle East,
south and Central America.
I've had dinner with you at afew of those different
continents.
They've always been good.
So, jim welcome.
Jim Newsome (11:11):
Well, thanks for having me.
Tom and Ted Really appreciateit.
It's an honor to be here.
Tom Goldsby (11:15):
Well, let's just go ahead and cut to the chase.
Where did we get it right,where did we get it wrong in
those opening?
Jim Newsome (11:20):
seven minutes.
The best story about aneconomist is the best thing is a
one-handed economist, becausethey can't keep saying on the
other hand.
But no, I think you've got itessentially right.
I think that, if I look at whathappened in the shipping and
port industry, I was in Asia.
I used to go to Asia rightafter Chinese New Year every
year, and it was March of 2020.
(11:41):
And we would normally go toChina and COVID this thing
called COVID had started.
We didn't know what it was inChina, so I bagged that part of
the trip.
I was just coming back and thevirus was following me back home
and then we had to make abudget because we were July
through June fiscal year.
So we had never managed in apandemic.
What did a pandemic mean?
For container flows, containervolumes?
(12:04):
Gee, I was really pessimistic.
I figured we'd lose 25% of ourvolume, whatever.
That's what I told our board.
And, of course, what I didn'trealize is that in a couple of
months, everybody would be bored.
They couldn't go anywhere.
They were doing 10 hours worthof Zoom calls a day to look at
their couch and say this is theugliest couch I've ever seen.
I need a new one.
So furniture was the number onecommodity and we had 20 months
(12:29):
of and we measure volumes in ourshipping industry by imports
about 20 months of 2.5 millionTUs when the port industry had
about 2 million.
Us port industry had about 2million TUs.
So we stretched every elementof the supply chain to its
limits, meaning we had days wecouldn't unload ships until we
(12:50):
took containers out.
Basically, Shipping lineschartered every ship Even if it
wasn't a container ship, they'dchartered a ship.
Truckers were expandingcapacity.
We had ships waiting 20 days incertain ports not Charleston,
but in other ports.
So we went through this boomcycle that really showed how
fragile the import global supplychain, the total US global
(13:12):
supply chain, is, and I thinkwhat has happened is we have
sort of returned to normal,normal being 2019.
Ted mentioned it.
We were about 3% up year onyear through the totality of the
year.
I think October was about 11%up according to data mine, and
that's about 2.3 million TUs.
(13:33):
And I think what happened?
The big retailers were facingthe same thing.
They didn't know what demandwould look like and they were
seeing shortages on shelvesbecause the supply chain was
getting bogged down.
So what was their solution?
They just ordered more Order,more.
Deal with it later and we'restill.
That's about it, thank you,thank you.
I think the major thing we'restill dealing with today is this
(13:53):
inventory overhang in the goodcycle, because people switched
to going back to Italy takingtrips, so we've still got this
big overhang of goods if youlook in a lot of the warehouses
and stuff.
So there's.
I think the other point you gotright is we're at an inflection
point.
We really don't know wherewe're headed.
I mean, every indicator says weshould have a consumer
(14:14):
recession, but we don't see thatyet.
But there are some things interms of population trends,
workforce trends, power trends,evs that we can talk about a
little bit.
I think that would beproductive.
Ted Stank (14:27):
Yeah, let's do that.
A couple of things I want toput out there.
First, what is your take on?
You and I talked for a longtime over the last I don't know
six, eight, almost eight years.
Right, the new locks in thePanama Canal opened in 2016,.
Right, and the projection wasthat increasing amounts of
freight from Asia Pacific weregoing to go through that new
(14:48):
locks of the canal and inboundGulf and US east coast ports,
and we have seen that bump inimports considerably over that
time.
But now Panama Canal is facingsome pretty dire circumstances
with drought.
I think.
The number is typically 42ships per day and a normal
(15:08):
operation cut to, I think, 30per day today and predictions of
down to 18 per day comeFebruary.
All bulk and oil petroleumships have been denied access.
They're going to have to goaround.
I saw recently there was alottery for a slot and a company
paid two and a half million forthat slot.
(15:29):
The container ships seem to beokay because they pre-book those
.
What's your take on some ofthat stuff, Jim?
Jim Newsome (15:35):
Well, I saw I mean, I knew Alberto Alamon very well
, know him very well demandedthe was the impetus behind
building the third set of locksand they knew they could have
some water issues.
It was not unknown, they didn'tknow that they would be this
bad.
But I think what's happenedover time?
When containerization startedand I've old enough to have seen
(15:58):
it speed was important.
We took a lot of cargo off onthe west coast and railed it at
whatever cost across the countryin containers and over time, as
containerization particularlyduring the pandemic, as
containerization was seen asless reliable for a number of
reason ships waiting, whatevercongestion I think companies
(16:19):
decided that the way toreestablish reliability is to
get the cargo closer to whereit's needed.
So it was meaning 70% of thepeople live east of the
Mississippi River.
13 states of a millionpopulation or more are growing
and they're mainly in thesoutheastern Gulf.
So there's been a toleratedacceptance of longer transit
(16:39):
time to establish reliability,even if the absolute days are
longer.
And what's happened since 2019,the east coast in Gulf has
gained 5% of share points versusthe west coast on imports.
We predicted that it's about50-50.
And I don't think it's evergoing back the other way and
everybody said well, the strikeis over on the west coast, all
(17:00):
the freight's going to go backto the west coast.
There's no evidence that thatever happened and there's no
evidence that that ever willhappen.
So you're right, the containerships are getting priority.
However, I read yesterday it isstarting to affect container
ships.
They're starting to route someships via the Suez Canal, which
is a longer transit time, andpart of that is also that
(17:23):
nothing stands alone in thisindustry.
It's also tied up with a trendof shifting manufacturing from
China to Southeast Asia, becausethat you know geography.
Those ships in Southeast Asianeed to go via the Suez anyway,
and we've seen that China'sshare of US imports has gone
from 48% to 38% in a reallyshort period of time.
Ted Stank (17:44):
And that's a percentage of a big number.
Jim Newsome (17:46):
Percentage of a big number.
So China's not going away.
But this China plus one thingis kind of inculcated in global
sourcing today.
So that feeds.
So lines will go to the path ofleast resistance.
So the Panama Canal getscongested, they will reroute the
ships.
Ships are mobile assets.
They'll reroute the ships viathe Suez Canal, which takes
(18:09):
longer, probably takes an extraship, but that's not a problem
today because the lines havemore capacity on order than
they've ever had on orders.
30% of the world fleet of 28million TUs is on order today.
And those are not small ships,they're 10,000 TUs and above and
they are being delivered rightnow.
So for a shipping line, addinganother ship to a string is a
(18:30):
way to soak up excess capacity.
So I think the impact of it canbe minimized through those
types of steps.
Ted Stank (18:40):
You talked about the China plus one strategy that a
lot of companies are looking atfrom a sourcing standpoint.
Where do you see the bigwinners?
Jim Newsome (18:49):
Well, I mean Vietnam, thailand, Indonesia,
india a question, given thathighly educated nature of the
Indian society, if they trulywant to be that big a
manufacturing player, butapparently they do.
But certainly Vietnam gainedinitially Thailand, everything,
indonesia.
Everything moves south, butscale wise.
(19:11):
I think what most people don'tRemember is that China spent 25
years developing a very reliablesupply chain.
They built the Yangshan bridgeyou know, from Shanghai, 32
Kilometer bridge in like 18months.
It would take us 20 years tobuild that and with massive
government Investment to.
So China is not going away.
The Chinese economy is veryExport-dependent and it has a
(19:34):
lot of problems today.
Yeah, so so they have to keepbeing a player and I think, if
you talk to Walmart or Target orthe big importers, they can't
abandon China.
That's really not possible,right.
Tom Goldsby (19:48):
Hey, jim, you were talking about pre pandemic
through pandemic, the Buildup ofall those container ships
sitting off the West Coast ports.
I think you in the past youkind of suggested that having
40% of us imports come into twoports are located Next door to
each other's maybe asinine myword, not yours and so it
(20:08):
presented tremendous opportunity.
Again, the migration to thesoutheast people are living here
in mass Distribution capacityis following.
How did you all ramp up andprepare to absorb that 5% share
gain that you saw?
I know that certainly beentremendous investments in South
Carolina ports as well as othersoutheastern Corridors.
(20:30):
But how were you able to evenembrace the opportunity when it
presented itself?
Jim Newsome (20:35):
Well, the good news I would say is we saw it coming
.
It was fairly obvious wherepeople were moving.
It was fairly obvious thatships were getting bigger.
When I started with the port in2009, the biggest ship we had
was a 5020 foot equivalent ship.
Today we had 16,000 and we youdon't hide ships when they're
(20:56):
being built, they announce theorder book so you can see
they're being, they're bigger.
So we recognized immediatelythat we had to deepen our harbor
.
When the first 13,000 tu shipcame to Charleston, we had two
cranes that could work the shipat full height.
The rest were too short so wehad to raise cranes by new
cranes.
So we ended up investing, withthe help of our state, about two
(21:17):
billion dollars in ten years.
And that same story is inVirginia, it's in Savannah, it's
in Houston.
The operating ports haveinvested heavily because they're
not land constrained and theysee the benefit of ports for
economic development and theyknow this that we knew the South
was going to grow.
We always said I I'm not aneconomist, I never knew what
(21:37):
trade flows are going to do.
I said, but will Be double theUS port volume in the southeast
because we should grow Above themarket.
Unfortunately, we were able todo that.
So a lot of blood, sweat andtears and permitting and
building infrastructure, whichis never easy, improving our
rail network and really tryingto expand the reach of the port
(21:58):
to and all along hoping we wereright.
Ted Stank (22:01):
Yeah, could you expand on that, jim?
I think one of the one of thereally innovative things you did
was the the inland port concept, especially if you realize
Charleston and the geography ofCharleston is a peninsula, so
it's you can only get there fromone direction, so that was a
constraint well, rail,intermodal rail and what a lot
of people make a mistake.
Jim Newsome (22:21):
They look at a rail network and they think
containers can move on everyinch of rail.
They really move on about fivepercent.
It's very high density sort ofoperation.
And we had some land up inGreer, south Carolina, which is
Greenville in the north orsouthern wanted to convert the
BMW container traffic to rail,intermodal container rail, and
(22:41):
we wanted to build an inlandport.
We'd seen the one in front orRoyal Virginia, and we knew the
Greenville area, being betweenAtlanta and Charlotte on the 85
Carter, which is probably the ifyou've driven it, you know it's
probably the densest freightquarter around.
So in 2012 they asked us if wewould work together and we said
yes.
The big tension point was theysaid they wanted to run the
(23:05):
inland port.
We said no, we don't like theway you run inland terminals, we
want to run it more like a port.
So we invested a lot of money Imean it's close to a hundred
million dollars, there'snothing's cheap in our world and
built a essentially a groundedcontainer facility which could
take chassis out of play and themain catalyst was to serve BMW.
But I would say today that lessthan 50% of the freight is BMW.
(23:28):
It's very diverse and it'sactually export dominant, which
is the only one like it, becauseBMW at today we didn't foresee
it then.
They export more than theyimport because of CKD and SKD.
So just to give you some orderof magnitude, I figured that In
five years time that inland port.
First of all many people toldme it was a stupid idea.
(23:50):
I mean, that's the way ideaswork and I kept a few of those
emails for I select a group offriends that I'll show them one
day at their retirement.
But anyway, I thought it mightdo a hundred thousand lifts in
five years.
I knew it'd be successful.
It's up to a hundred and sixtythousand.
The port after I left hasmeanwhile expanded it.
(24:10):
The northern, southern isexpanded.
I think it easily can do twohundred and fifty thousand lifts
and At a hundred sixty thousandlists is three times bigger
than any other inland port.
So it's port owned inland port.
So it's been a amazing success,you see, being Santa Fe going
in this direction in the west,kansas City, colorado, alliance,
(24:32):
now Phoenix.
So we've got to find anintelligent way to move more
containerized freight by rail.
We can't continue to have 75 or80 percent going by truck
because we're not gonna haveenough truckers we have.
We're going to have a realshortage of truckers in this
country.
Ted Stank (24:49):
Just do the demographics and just the
quality and you throw in othersocial issues like traffic
density on the highways andcarbon footprints and things
like that.
Jim Newsome (24:57):
So sure, I mean just when I was in school here
in the dark ages they called ittransportation.
You know you didn't do railingunder 500 miles, right, that was
kind of the mantra.
Well, this is a 212 mile inlandport.
We did one in Dillon for 160miles in short haul rail,
intermodal, I think, shuttlesand things of that nature, even
in urban areas, extendedcombined statistical areas.
(25:20):
I think there's a way with thefuture there.
Ted Stank (25:22):
You also built up your rail side Capabilities in
the port itself right.
Jim Newsome (25:26):
Right, we were and we were Admittedly behind in
that we had not Arranged thenear dock rail and the way that
it needed to be arranged.
But we play, playing there,playing catch up there now and,
I think, developing a verycreative solution that doesn't
rely on trucks to move from theport facility to the rail,
hopefully using a barge serviceto take trucks off the road.
(25:49):
Yeah, I've said it for years aShortage of container trucking
is going to be the Achilles heelof this industry.
If we're not careful, we, wesimply cannot continue to grow
5% a year with it.
With the same owner operatortruck model, it doesn't work.
Tom Goldsby (26:06):
Jim, let me ask you a question.
I mean, we made a reference toChina and how they're able to
Move so aggressively with acentrally controlled government.
Basically set a strategy as anation, the construction follows
.
You know, here in the UnitedStates, obviously it's private
sector, public, privateenterprise as well, but there is
no such thing as a nationaltransportation strategy or
(26:29):
policy per se.
Where do you think there aredeficiencies and maybe where
should government be involvedand where should they not be
involved?
Perhaps?
Jim Newsome (26:37):
Well, I think I always told Ted I probably have
the last national transportationpolicy book ever written in the
US, and it was written in 1970.
Tom Goldsby (26:45):
I thought it was in the 70s.
Jim Newsome (26:46):
So we don't have such a policy and I would say
that intelligently.
The best thing we can do from apublic policy strategy point of
view is intelligently buildinfrastructure In the example I
always give.
If you think about theinterstate highway system, which
was built in the 1950s,admittedly to support war, think
(27:06):
about this country without theinterstate highway system, how
you would get around here.
So it was very intelligentlydone.
The problem with infrastructuretoday, in my observation, is
sometimes it's politicized.
We don't get a lot ofinfrastructure grants in South
Carolina because it's a redstate.
We're not a swing state.
It goes to a lot of swingstates because it's politically
(27:28):
motivated, if I'm honest aboutit, and you have to pick winners
and losers and the publicsector does an incredibly lousy
job of picking winners andlosers.
How do you tell a port X, y orZ that you're not in the top 10,
you don't need to grow.
The state's not gonna like that, honestly.
And then, although we talk, Ididn't find out about making
(27:50):
permitting easier to buildinfrastructure.
It's really not Because there'sa lot of inertia within the
pipeline and the agencies thatdo this sort of thing to keep
the status quo, because that'swhat they know.
I think that commit to buildingintelligent infrastructure to
support the supply chain isimportant, and being able to
(28:11):
make the right choices and do itfaster.
The Savannah Harbor expansionproject took 25 years.
Wow, 25 years Now.
There's reasons for that.
We could go have a wholepodcast on that.
It took us from conceiving aharbor deepening in 2010 to
delivering it in 2022, 12 years.
The only thing and we deepenedthe harbor in 2004, the only
(28:35):
thing that changed between 2004and 2022 was the age of the fish
in the harbor that hadn't beencaught by fishermen, because the
harbor was exactly the same,yet it had to be restudied again
, et cetera.
So those things are notproductive in building the time.
China grew in outsourcing ofretail goods because they had a
(28:57):
scalable infrastructure.
They built big ports.
Costco grew from nothing to thenumber four line in the world,
and that was all a consciousstrategy.
Ted Stank (29:07):
Tom Menser, my predecessor here at University
of Tennessee, told the storyabout working with some guys in
the transportation ministry inChina about locating highways.
They did a location project andlocating highways between a few
major hub manufacturing citiesand he flew over to I think it
was Shanghai, maybe it wasBeijing to work with them on
(29:29):
well, like year one, let's say,to talk about this design, and
they figured out where they weregonna do it.
He flew back a year later andthey took him for a drive down
the highway.
Jim Newsome (29:38):
Yeah Well, I mean, the biggest city in China is not
Shanghai or Beijing, it'sChongqing.
It's up the Yangtze River, it'slike 35 million people and
they've built infrastructure tothat right.
And we talked about newbuildings of ships and you
talked about fuel.
This sort of 30% of ships onorder were built in spite of the
(29:59):
fact that the shipping linesdon't really know what the fuel
of the future is, and it's notLNG, it's not ultra low sulfur
fuel.
So I would echo what you said.
I think it's hydrogen.
Most people would say it.
There's some ships being builtwith biomethanol today, but most
people believe and I would saythe International Maritime
(30:20):
Organization would tell you thathydrogen is probably the fuel
of the future for ships.
Ted Stank (30:24):
Not plastics.
Jim Newsome (30:25):
Not plastics.
That's the whole other topic.
Tom Goldsby (30:28):
Yeah right, jim, you have a very impressive track
record of making some prettybig bets and having them pay off
.
I just wonder if you go on therecord with us this afternoon
and kind of cast forward what doyou see the future of supply
chain and maybe bring it back alittle bit to what we do here at
UT and what role we can have inadvancing that future, making
(30:51):
it happen.
Jim Newsome (30:52):
Again.
I was in school here in the 70s, it was called transportation.
It's now this big, enormouspart of an organization
structure called supply chain,which I think has been a great
development transportationthrough logistics to supply
chain.
So it's given great prominenceto the field.
I tell people they laugh.
It said the supply chain becamereally important when we
(31:13):
couldn't find toilet paper onthe shelves anymore.
People thought that was the endof it.
Right, so people appreciate it.
So supply chain has grown insophistication.
It has to continue to grow.
As I said, if you look at thefour operating ports, they're
building two billion or more ofinfrastructures.
We have to continue to buildinfrastructure.
(31:34):
I think one of the missingcomponents in the import-export
supply chain is visibility.
There are good companies todaythere's, some are going to be
here.
I know Project 44 is here.
I'm doing some advising forGnosis freight that are really
honed in on container life cyclemanagement, because one of my
friends at Gnosis explained toour governor here at Mastery.
(31:56):
Said you know?
Governor?
Said what do you do?
He said well, I tell peoplewhere their car is.
He says they don't know wheretheir car is.
No, they don't know where theircar is.
And we saw example after exampleof people ordering millions of
dollars of goods not knowingwhere their containers are and
paying a lot of demerge becauseof that.
I always said 80% of thequestions we got in customer
(32:19):
service in a shipping line or aport were questions you'd never
asked UPS or FedEx Where's mycontainer?
Where's the ship?
Is it custom?
Clear that all should.
So we've got to get, because ifwe can improve the visibility
we will improve the reliabilityand the efficiency of the supply
chain.
But I believe we're going tocontinue to source more foreign
(32:40):
goods.
We can't bring all themanufacturing here because
they're in the workforce.
We're losing.
I'll tell you tomorrow we'relosing two and a half million
workers a year in this country.
We have no way to makeimmigration legal.
It's not politically palatable,so we have a problem.
So Mexico and Southeast Asiathey're going to be the
beneficiaries of that.
And I think the other thing andI probably poke a raw nerve here
(33:02):
is supply chain has grown.
This procurement and operationsfunctions have sort of become
estranged a little bit.
So procurement is purchaseprice variance and operations
has to deal sometimes with thebest that procurement creates
right, and some I think the bestsupply chain organizations are
going to be the ones that getthose in good alignment.
And then the last thing youwrite so you mentioned this
(33:26):
freight forwarding thing.
So about every 10 years and Iwon't name companies, I don't
want to hurt anybody's feelingsIn 10 years someone tries to
revolutionize a basic industryby digitization and it's really
about 10 year cycles.
You can name the companies andunfortunately, unfortunately,
the world's a wash in privatecapital.
(33:47):
So a lot of these privateequity folks get really excited
about this digitization.
They will overpay for thesecompanies.
Especially when interest rateswere not when money was free,
right.
Well, money's not free anymore.
And guess what?
People that do freightforwarding are really
established expeditors Kuna,noggle, Danza's, schenker those
are really established companiesthat provide great service.
(34:08):
You're going to knock them offthe ledge because they just have
some form of digitization orwhatever.
So we have to be realisticabout what the needs are.
What can truly move the needlein improving the reliability and
efficiency of the supply chain?
Ted Stank (34:26):
You worked at a place that was relatively labor
intensive and you brought on alot of couple times about the
labor issue and we're going tolose in two and a half million
workers a year from a portstandpoint and then broader in
the supply chain.
What is your vision of howwe're going to deal with this
labor crisis?
That's not short term.
It's going to be around the ageof the youngest person in this
(34:48):
room.
It's going to be around therest of your life.
Because, that's what globaldemographics are doing.
Jim Newsome (34:53):
So I'll say too let's talk about labor on two
fronts.
You raised it earlier.
The workforce issue is severeand it wasn't caused by the
pandemic.
I go to a conference every yearin Florida.
I probably wouldn't go to thatconference in Cleveland, but
it's in Florida in January, so Igo.
And we've been talking aboutthe demographic wall that we're
hitting.
There's way more of my agepeople retiring and
(35:16):
unfortunately dying than they'rebeing born, and that's two and
a half million years.
So, number we have to have someintelligent form of legal
immigration in this country andwe probably have to stop illegal
immigration to make legalimmigration palpable.
And that's not hard to see.
But there's no answer.
(35:36):
Without doing that you can'tautomate everything.
Everybody's just automate Well,that sounds nice, but it
doesn't always work that way,right?
So that's one thing.
Labor in shipping is going to bea challenge.
East Coast and Gulf Laborsituation.
I don't think it's any secret.
Our current president has saidhe is the most union supportive
(35:58):
president that we've ever had,and this is emboldened to labor
unions.
And in East Coast and Gulf thecarriers in the union had a
chance to do an extension duringthe pandemic when they were all
making a lot of money and thatprobably could have gotten done
at pretty good wages.
But now they're going to try todo it in 2024.
The rates have in the meantimeslid.
The results, the mercs you sawthe announcement they're making
(36:22):
negative results in containershipping.
So it ain't going to be thateasy to get a 30% or 40%
increase in 2024 when thatcontract's up.
And the head of the unionyesterday basically said we will
not extend.
They've always extended ComeOctober 1,.
We'll have a contract or wewon't, and I don't doubt for a
minute that he's sincere aboutthat.
(36:44):
So it will create uncertainty,particularly when you and I want
to get to grain.
You've got a lot of foreignflag carriers and a direct
employer relationship with theunion that they don't employ.
That doesn't make any sense atall, going to create a lot of
uncertainty for big shippers.
It's hard to contingency planbecause what do you do?
You got a mill in makingGeorgia.
(37:06):
You going to ship overVancouver, no, I mean LA.
No, you're probably not goingto do that.
It's not easy to do.
I mean I think I'm pro-worker,I think we all have to be
pro-worker.
These are a given.
You have to pay today, right, Imean, if you don't pay you
won't get people.
But the pro-union side of it isreally you saw it in the UAW
(37:27):
it's emboldened the unions and Idon't think that's going to
change short of a change in theadministration.
And now, last thing I say please, just you asked me to tie it
back to UT supply chain and I'mfortunate enough to sit on the
Dean's Advisory Council, whichreally means a lot to me, as did
(37:51):
this award, you know, withreally an honor having a 50-year
association with the supplychain program here.
And I would really say a lot ofcredit goes to you folks, ted
and Tom and your colleagues, andwhat you have done to raise the
visibility of this program andthe worth of this a degree from
(38:11):
this program to the levels thatit's at today.
I give you a lot of credit forthat.
And the best years are clearlyahead.
The university is going to have70,000 applications this year.
It's a record.
And I always tell kids thedifference in transportation and
supply chain degree from the70s and now about 20,000 a year
in tuition and about 60,000 ayear in starting salary.
(38:32):
So I mean that's the difference.
Tom Goldsby (38:36):
Well, jim, we are where we are because of friends
and alums like you.
You know we have the wisdom tolisten to you and invite you in
and again to benefit from thatwisdom and put it into action.
So, thank you for pushing usbeyond, pushing us, giving us
that impetus.
Well, thank you as well.
Ted Stank (38:55):
Jim, you've been one of our closest partners for many
years now.
You're also on our advisoryboard, the supply chain
management global supply chainInstitute advisory board, and
they've given us reallyinsightful ways to improve our
programs and our initiatives,and I thank you for that.
I think this is a great way towrap this up and welcome the
folks here, and pretty soonwe're going to welcome a lot
(39:18):
more folks to the November 2023version of supply chain forum.
We're upwards north of 75companies that are forum
partners with us right now andwe're going to welcome about 300
of their people here inKnoxville this week, and I
really do believe that thepartnership we have with those
75 companies and the 300managers that come a couple of
(39:41):
times a year to meet with us arereal reason why this program
has gone where it's gone in thelast 15 years or so.
Jim Newsome (39:49):
Well, when I was with the port, I would say our
participation in the supplychain forum was one of the most
meaningful things that we did.
I mean, for a very reasonablecost we could get around some of
the top decision makers in USglobal supply chain.
So it's phenomenal what you'vedone.
One of many examples.
Ted Stank (40:08):
Well, thank you again for joining us here.
This is your second time withus.
Advertisement (40:11):
Second time.
Ted Stank (40:12):
Peter Anderson out in the audience, one of our other
really great partners.
Peter, we got our crosshairs onyou.
We're going to have to get youon as a guest soon.
Okay, Tom, I think we'll signoff.
Tom Goldsby (40:22):
Yeah, let's close off, and this is the 26th
anniversary edition and we madea big deal of observing the 25th
anniversary last year.
I'd say we got to celebrate the26th year just as big Of the
forum.
Jim Newsome (40:32):
What do?
Tom Goldsby (40:32):
you say Of the forum.
We're excited about the nexttwo days ahead of us and again,
not only our industry partnersbut all those students are going
to have access to such.
Ted Stank (40:43):
We expect about 700 people to roll through this room
in the next three days betweenour industry partners, faculty
staff and students.
Tom Goldsby (40:52):
For those of you that aren't part of the forum,
we ask you to maybe give it someconsideration.
How can you do that?
Reach us at GSCI at utkedu.
We'll get you started down thepath.
So with that, thank you so much.
Thanks for those of youattending, and we'll see you
next time.
Introduction (41:09):
Thanks for tuning in to Tennessee on Supply Chain
Management.
If you enjoyed the episode,subscribe today on your favorite
listening platform to get allof our episodes as soon as they
drop, and don't forget to take amoment to leave us a rating.
Have any questions, thoughts orfeedback?
We'd love to hear from ourlisteners.
Email us at GSCI at utkedu.
Join us next time as wecontinue pulling back the
(41:32):
curtain on the world of supplychain, educating and
entertaining you along the way.
Until then, listeners.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!