November 27, 2025 • 32 mins
Reliability doesn’t start at the dock; it starts with the systems, culture, and visibility that shape every move long before a truck leaves the yard. We sit down with Brent Hagen, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Lob and former Amazon operations leader, to explore how standard work, bottoms-up ownership, and ruthless transparency turn daily chaos into dependable delivery. From running a 24/7 slice of a two-million-square-foot facility to redesigning Lob’s network without owning fixed assets, Brent shares the practices that help teams stay calm, move fast, and keep promises.
Key Takeaways 👇
🟩 Reliability starts long before the truck moves—built through culture, systems, and visibility.
🟩 Standard work + bottoms-up ownership turn daily chaos into predictable performance.
🟩 Consolidating from 30 → ~10 manufacturing partners significantly improved quality and consistency.
🟩 The most reliable carriers offer predictable lanes, strong scan visibility, and accountable exception handling.
🟩 Lob builds Amazon-like speed without fixed assets by tightly integrating manufacturers, logistics partners, and USPS injections.
🟩 Leaders evolve by shifting from “fixer” to “builder of owners” and maintaining steady rituals across all shifts.
🟩 AI pays off today in dispatch intake, exception triage, lane forecasting, trailer utilization, and cost-to-serve modeling.
🟩 Tracking data is non-negotiable—“If you don’t track it, you can’t trust it.”
🟩 Tariffs, seasonality, and resilience planning remain central to dependable supply chain operations.
🟩 Brent supports STEM through the Science Center of Iowa to help grow the next generation of logistics innovators.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:05):
Welcome back to the Dash Delivery Podcast, where
trucking meets technology,leadership, and logistics.
I'm your host, Trucking Ray.
And when we talk about delivery,most people think about what
happens on the road, but whatabout everything that happens
before the truck rolls?
From warehouse floors to digitaldashboards, reliability starts
long before a freight leaves thedock.
My guest today is Brent Hagen,the chief supply chain officer
(00:28):
at Lobb, where he leads 250million automated fulfillment
network that keeps thousands ofcustomer promises on track.
Before that, he managed massiveoperations at Amazon to help
deliver for scale for deliverahead of Shopify's 2.2 billion
acquisition.
Brent has been on the frontlines, helped building reliable
systems.
And today we're breaking downwhat the truck and world can
(00:50):
learn from that.
Hey Brent, thank you for beingon the show today.
Glad to have you here.
How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_02 (00:59):
I'm doing great.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (01:01):
Awesome.
I mean, you've had a fascinatingjourney from Purdue to Eton's
leadership program uh tomanaging large-scale operations.
Uh, tell us about that.
How how did that go?
How'd you get started with that?
SPEAKER_02 (01:12):
Yeah, uh, I've been I've been really fortunate
throughout my career for sure,um, starting with a first-class
education from Purdue.
Uh I I still still go back to tocampus uh usually once a
semester and present to tostudents um about about how to
kind of forge their career andand set their own their own
path.
Um joining Eaton's LDP uhprogram, I was incredibly
(01:36):
fortunate to be a part of that.
Um it still exists today,although in in a very different
form than the one that I was in,um, followed by getting
recruited into private equitymanufacturing.
Um private equity manufacturingis really where my my uh life
took took a bit of a turn, uh,got married, uh, started having
(01:56):
kids, and uh I was traveling,you know, probably 100% of the
time, and uh Amazon camecalling, and uh I talked to a
lot of my mentors uh at thetime, some of which are still my
mentors today, about gettinginto fulfillment.
And one of them had a reallygreat advice, and he was like,
you know, fulfillment's the theway of the future.
He's like, you need to learnabout it.
(02:17):
He's like, they have the besttechnology.
Uh, and so that's that's how Ireally uh ended up at at Amazon
was taking the advice of uh ofwhat's clearly a very wise guy.
Um then moving moving intodeliver, which was founded by uh
ex-Amazon uh guy uh who was whowas looking to uh the our thesis
(02:37):
in this space was that that wecould create Amazon-like
fulfillment speeds uh withouthaving Amazon-like uh
fulfillment uh and fixed cost.
You know, obviously they have uhdistribution centers all over
the country in order to providethat that very unique experience
on it it worked, uh followed byas you called it the the Shopify
acquisition.
(02:58):
Um and then after that, uh I wason a hiatus uh hanging out with
with my family when when Lobcalled.
And that's really been this hasbeen such a fun part of my
career.
Uh I knew the next role I wantedto do.
Um when I was talking to our theCEO, um, I said, I just really
(03:19):
want to solve interestingproblems with with interesting
people.
And this is definitely aninteresting one because it's
such a highly fragmented space.
Um, obviously very oldtechnology uh with an industry
that's been around for a reallylong time, right?
One of the one of the largestcut uh companies in the space
has been around for 150 years.
So it starts to really combineuh a lot of my manufacturing
(03:40):
background, but as well as thethe technology um and operation,
operational resilience that Ilearned throughout my career,
especially at at Amazon uh andthen with with Deliver.
So it's it's been a really greatuh combination.
And uh I'm headed right towardsuh my third year here.
It's been a ton of fun.
SPEAKER_01 (04:00):
Congratulations, man.
That's awesome.
I mean, running 5,000 personfulfillment center at Amazon
sounds intense.
Well, what did you yourexperience teach you about
efficiency and accountability?
What's what did that help with?
SPEAKER_02 (04:12):
Yeah, well, so systems, uh a lack of systems
are going to uh pop up, youknow, if if you don't have um if
you don't have the rightstandardization in place, you're
gonna watch everything,everything fall apart at scale
like that.
You know, so uh when I startedat at Amazon, I was running uh
basically a third of of abuilding uh which had uh which
(04:36):
was 2 million square feet, had afew thousand people inside of
it, and I had about a third ofthe building.
And I ran it 24-7.
And I was the only one out of mypeers and I that had 24-7.
Most people have like 12 uhseven, you know, and so one
person runs all night, the otherperson runs all day.
Uh and so I obviously couldn'tlive there.
Um, Amazon wouldn't allow it,nor would my my wife and my
(04:58):
children certainly wouldn't likeit very much.
Um so it was critical for me toput processes in place uh that
scaled, that allowed me to beout of the building.
You know, and so the thequestion that I always ask teams
when you're when you're thinkingabout that um is how are you
bringing visibility to yourproblem?
Uh how are you going tostandardize how you respond to
(05:19):
those problems?
Because nobody uh can can bethere all the time, even across
from shift to shift.
And all of them really need tokind of look the same.
You know, each each shift shouldsolve problems pretty much the
same way.
So, how do you standardize theway in which we look at
problems, the way that we'regoing to attack short-term,
medium-term versus long-term?
And then ultimately, how do youestablish uh accountability uh
(05:43):
towards solving those problems?
Like those are things that youhad to become an expert at very,
very quickly at Amazon uh inorder to be really great.
You know, the the piece that Ilike to talk to people about is
this is operations, right?
It doesn't matter if you're afleet manager or someone running
a distribution center, um, or ifyou're the person making the
(06:06):
widget, you know, somewhere uhglobally, operations is is pure
chaos.
Like every single day,something's gonna go wrong,
right?
Like you just you probably maybeyou heard about the AWS shutdown
that just happened uh overnight,right?
That broke systems from Amazonto Delta Airlines, like you you
name it, like that's gonna popup.
(06:27):
That's a pretty complicatedproblem.
But you're gonna have peoplecall in sick, you're gonna have
a truck breakdown, you're gonnahave a forklift breakdown.
So what keeps us from uhabsolutely falling to pieces in
in those scenarios is ourculture, right?
Culture is the thing that'sgonna make you uh be calm when
the when the storm is hap, uh,is happening.
SPEAKER_01 (06:49):
I like that.
So uh what's some of theexercises that you do to stay
calm?
I mean, that culture.
I mean, how do you um presentthat to other people?
SPEAKER_02 (06:57):
Yeah, I I think a lot of it comes down to how you
begin to structure your teamsand um going back to that that
standardization piece, you know,and so every day, every week,
every month, every quarter, Iwant to look at problems the
exact same way.
And I want the team around me uhto talk about uh to talk about
(07:19):
our problems, you know, and solet's use data um and enhance
visibility towards that data tobegin tracking where our
deficiencies lie and beincredibly um uh incredibly
persistent in the the pursuit ofof attacking those failures, you
know, and so let's not allowlike one instance of a failure
(07:41):
to ruin um the entire week orthe entire month.
Let's understand like how doesthat um come together as like a
trend uh and take those trends,action them appropriately, and
understand like what am I tryingto fix here and how am I how do
I know if that's gonna work ornot?
You know, and so that when teamsstart doing that, they uh can
(08:05):
become very comfortable with theidea that operations is that
chaos that that you and I aretalking about, uh, and just kind
of manage through it, you know,and so it's it's much like uh
anyone that puts themselves in asituation where they have the
opportunity to fail or or misssomething.
The first time you do it, likeit's it's pretty nerve-wracking.
(08:27):
And then it happens and you'restill here, like you're still
with us, like it's okay, thenext day's still gonna come, you
know, and so don't let some sortof opportunity to get better,
don't view that as a failure.
You know, and so the way I wantto talk to my teams about it is
every time that that happens,like as long as we're reflective
(08:49):
about it, we're gonna learnsomething from that miss, you
know, and so we're gonna getbetter the next time we do it,
we're gonna enter it with a lotmore comfort.
Um, and that's really winning inlike every sense of the uh of
the term.
SPEAKER_01 (09:03):
Yeah, so I'm a question that comes to my mind
is I've worked with some oraround some individuals that
like to change it every week.
They they may have a process inplace and they may feel like
it's not being effective.
So they say, well, let's changethis, let's change that.
And every week the whole team ischanging, swinging this way,
swinging that way.
And what what really keeps younailed down to the same pattern
(09:26):
that you started out with uhinitially to continue to do that
week by week or uh to the nextquarter and so on?
unknown (09:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (09:34):
So I think a lot of times when you see that, um
people have leaders have like atop-down approach to problem
solving, you know, and and itprobably starts right there
because where the whereprocesses are most likely to
fail are ones in which the thefolks that are actually
executing the problems uh don'thave a sense of ownership around
(09:56):
the process and of itself.
So a lot of that comes down toliterally like the framing of
what we're trying to achieve.
And so anytime that I'm goalsetting, I want what we're
trying to achieve, kind of ourNorth Star key KPIs, what we
want to see on a balance sheet,like whatever the case might be,
that North Star should be topsdown.
(10:17):
There's there's just no doubtabout it.
But after that, it should, itshould stop right there from the
tops down and it should movebottoms up.
You know, and so you shouldstart engaging every element of
your of your value chain fromyour frontline leaders, the
hourly people on the floor, uh,your middle managers on up and
(10:37):
think about what needs to betrue in order for us to achieve
these things that we're talkingabout.
And you start laying out youryour processes, you're gonna
identify areas in which yoursystems are gonna break.
Okay, great.
How do we begin to fix those?
How do we so we're gonna have aplan to fix those now?
How are we going to monitorthese things to make sure that
(10:58):
reliability is there and thatwe're achieving our goals,
right?
And so going all the way up tohow does cycle time on a machine
or how does uh the rate in whichwe're loading our trucks or the
rate in which we're turning overour trucks, uh all of our
delivery speeds, how does all ofthat convert into what our North
(11:18):
Star metric was?
And so now you've got an actionplan and processes.
But what you've really done isyou've engaged everyone all
along the way to establishownership in the process of what
elements they control that tieback to your vision.
And with that ownership, uhowners inherently feel like they
(11:40):
need to do something in order todrive towards a result, right?
Um, owners are also highlyaccountable to those results.
So now you've also, as a leader,you've established
accountability with your team.
Like, hey, you own this part ofthe process.
Uh and so that bottoms-upexercise with my team, I often
say, like, hey, here's thevision, here's the things that
(12:00):
we need to accomplish.
You tell me what needs to betrue.
Have them really begin to designthe process.
Uh, now you have to help themsanity check it to make sure
it's going to deliver what youwhat you want.
Um, but then kind of get out ofthe way.
You know, and so when you've gotthis ever-evolving change, I
think teams often miss out onthat, that process of of
(12:21):
establishing one, a standard,uh, two, ownership and
accountability, and then three,how to visualize those processes
to actually understand is itworking or not.
SPEAKER_01 (12:31):
Yeah, it's good stuff.
I mean, you're well, you'realways a uh hat leadership
qualities.
I mean, you you really uh seemto emulate everything you're
saying.
Um to to watch in action.
I mean, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_02 (12:45):
Yeah, no, no, I I I appreciate it.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Um, I haven't always been uh,you know, the a great a great
leader.
Um that was something I Iabsolutely had to had to learn.
I've always been uh a processthinker.
Like I I loved solving complexproblems and being able to take
a problem apart and put it backtogether in a more efficient
(13:07):
way.
And that was some of the firstthings that like I did out of
school.
Um but I was also kind of like alone wolf to a certain degree.
Like I also really liked doingit by myself.
Uh and I so I had to figure outhow to both play nice with
others, but also bring peoplealong um in that journey.
Uh, and that took me a while,you know, in in my career to
(13:30):
figure out how to be really,really good at that.
Um, and the piece that I learnedwas how much easier it is um to
have success and build on thatsuccess when you have others
around you um that you'reteaching, you're learning from
as well, um, and you're workingon this stuff together.
Like it feels like an intuitiveconcept, you know, when I say it
(13:53):
out loud, um, but it it wasn'tfor me.
I had to, I had to learn thatbehavior.
SPEAKER_01 (13:57):
Wow, nice.
I mean, that's that's uh it'sgreat to see how you know humans
can continue to evolve into tosomething that's uh they can be
proud of themselves personallyand also something that they can
share with others.
I mean, a lot of people canlearn from uh from your
experience.
So thanks for sharing that.
And uh those experiences lead towhere you're at now.
Um let's dig into what happensor what it looks like today.
(14:17):
Um looks like Lobb isn't um yourtraditional logistics company,
but it still relies on heavilyon transportation partners and
dependable operations.
So for those in trucking who maynot know, or uh those who you
know uh does automated directmail fulfillment uh network,
actually, how does that work forthem or how does it work for you
(14:39):
guys?
SPEAKER_02 (14:40):
Yeah, good question.
So Lobs started off as the umkind of the original API on the
street.
So it's a technology that umallows for the data transfer of
marketing campaigns,transactional campaigns from,
you know, whether that's a bankor Capital One or an automotive
company uh into a means ofmanufacturing, right?
(15:01):
And transferring that data thatthey need to have produced.
Uh what we've transformed intois that, well, taking a step
back, and we've done all of thisin a third-party manufacturing
manner.
And historically, what we didwas we sent all complexity
downstream to our third-partymanufacturers and we said,
here's the data, go makesomething, uh, and please do a
(15:24):
good job and send us the bill.
Um over the last three years,we've really started to tear
that apart.
And we said that we really wantto own the entire uh value chain
without owning the fixed capitalassets in the middle, right?
The actual printers that arethat are hat that um that are
executing this.
And so we've um begun leveragingour technology to integrate both
(15:51):
with the manufacturer as well aswith logistics companies, and
we're handling all theprocurement and stuff in the in
the middle um to to execute allof our campaigns down.
And so it really mimics that ofa first-party vertically
integrated company without usactually owning the assets in
the middle.
You know, and so to uh to afreight provider, we have a lot
(16:14):
of free providers in our networkthat are handling our middle and
final mile injection into the UUSBS as well as um into our
logistics partners uh kind of inthe middle that might be doing
middle mile sortation orco-powerization um both on FTL
and and LTLs.
Uh and so hopefully hopefullyhope I hope, sorry, to see some
(16:36):
of um some of your listeners' uminvoices come through.
SPEAKER_01 (16:41):
Nice.
That'd be great.
I mean, so I mean Lobb'soperational revenue, 50% while
lowering costs.
Um you've grown that, you know.
Um what changes help you makethat happen without sacrificing
quality?
SPEAKER_02 (16:56):
Um one, a phenomenal team.
Um, first and first andforemost.
Um I was super fortunate when Icame to Lobb to inherit a really
good team that we've had the theopportunity to build on.
Um but over the last probably 18months, maybe two years, uh
we've had this focus to uhstreamline our quality processes
(17:18):
from partner to partner.
Um the first way in which to dothat was that we had 30
manufacturing partners uh acrossthe country, uh and we've
dwindled those down um to about10.
That provided us um the abilityto establish uh much more
strategic partnerships uh acrosseach one of our third-party
(17:40):
manufacturers uh and align onwhat our vision was, what things
were they already working on,where were they investing their
capital as well, and whatprocesses could each one of them
control that could give us umthe best tools to have uh
continuity of quality across thenetwork that was operated by by
different folks?
(18:00):
Uh and we've seen significantimprovements in in quality uh
over that time um while alsodriving more volume through our
through our system.
So it's something we're veryexcited about.
SPEAKER_01 (18:12):
Nice.
And when you're talking aboutthe listeners and those out
there, and when you'reevaluating trucking or last mile
partners, what do you uh lookfor in a carrier uh that truly
delivers consistency?
SPEAKER_02 (18:23):
Um versus on-time performance, um, I I think first
and foremost, and their abilityto provide us um very
predictable freight lanes um andvisibility into those freight
lanes and how they'redelivering, you know.
And so I I don't think thatthere's anything more
frustrating than a partnersaying, like, yeah, I don't
(18:47):
know, it's gone.
Or yeah, that's shipped.
And then you're like, Are yousure it's shipped?
Because usually I've got thisdata scan that scans not here,
like, you know, I I've got thispallet scan that you scan to the
door or something like that, andthey say, Oh, yeah, actually,
you know, it never left.
Like it's here at it's stillhere at the the DC.
We accidentally put it in the inthe wrong lane or something.
(19:07):
You know, those sort of things,yes, they're they're gonna
happen.
Um, but they shouldn't happenall the time.
You know, and uh I'll I'll giveyou a really good example.
We we had a uh freight partnerwho we've been using for the
last few years, and in aone-month period of time, they
told us three different tractortrailers blew over and wrecked
(19:30):
all of their pallets.
And we're like, really?
Like it happens, right?
Like it absolutely happens, youknow, no doubt.
Three times in a single month,like your tractor trailers are
are blown over and it'scomplete, you know, disaster
recovery.
Like, man, like I I sure wouldlike to see pictures of those.
Like that that sounds prettyinteresting.
Like, let me let me see that.
Um, because that doesn't soundthat doesn't sound truthful, you
(19:52):
know.
SPEAKER_01 (19:53):
Yeah, you gotta listen to what people are saying
closely because uh yeah, itcould be something different out
there.
Yeah, I mean the human element.
I mean, uh technology ischanging how we work, but humans
still they're still relevant.
Um many fleets want to embracethe automation or AI, but if
you're losing the human touch,um what balance do you think
(20:16):
works best?
SPEAKER_02 (20:42):
I I look at this uh a couple of different ways.
Um first and foremost, um, likethere are certainly elements
where AI can replace, you know,physical human touch and
involved with certain things.
Um when you look at it from thethe um from a fleet perspective,
um, there's companies likeaugment, for example, which are
(21:04):
are making some of their umdispatchers and some of the
intake processes more automatedthrough leveraging AI bots and
and that sort of thing.
Somebody still has to managethose processes, you know, and
so what I really like to focuson is what are the things that
we can leverage technology forthat make jobs more predictable
(21:27):
and more efficient, you know,and so I think integrating AI
into those physical humantouches um allows you to do
that.
And that's been true evenbefore, you know, AI, even even
when we were leveraging machinelearning, um, those sort of
those sort of things um wouldalways drive improvement within
(21:48):
within your processes.
And so that's how I first wantto look at a technology and how
do we embed it into everything?
Like what are what are the areasthat I can increase
predictability and increaseefficiency within the given
workforce that I have?
You know, from there you canreally build um a lot of complex
systems uh and that enhance youryour scale while managing your
(22:11):
overall um variable and fixedcosts.
SPEAKER_01 (22:14):
Nice.
I mean predictive data andautomation are transforming uh
forecasting.
Uh that's it's gonna be huge fora lot of companies to be able to
see further uh how to move, moveto the right, move to the left.
Um, what do we do?
How do we assess this?
Um, how close can we truly uhget to predicting supply chain
disruptions before they hit therope?
(22:34):
What do you say?
SPEAKER_02 (22:35):
I think we can get pretty accurate.
Um now, you know, we never knowthe necessarily the the next
time that there's gonna be likea wild swing in tariffs.
We never know the next time thatthere's going to be um a COVID
event or something like thatthat just flips uh value chains
(22:56):
upside down.
Um those sort of things everyfew years, like those are gonna
happen.
Uh and it's really on us asleaders to establish agility and
resilience with within our teamsto be able to say, like, okay,
that happened.
What are we going to do andbuild a plan, just as you and I
talked about in the earlier partof the show, right?
Like, what are we trying todrive towards and and how do we
(23:18):
do that all along the way?
But in terms of um large swings,kind of planable swings that
that are gonna happen, right?
Like your your large Q4congestion that's that's gonna
come up related to parcelmovements, right?
Because of the holidays and andthat sort of thing.
Um, we can get really, reallyaccurate on the impact that
(23:39):
that's gonna have and and planuh around that, uh leveraging
machine learning, leveraging AI.
Um we can even do you knowfuture forecasts, and it says,
okay, I'm getting ready to takeon a large client that's a
material percent, wouldrepresent a material percent of
my total capacity today.
Inject that into your existingdata and say, like, let's model
(24:01):
the impacts and what new freightlanes do I need to open up?
Like what sort of trailercapacity is it?
Um, what's my average trailercapacity going to be as a result
of this?
Um, as well as I think when youlook at it from like a fleet
owner perspective, or you know,maybe this is a 3PL owner
(24:23):
perspective, or the way that weeven look at it, as a result of
adding this volume, what happensto my total cost structures and
what sort of efficiency do Igain?
You know, like let's leverage,let's leverage machine learning
and and AI to build that out.
And now I'm future forforecasting my cost basis.
And so I can give this person alower quote than what my
(24:44):
standard quote is because I cansee it's gonna materially change
um my unit economics because ofall of the favorabilities I'm
gonna gain in trailerutilization, lane utilization,
and and things like that.
And so we can you can get very,very accurate with with modern
day tools on on forecasting thatsort of thing.
SPEAKER_01 (25:00):
Wow.
Nice.
So if you uh if you've neverheard of lob or if there was uh
an individual out there forhearing us for the first time,
what's the simplest way that uhyou would say lob would help uh
a business six to be successful?
Um how would you put it?
SPEAKER_02 (25:17):
Yeah, I think two different ways.
Uh we really have two differentuh two different businesses now,
uh one that's very complementaryto the to the other for sure.
Uh we're a direct mailautomation platform, and so we
allow uh very easy uh executionof people's mail campaigns uh
across the US, Canada, and theand the UK.
Um as a complement to thatbusiness, we've launched Lob
(25:39):
Logistics, uh, which can workwith our existing customer base,
the actual mail owners, uh, aswell as print manufacturers uh
as a means of distribution andinjection into the into the
USPS.
Uh and so we have uh a number ofpartners uh across uh all the
major geographies um that canreduce the the time to to in
(26:02):
home and your your average costuh when handling your logistics.
SPEAKER_01 (26:07):
Man, so for the future of fulfillment and
trucking or for lob uh asautomation continues to evolve,
what changes do you think willmost impact the trucking
industry in the next few years?
What would you say?
SPEAKER_02 (26:19):
Well, I think we have to get tariffs under
control, you know, for sure.
Um that's that's gonna have uh alarge impact.
We've we've seen that.
Um I think all of us are arehappy to to be operating in uh
in kind of that that non-COVIDenvironment as as well when we
weren't really sure when stuffwas gonna get pulled out of
Savannah and Long Beach uh orMiami or or wherever wherever
(26:41):
else.
Um but the um yeah, that'sthat's really kind of it.
SPEAKER_01 (26:47):
Yeah.
I mean that's uh it's a hugething to try to predict is I
mean, what's gonna happen fromanother country to what's gonna
happen here and how they'regonna interact with each other.
I mean, tariffs is uh it is veryunpredictable.
So yeah, you're right aboutthat.
SPEAKER_00 (27:02):
No doubt.
SPEAKER_01 (27:03):
Uh it looks like you also serve on the board of
Science Center of Iowa.
Did I get that correct?
Yeah, that's right.
All right.
So how does uh the educationcuriosity play in development of
next generation um for logisticleaders?
SPEAKER_02 (27:16):
Well, it's uh it's really important to me to serve
on boards like that.
Um the the Science Center ofIowa in particular, uh, we even
have like a preschool and earlyeducation uh to get kids
involved in in STEM uh and andunderstanding uh technology and
science and uh the impact thatthat that can have.
(27:39):
Um so it's it's a pretty uniqueearly education, uh, but as well
as it it begins to bring thisfamily uh together, both of
entrepreneurs and localbusinesses, and uh that really
kind of some of which areleaders in other parts of the
state and country, um, thatallows for idea sharing uh that
(28:00):
can be wildly beneficial.
You know, you start establishingbetter partnerships, uh, but as
well as that sense of communitythat comes from being a part of
that sort of like philanthropicuh uh effort.
Um, I want to uh help educatewhoever I can uh on the on the
benefits of of science andtechnology, you know, and so
(28:22):
especially coming from my partof the world and in operations,
um, things don't have to be kindof this this fixed mindset that
they have been in in operationsand supply chain for for a
really long time, right?
How do we leverage technologyand engineering to to uh build
better solutions?
(28:43):
Um the science center of Iowalike allows me to to do those
things.
SPEAKER_01 (28:48):
Wow, nice.
And for anyone, um, I mean,that's uh that's a huge thing
for anyone that's listening.
Um, I mean, we definitely wantto help the future of young ones
to be successful, so I reallyappreciate you doing that.
So also from drivers todispatchers, what's one step
that you can take um or thatpeople can take um maybe just uh
(29:09):
this week to make theiroperation more reliable and
future ready?
SPEAKER_02 (29:13):
Yeah, good question.
Um I think I can keep it reallysimple.
Like if you don't track it, youcan't trust it.
You know, and so what what areyou doing to provide visibility
to your team on all the sourcesof of error that can pop up
within your within youroperation?
Um if you're not tracking thoseopportunities to miss,
(29:35):
eventually you're going to miss,right?
Like those things are going tohappen.
So if you don't track it, youcan't trust it.
SPEAKER_01 (29:42):
I like that.
And real nice and simple andsomething that you can put forth
the effort uh to improve eachday.
Uh even if you're changing itjust by 1%, you're going in the
right direction versus uh justletting it happen, right?
So great.
Um, and you're a true leader.
Uh you've definitely grown uhinto the person that people
need.
We need someone more people likeyou in the industry.
(30:05):
So I'm really glad that you cameon the show to share your
experience and also talk aboutuh the things you're doing over
there at Lobb, the things youhave done and you continue to
do.
Um it's much appreciated.
So thank you so much, Brent.
SPEAKER_02 (30:16):
Yeah, thank you.
I appreciate you having me.
SPEAKER_01 (30:18):
Yeah.
So um thanks for joining DasDeliver Podcast.
It's clear behind everydelivery, every model.
And every one-time promise,there's strategy, leadership,
and teamwork that keeps it alltogether.
So thank you for providing that.
And then so before we go, uh tolearn more about lob's approach
and fulfillment, um, uh, where'sthe best place for people to
(30:39):
reach out?
Is it lob.com or where else arewe going to go?
SPEAKER_02 (30:43):
Lob.com.
Yeah, they can also find me uhon LinkedIn under Brent Hagen.
Um happy to to connect and andtalk about what's going on in in
my world and theirs.
SPEAKER_01 (30:53):
Nice.
Any else, anything else you'dlike to share with uh listeners
out there or some of thetruckers before we go, I like to
always see if you know if you'vejust wanted to put a shout out
or a thank you for anybody outthere.
Just uh uh we want to make surethat they hear it too.
So um anything No, no, that'sthat that's it.
SPEAKER_02 (31:11):
I I appreciate you having me.
Um the only shout out is is tomy team for for everything that
they uh they do for us and thebusiness and our our customers.
Uh and for your your listeners,hopefully some of them are uh
vendors of ours.
Thank you for for what you do.
Uh it's not a it's not an easyjob for sure.
SPEAKER_01 (31:29):
Awesome, awesome.
Thank you so much.
And uh and if anybody likes whatyou hear or like what you see,
please be sure to subscribe andalso continue to listen.
If you have any questions orcomments, please leave those for
us.
We'd like um like hearing fromyou, like uh answering your
questions, and um please reachout at that'sdelivered.com or
anywhere that you get yourpodcasts.
So that's all for today.
(31:50):
And um, we're trucking meetsinnovation, and that's
delivered.
Welcome back to the Dash Delivery Podcast, where
trucking meets technology,leadership, and logistics.
I'm your host, Trucking Ray.
And when we talk about delivery,most people think about what
happens on the road, but whatabout everything that happens
before the truck rolls?
From warehouse floors to digitaldashboards, reliability starts
long before a freight leaves thedock.
My guest today is Brent Hagen,the chief supply chain officer
(00:28):
at Lobb, where he leads 250million automated fulfillment
network that keeps thousands ofcustomer promises on track.
Before that, he managed massiveoperations at Amazon to help
deliver for scale for deliverahead of Shopify's 2.2 billion
acquisition.
Brent has been on the frontlines, helped building reliable
systems.
And today we're breaking downwhat the truck and world can
(00:50):
learn from that.
Hey Brent, thank you for beingon the show today.
Glad to have you here.
How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_02 (00:59):
I'm doing great.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01 (01:01):
Awesome.
I mean, you've had a fascinatingjourney from Purdue to Eton's
leadership program uh tomanaging large-scale operations.
Uh, tell us about that.
How how did that go?
How'd you get started with that?
SPEAKER_02 (01:12):
Yeah, uh, I've been I've been really fortunate
throughout my career for sure,um, starting with a first-class
education from Purdue.
Uh I I still still go back to tocampus uh usually once a
semester and present to tostudents um about about how to
kind of forge their career andand set their own their own
path.
Um joining Eaton's LDP uhprogram, I was incredibly
(01:36):
fortunate to be a part of that.
Um it still exists today,although in in a very different
form than the one that I was in,um, followed by getting
recruited into private equitymanufacturing.
Um private equity manufacturingis really where my my uh life
took took a bit of a turn, uh,got married, uh, started having
(01:56):
kids, and uh I was traveling,you know, probably 100% of the
time, and uh Amazon camecalling, and uh I talked to a
lot of my mentors uh at thetime, some of which are still my
mentors today, about gettinginto fulfillment.
And one of them had a reallygreat advice, and he was like,
you know, fulfillment's the theway of the future.
He's like, you need to learnabout it.
(02:17):
He's like, they have the besttechnology.
Uh, and so that's that's how Ireally uh ended up at at Amazon
was taking the advice of uh ofwhat's clearly a very wise guy.
Um then moving moving intodeliver, which was founded by uh
ex-Amazon uh guy uh who was whowas looking to uh the our thesis
(02:37):
in this space was that that wecould create Amazon-like
fulfillment speeds uh withouthaving Amazon-like uh
fulfillment uh and fixed cost.
You know, obviously they have uhdistribution centers all over
the country in order to providethat that very unique experience
on it it worked, uh followed byas you called it the the Shopify
acquisition.
(02:58):
Um and then after that, uh I wason a hiatus uh hanging out with
with my family when when Lobcalled.
And that's really been this hasbeen such a fun part of my
career.
Uh I knew the next role I wantedto do.
Um when I was talking to our theCEO, um, I said, I just really
(03:19):
want to solve interestingproblems with with interesting
people.
And this is definitely aninteresting one because it's
such a highly fragmented space.
Um, obviously very oldtechnology uh with an industry
that's been around for a reallylong time, right?
One of the one of the largestcut uh companies in the space
has been around for 150 years.
So it starts to really combineuh a lot of my manufacturing
(03:40):
background, but as well as thethe technology um and operation,
operational resilience that Ilearned throughout my career,
especially at at Amazon uh andthen with with Deliver.
So it's it's been a really greatuh combination.
And uh I'm headed right towardsuh my third year here.
It's been a ton of fun.
SPEAKER_01 (04:00):
Congratulations, man.
That's awesome.
I mean, running 5,000 personfulfillment center at Amazon
sounds intense.
Well, what did you yourexperience teach you about
efficiency and accountability?
What's what did that help with?
SPEAKER_02 (04:12):
Yeah, well, so systems, uh a lack of systems
are going to uh pop up, youknow, if if you don't have um if
you don't have the rightstandardization in place, you're
gonna watch everything,everything fall apart at scale
like that.
You know, so uh when I startedat at Amazon, I was running uh
basically a third of of abuilding uh which had uh which
(04:36):
was 2 million square feet, had afew thousand people inside of
it, and I had about a third ofthe building.
And I ran it 24-7.
And I was the only one out of mypeers and I that had 24-7.
Most people have like 12 uhseven, you know, and so one
person runs all night, the otherperson runs all day.
Uh and so I obviously couldn'tlive there.
Um, Amazon wouldn't allow it,nor would my my wife and my
(04:58):
children certainly wouldn't likeit very much.
Um so it was critical for me toput processes in place uh that
scaled, that allowed me to beout of the building.
You know, and so the thequestion that I always ask teams
when you're when you're thinkingabout that um is how are you
bringing visibility to yourproblem?
Uh how are you going tostandardize how you respond to
(05:19):
those problems?
Because nobody uh can can bethere all the time, even across
from shift to shift.
And all of them really need tokind of look the same.
You know, each each shift shouldsolve problems pretty much the
same way.
So, how do you standardize theway in which we look at
problems, the way that we'regoing to attack short-term,
medium-term versus long-term?
And then ultimately, how do youestablish uh accountability uh
(05:43):
towards solving those problems?
Like those are things that youhad to become an expert at very,
very quickly at Amazon uh inorder to be really great.
You know, the the piece that Ilike to talk to people about is
this is operations, right?
It doesn't matter if you're afleet manager or someone running
a distribution center, um, or ifyou're the person making the
(06:06):
widget, you know, somewhere uhglobally, operations is is pure
chaos.
Like every single day,something's gonna go wrong,
right?
Like you just you probably maybeyou heard about the AWS shutdown
that just happened uh overnight,right?
That broke systems from Amazonto Delta Airlines, like you you
name it, like that's gonna popup.
(06:27):
That's a pretty complicatedproblem.
But you're gonna have peoplecall in sick, you're gonna have
a truck breakdown, you're gonnahave a forklift breakdown.
So what keeps us from uhabsolutely falling to pieces in
in those scenarios is ourculture, right?
Culture is the thing that'sgonna make you uh be calm when
the when the storm is hap, uh,is happening.
SPEAKER_01 (06:49):
I like that.
So uh what's some of theexercises that you do to stay
calm?
I mean, that culture.
I mean, how do you um presentthat to other people?
SPEAKER_02 (06:57):
Yeah, I I think a lot of it comes down to how you
begin to structure your teamsand um going back to that that
standardization piece, you know,and so every day, every week,
every month, every quarter, Iwant to look at problems the
exact same way.
And I want the team around me uhto talk about uh to talk about
(07:19):
our problems, you know, and solet's use data um and enhance
visibility towards that data tobegin tracking where our
deficiencies lie and beincredibly um uh incredibly
persistent in the the pursuit ofof attacking those failures, you
know, and so let's not allowlike one instance of a failure
(07:41):
to ruin um the entire week orthe entire month.
Let's understand like how doesthat um come together as like a
trend uh and take those trends,action them appropriately, and
understand like what am I tryingto fix here and how am I how do
I know if that's gonna work ornot?
You know, and so that when teamsstart doing that, they uh can
(08:05):
become very comfortable with theidea that operations is that
chaos that that you and I aretalking about, uh, and just kind
of manage through it, you know,and so it's it's much like uh
anyone that puts themselves in asituation where they have the
opportunity to fail or or misssomething.
The first time you do it, likeit's it's pretty nerve-wracking.
(08:27):
And then it happens and you'restill here, like you're still
with us, like it's okay, thenext day's still gonna come, you
know, and so don't let some sortof opportunity to get better,
don't view that as a failure.
You know, and so the way I wantto talk to my teams about it is
every time that that happens,like as long as we're reflective
(08:49):
about it, we're gonna learnsomething from that miss, you
know, and so we're gonna getbetter the next time we do it,
we're gonna enter it with a lotmore comfort.
Um, and that's really winning inlike every sense of the uh of
the term.
SPEAKER_01 (09:03):
Yeah, so I'm a question that comes to my mind
is I've worked with some oraround some individuals that
like to change it every week.
They they may have a process inplace and they may feel like
it's not being effective.
So they say, well, let's changethis, let's change that.
And every week the whole team ischanging, swinging this way,
swinging that way.
And what what really keeps younailed down to the same pattern
(09:26):
that you started out with uhinitially to continue to do that
week by week or uh to the nextquarter and so on?
unknown (09:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (09:34):
So I think a lot of times when you see that, um
people have leaders have like atop-down approach to problem
solving, you know, and and itprobably starts right there
because where the whereprocesses are most likely to
fail are ones in which the thefolks that are actually
executing the problems uh don'thave a sense of ownership around
(09:56):
the process and of itself.
So a lot of that comes down toliterally like the framing of
what we're trying to achieve.
And so anytime that I'm goalsetting, I want what we're
trying to achieve, kind of ourNorth Star key KPIs, what we
want to see on a balance sheet,like whatever the case might be,
that North Star should be topsdown.
(10:17):
There's there's just no doubtabout it.
But after that, it should, itshould stop right there from the
tops down and it should movebottoms up.
You know, and so you shouldstart engaging every element of
your of your value chain fromyour frontline leaders, the
hourly people on the floor, uh,your middle managers on up and
(10:37):
think about what needs to betrue in order for us to achieve
these things that we're talkingabout.
And you start laying out youryour processes, you're gonna
identify areas in which yoursystems are gonna break.
Okay, great.
How do we begin to fix those?
How do we so we're gonna have aplan to fix those now?
How are we going to monitorthese things to make sure that
(10:58):
reliability is there and thatwe're achieving our goals,
right?
And so going all the way up tohow does cycle time on a machine
or how does uh the rate in whichwe're loading our trucks or the
rate in which we're turning overour trucks, uh all of our
delivery speeds, how does all ofthat convert into what our North
(11:18):
Star metric was?
And so now you've got an actionplan and processes.
But what you've really done isyou've engaged everyone all
along the way to establishownership in the process of what
elements they control that tieback to your vision.
And with that ownership, uhowners inherently feel like they
(11:40):
need to do something in order todrive towards a result, right?
Um, owners are also highlyaccountable to those results.
So now you've also, as a leader,you've established
accountability with your team.
Like, hey, you own this part ofthe process.
Uh and so that bottoms-upexercise with my team, I often
say, like, hey, here's thevision, here's the things that
(12:00):
we need to accomplish.
You tell me what needs to betrue.
Have them really begin to designthe process.
Uh, now you have to help themsanity check it to make sure
it's going to deliver what youwhat you want.
Um, but then kind of get out ofthe way.
You know, and so when you've gotthis ever-evolving change, I
think teams often miss out onthat, that process of of
(12:21):
establishing one, a standard,uh, two, ownership and
accountability, and then three,how to visualize those processes
to actually understand is itworking or not.
SPEAKER_01 (12:31):
Yeah, it's good stuff.
I mean, you're well, you'realways a uh hat leadership
qualities.
I mean, you you really uh seemto emulate everything you're
saying.
Um to to watch in action.
I mean, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_02 (12:45):
Yeah, no, no, I I I appreciate it.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Um, I haven't always been uh,you know, the a great a great
leader.
Um that was something I Iabsolutely had to had to learn.
I've always been uh a processthinker.
Like I I loved solving complexproblems and being able to take
a problem apart and put it backtogether in a more efficient
(13:07):
way.
And that was some of the firstthings that like I did out of
school.
Um but I was also kind of like alone wolf to a certain degree.
Like I also really liked doingit by myself.
Uh and I so I had to figure outhow to both play nice with
others, but also bring peoplealong um in that journey.
Uh, and that took me a while,you know, in in my career to
(13:30):
figure out how to be really,really good at that.
Um, and the piece that I learnedwas how much easier it is um to
have success and build on thatsuccess when you have others
around you um that you'reteaching, you're learning from
as well, um, and you're workingon this stuff together.
Like it feels like an intuitiveconcept, you know, when I say it
(13:53):
out loud, um, but it it wasn'tfor me.
I had to, I had to learn thatbehavior.
SPEAKER_01 (13:57):
Wow, nice.
I mean, that's that's uh it'sgreat to see how you know humans
can continue to evolve into tosomething that's uh they can be
proud of themselves personallyand also something that they can
share with others.
I mean, a lot of people canlearn from uh from your
experience.
So thanks for sharing that.
And uh those experiences lead towhere you're at now.
Um let's dig into what happensor what it looks like today.
(14:17):
Um looks like Lobb isn't um yourtraditional logistics company,
but it still relies on heavilyon transportation partners and
dependable operations.
So for those in trucking who maynot know, or uh those who you
know uh does automated directmail fulfillment uh network,
actually, how does that work forthem or how does it work for you
(14:39):
guys?
SPEAKER_02 (14:40):
Yeah, good question.
So Lobs started off as the umkind of the original API on the
street.
So it's a technology that umallows for the data transfer of
marketing campaigns,transactional campaigns from,
you know, whether that's a bankor Capital One or an automotive
company uh into a means ofmanufacturing, right?
(15:01):
And transferring that data thatthey need to have produced.
Uh what we've transformed intois that, well, taking a step
back, and we've done all of thisin a third-party manufacturing
manner.
And historically, what we didwas we sent all complexity
downstream to our third-partymanufacturers and we said,
here's the data, go makesomething, uh, and please do a
(15:24):
good job and send us the bill.
Um over the last three years,we've really started to tear
that apart.
And we said that we really wantto own the entire uh value chain
without owning the fixed capitalassets in the middle, right?
The actual printers that arethat are hat that um that are
executing this.
And so we've um begun leveragingour technology to integrate both
(15:51):
with the manufacturer as well aswith logistics companies, and
we're handling all theprocurement and stuff in the in
the middle um to to execute allof our campaigns down.
And so it really mimics that ofa first-party vertically
integrated company without usactually owning the assets in
the middle.
You know, and so to uh to afreight provider, we have a lot
(16:14):
of free providers in our networkthat are handling our middle and
final mile injection into the UUSBS as well as um into our
logistics partners uh kind of inthe middle that might be doing
middle mile sortation orco-powerization um both on FTL
and and LTLs.
Uh and so hopefully hopefullyhope I hope, sorry, to see some
(16:36):
of um some of your listeners' uminvoices come through.
SPEAKER_01 (16:41):
Nice.
That'd be great.
I mean, so I mean Lobb'soperational revenue, 50% while
lowering costs.
Um you've grown that, you know.
Um what changes help you makethat happen without sacrificing
quality?
SPEAKER_02 (16:56):
Um one, a phenomenal team.
Um, first and first andforemost.
Um I was super fortunate when Icame to Lobb to inherit a really
good team that we've had the theopportunity to build on.
Um but over the last probably 18months, maybe two years, uh
we've had this focus to uhstreamline our quality processes
(17:18):
from partner to partner.
Um the first way in which to dothat was that we had 30
manufacturing partners uh acrossthe country, uh and we've
dwindled those down um to about10.
That provided us um the abilityto establish uh much more
strategic partnerships uh acrosseach one of our third-party
(17:40):
manufacturers uh and align onwhat our vision was, what things
were they already working on,where were they investing their
capital as well, and whatprocesses could each one of them
control that could give us umthe best tools to have uh
continuity of quality across thenetwork that was operated by by
different folks?
(18:00):
Uh and we've seen significantimprovements in in quality uh
over that time um while alsodriving more volume through our
through our system.
So it's something we're veryexcited about.
SPEAKER_01 (18:12):
Nice.
And when you're talking aboutthe listeners and those out
there, and when you'reevaluating trucking or last mile
partners, what do you uh lookfor in a carrier uh that truly
delivers consistency?
SPEAKER_02 (18:23):
Um versus on-time performance, um, I I think first
and foremost, and their abilityto provide us um very
predictable freight lanes um andvisibility into those freight
lanes and how they'redelivering, you know.
And so I I don't think thatthere's anything more
frustrating than a partnersaying, like, yeah, I don't
(18:47):
know, it's gone.
Or yeah, that's shipped.
And then you're like, Are yousure it's shipped?
Because usually I've got thisdata scan that scans not here,
like, you know, I I've got thispallet scan that you scan to the
door or something like that, andthey say, Oh, yeah, actually,
you know, it never left.
Like it's here at it's stillhere at the the DC.
We accidentally put it in the inthe wrong lane or something.
(19:07):
You know, those sort of things,yes, they're they're gonna
happen.
Um, but they shouldn't happenall the time.
You know, and uh I'll I'll giveyou a really good example.
We we had a uh freight partnerwho we've been using for the
last few years, and in aone-month period of time, they
told us three different tractortrailers blew over and wrecked
(19:30):
all of their pallets.
And we're like, really?
Like it happens, right?
Like it absolutely happens, youknow, no doubt.
Three times in a single month,like your tractor trailers are
are blown over and it'scomplete, you know, disaster
recovery.
Like, man, like I I sure wouldlike to see pictures of those.
Like that that sounds prettyinteresting.
Like, let me let me see that.
Um, because that doesn't soundthat doesn't sound truthful, you
(19:52):
know.
SPEAKER_01 (19:53):
Yeah, you gotta listen to what people are saying
closely because uh yeah, itcould be something different out
there.
Yeah, I mean the human element.
I mean, uh technology ischanging how we work, but humans
still they're still relevant.
Um many fleets want to embracethe automation or AI, but if
you're losing the human touch,um what balance do you think
(20:16):
works best?
SPEAKER_02 (20:42):
I I look at this uh a couple of different ways.
Um first and foremost, um, likethere are certainly elements
where AI can replace, you know,physical human touch and
involved with certain things.
Um when you look at it from thethe um from a fleet perspective,
um, there's companies likeaugment, for example, which are
(21:04):
are making some of their umdispatchers and some of the
intake processes more automatedthrough leveraging AI bots and
and that sort of thing.
Somebody still has to managethose processes, you know, and
so what I really like to focuson is what are the things that
we can leverage technology forthat make jobs more predictable
(21:27):
and more efficient, you know,and so I think integrating AI
into those physical humantouches um allows you to do
that.
And that's been true evenbefore, you know, AI, even even
when we were leveraging machinelearning, um, those sort of
those sort of things um wouldalways drive improvement within
(21:48):
within your processes.
And so that's how I first wantto look at a technology and how
do we embed it into everything?
Like what are what are the areasthat I can increase
predictability and increaseefficiency within the given
workforce that I have?
You know, from there you canreally build um a lot of complex
systems uh and that enhance youryour scale while managing your
(22:11):
overall um variable and fixedcosts.
SPEAKER_01 (22:14):
Nice.
I mean predictive data andautomation are transforming uh
forecasting.
Uh that's it's gonna be huge fora lot of companies to be able to
see further uh how to move, moveto the right, move to the left.
Um, what do we do?
How do we assess this?
Um, how close can we truly uhget to predicting supply chain
disruptions before they hit therope?
(22:34):
What do you say?
SPEAKER_02 (22:35):
I think we can get pretty accurate.
Um now, you know, we never knowthe necessarily the the next
time that there's gonna be likea wild swing in tariffs.
We never know the next time thatthere's going to be um a COVID
event or something like thatthat just flips uh value chains
(22:56):
upside down.
Um those sort of things everyfew years, like those are gonna
happen.
Uh and it's really on us asleaders to establish agility and
resilience with within our teamsto be able to say, like, okay,
that happened.
What are we going to do andbuild a plan, just as you and I
talked about in the earlier partof the show, right?
Like, what are we trying todrive towards and and how do we
(23:18):
do that all along the way?
But in terms of um large swings,kind of planable swings that
that are gonna happen, right?
Like your your large Q4congestion that's that's gonna
come up related to parcelmovements, right?
Because of the holidays and andthat sort of thing.
Um, we can get really, reallyaccurate on the impact that
(23:39):
that's gonna have and and planuh around that, uh leveraging
machine learning, leveraging AI.
Um we can even do you knowfuture forecasts, and it says,
okay, I'm getting ready to takeon a large client that's a
material percent, wouldrepresent a material percent of
my total capacity today.
Inject that into your existingdata and say, like, let's model
(24:01):
the impacts and what new freightlanes do I need to open up?
Like what sort of trailercapacity is it?
Um, what's my average trailercapacity going to be as a result
of this?
Um, as well as I think when youlook at it from like a fleet
owner perspective, or you know,maybe this is a 3PL owner
(24:23):
perspective, or the way that weeven look at it, as a result of
adding this volume, what happensto my total cost structures and
what sort of efficiency do Igain?
You know, like let's leverage,let's leverage machine learning
and and AI to build that out.
And now I'm future forforecasting my cost basis.
And so I can give this person alower quote than what my
(24:44):
standard quote is because I cansee it's gonna materially change
um my unit economics because ofall of the favorabilities I'm
gonna gain in trailerutilization, lane utilization,
and and things like that.
And so we can you can get very,very accurate with with modern
day tools on on forecasting thatsort of thing.
SPEAKER_01 (25:00):
Wow.
Nice.
So if you uh if you've neverheard of lob or if there was uh
an individual out there forhearing us for the first time,
what's the simplest way that uhyou would say lob would help uh
a business six to be successful?
Um how would you put it?
SPEAKER_02 (25:17):
Yeah, I think two different ways.
Uh we really have two differentuh two different businesses now,
uh one that's very complementaryto the to the other for sure.
Uh we're a direct mailautomation platform, and so we
allow uh very easy uh executionof people's mail campaigns uh
across the US, Canada, and theand the UK.
Um as a complement to thatbusiness, we've launched Lob
(25:39):
Logistics, uh, which can workwith our existing customer base,
the actual mail owners, uh, aswell as print manufacturers uh
as a means of distribution andinjection into the into the
USPS.
Uh and so we have uh a number ofpartners uh across uh all the
major geographies um that canreduce the the time to to in
(26:02):
home and your your average costuh when handling your logistics.
SPEAKER_01 (26:07):
Man, so for the future of fulfillment and
trucking or for lob uh asautomation continues to evolve,
what changes do you think willmost impact the trucking
industry in the next few years?
What would you say?
SPEAKER_02 (26:19):
Well, I think we have to get tariffs under
control, you know, for sure.
Um that's that's gonna have uh alarge impact.
We've we've seen that.
Um I think all of us are arehappy to to be operating in uh
in kind of that that non-COVIDenvironment as as well when we
weren't really sure when stuffwas gonna get pulled out of
Savannah and Long Beach uh orMiami or or wherever wherever
(26:41):
else.
Um but the um yeah, that'sthat's really kind of it.
SPEAKER_01 (26:47):
Yeah.
I mean that's uh it's a hugething to try to predict is I
mean, what's gonna happen fromanother country to what's gonna
happen here and how they'regonna interact with each other.
I mean, tariffs is uh it is veryunpredictable.
So yeah, you're right aboutthat.
SPEAKER_00 (27:02):
No doubt.
SPEAKER_01 (27:03):
Uh it looks like you also serve on the board of
Science Center of Iowa.
Did I get that correct?
Yeah, that's right.
All right.
So how does uh the educationcuriosity play in development of
next generation um for logisticleaders?
SPEAKER_02 (27:16):
Well, it's uh it's really important to me to serve
on boards like that.
Um the the Science Center ofIowa in particular, uh, we even
have like a preschool and earlyeducation uh to get kids
involved in in STEM uh and andunderstanding uh technology and
science and uh the impact thatthat that can have.
(27:39):
Um so it's it's a pretty uniqueearly education, uh, but as well
as it it begins to bring thisfamily uh together, both of
entrepreneurs and localbusinesses, and uh that really
kind of some of which areleaders in other parts of the
state and country, um, thatallows for idea sharing uh that
(28:00):
can be wildly beneficial.
You know, you start establishingbetter partnerships, uh, but as
well as that sense of communitythat comes from being a part of
that sort of like philanthropicuh uh effort.
Um, I want to uh help educatewhoever I can uh on the on the
benefits of of science andtechnology, you know, and so
(28:22):
especially coming from my partof the world and in operations,
um, things don't have to be kindof this this fixed mindset that
they have been in in operationsand supply chain for for a
really long time, right?
How do we leverage technologyand engineering to to uh build
better solutions?
(28:43):
Um the science center of Iowalike allows me to to do those
things.
SPEAKER_01 (28:48):
Wow, nice.
And for anyone, um, I mean,that's uh that's a huge thing
for anyone that's listening.
Um, I mean, we definitely wantto help the future of young ones
to be successful, so I reallyappreciate you doing that.
So also from drivers todispatchers, what's one step
that you can take um or thatpeople can take um maybe just uh
(29:09):
this week to make theiroperation more reliable and
future ready?
SPEAKER_02 (29:13):
Yeah, good question.
Um I think I can keep it reallysimple.
Like if you don't track it, youcan't trust it.
You know, and so what what areyou doing to provide visibility
to your team on all the sourcesof of error that can pop up
within your within youroperation?
Um if you're not tracking thoseopportunities to miss,
(29:35):
eventually you're going to miss,right?
Like those things are going tohappen.
So if you don't track it, youcan't trust it.
SPEAKER_01 (29:42):
I like that.
And real nice and simple andsomething that you can put forth
the effort uh to improve eachday.
Uh even if you're changing itjust by 1%, you're going in the
right direction versus uh justletting it happen, right?
So great.
Um, and you're a true leader.
Uh you've definitely grown uhinto the person that people
need.
We need someone more people likeyou in the industry.
(30:05):
So I'm really glad that you cameon the show to share your
experience and also talk aboutuh the things you're doing over
there at Lobb, the things youhave done and you continue to
do.
Um it's much appreciated.
So thank you so much, Brent.
SPEAKER_02 (30:16):
Yeah, thank you.
I appreciate you having me.
SPEAKER_01 (30:18):
Yeah.
So um thanks for joining DasDeliver Podcast.
It's clear behind everydelivery, every model.
And every one-time promise,there's strategy, leadership,
and teamwork that keeps it alltogether.
So thank you for providing that.
And then so before we go, uh tolearn more about lob's approach
and fulfillment, um, uh, where'sthe best place for people to
(30:39):
reach out?
Is it lob.com or where else arewe going to go?
SPEAKER_02 (30:43):
Lob.com.
Yeah, they can also find me uhon LinkedIn under Brent Hagen.
Um happy to to connect and andtalk about what's going on in in
my world and theirs.
SPEAKER_01 (30:53):
Nice.
Any else, anything else you'dlike to share with uh listeners
out there or some of thetruckers before we go, I like to
always see if you know if you'vejust wanted to put a shout out
or a thank you for anybody outthere.
Just uh uh we want to make surethat they hear it too.
So um anything No, no, that'sthat that's it.
SPEAKER_02 (31:11):
I I appreciate you having me.
Um the only shout out is is tomy team for for everything that
they uh they do for us and thebusiness and our our customers.
Uh and for your your listeners,hopefully some of them are uh
vendors of ours.
Thank you for for what you do.
Uh it's not a it's not an easyjob for sure.
SPEAKER_01 (31:29):
Awesome, awesome.
Thank you so much.
And uh and if anybody likes whatyou hear or like what you see,
please be sure to subscribe andalso continue to listen.
If you have any questions orcomments, please leave those for
us.
We'd like um like hearing fromyou, like uh answering your
questions, and um please reachout at that'sdelivered.com or
anywhere that you get yourpodcasts.
So that's all for today.
(31:50):
And um, we're trucking meetsinnovation, and that's
delivered.
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