This week’s guest is Woody Richardson, former executive at Schneider. Woody was in the trucking industry for 40 years - all at Schneider. Before retiring in 2021, he had held multiple leadership roles including Revenue Management/Pricing, Sales, Logistics Transportation Procurement, and many others. He recently published his book, Roads Rarely Traveled: Avoiding the biggest Mistakes in Truckload Purchasing. Based on his decades of work with literally hundreds of shippers, the book outlines...

This week’s guest is Dr. Callie Federer, Senior Data Science Manager at DAT Freight & Analytics. Callie comes to the freight and transportation industry from a pretty non-traditional path - a Ph.D. in Computational Bioscience from the University of Colorado-Denver. After earning her PhD, she went straight into industry holding various data science roles in the medical, education, and advertising domains. She joined DAT about 18 months ago and currently manages and leads the data science...

This week’s guest is Dylan Alperin, VP of Professional Services at Keelvar. Founded in Ireland in 2012, Keelvar is a software company specializing in procurement automation and optimization solutions. The word Keelvar can be loosely translated from Irish as “sensible” or having “better intelligence.” Dylan joined Keelvar about 3 years ago after having spent the previous fifteen years in logistics procurement at a number of shippers as well as consultancies. His experience across these...

This week’s guest is Jeff Short, Vice President, the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). ATRI publishes a wide variety of reports on all aspects of freight and trucking from costs to bottlenecks and everything in between. Jeff is the author of the December 2022 ATRI Report entitled “Charging Infrastructure Challenges for the US Electric Vehicle Fleet”. The report identifies and quantifies three major challenges associated with the adoption of Battery Electric Vehicles...

This week’s guest is Ann Marie Jonkman, Senior Director, Global Industry Strategies for Blue Yonder. Ann Marie has had extensive experience in the logistics and supply chain space working for carriers, brokers, and shippers before joining Blue Yonder about 2 years ago. In her current role she is helping Logistics Service Providers, or LSPs, solve their supply chain challenges. In our conversation, we discuss how the supply chain software space has evolved over the years, the importance of...

Hello and welcome to the Freightvine podcast, your source for all things freight transportation. I’m Chris Caplice, Chief Scientist at DAT Freight & Analytics, and today I am joined by Adam Buttgenbach, Director of Fleet Engineering and Sustainability for PepsiCo.

This week’s guest is Rob Kelly SVP of Business Development for Forum Mobility. Forum Mobility provides accessible zero-emission trucking solutions for drayage in California. Their services range from building and operating charging infrastructure to offering class 8 zero-emission electric trucks. They are currently developing a network of charging depots around the Oakland and Los Angeles/Long Beach ports, and along common trucking routes to warehouse destinations. Rob joined Forum Mobility...

This week’s guest is Dr. Erez Agmoni, Global Head of Innovation at Maersk. Erez has been in the global freight industry for over 30 years and at Maersk for over a decade. In the newly created role of Global Head of Innovation he is charged with changing the status quo rather than providing incremental improvements to the movement of freight. In our conversation, we discuss the challenges associated with introducing change, the need for pilots and proofs of concept in real situations, why...

This week’s guests are my two DAT iQ colleagues: Ken Adamo, Chief of Analytics, and Dean Croke, Principal Analyst. This is our annual end-of-the-year podcast where we revisit our predictions from last year, discuss the major issues of the current year, and take our best guesses as to what will happen next year. Our conversation ranged widely - from changes in ocean shipping patterns to the challenge of EVs and ETs and the ability (or lack thereof) of the US electrical grid to meet this rising...

This week’s guest is Bill Driegert, EVP and head of North America for Flexport. Bill has over 20 years in the industry with key roles at Coyote Logistics, Amazon, UberFreight, and now Flexport. With the recent acquisition of Convoy’s technology stack, Bill is back in the familiar position of starting up brokerage operations from scratch - something he did at UberFreight and before that at Convoy. We talk about how technology has changed the way brokers operate, the opportunities for Flexport...

This week’s guests are John Stauffer and Brian Cristol, co-founders of Isometric Technologies. ISO is a performance management solution that centralizes service data between business partners and connects costs from chargebacks and service-level failures to the responsible parties. Anyone in the industry knows how hard it is to reconcile the root cause of service failures, that is the problem that Iso addresses. John and Brian have extensive experience in the industry and were both at Uber...

This week’s guest is Dr. Zac Rogers, Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at Colorado State University. In addition to his academic duties at CSU, Zac also co-developed and currently leads the publishing of the Logistics Manager Index or LMI. Fashioned in the same way as the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) which has been around for over 50 years, the LMI is a diffusion metric that captures whether an activity is expanding or contracting. The LMI captures the monthly change in...

This week’s guest is Jim Filter, EVP, Group President Transportation & Logistics. The conversation centers on Schneider’s adoption of electric vehicles within their California drayage operations. This is a highly relevant topic for all shippers and carriers as we see the electrification of transportation - both freight and passenger - continue to be promoted and subsidized by the government at the local, state, and federal levels.

This week’s guest is Dean Croke, Principal Analyst and all-around trucking expert here at DAT Freight & Analytics. Dean has over 20 years of experience in the long-haul trucking industry - from (and still) being a driver to insurance to software and analytics. In this episode, Dean discusses the state of the TL market - specifically the capacity side - to include the current level of spot rates and their relationship to carrier breakeven costs, the importance of tracking the spot market...

This week’s guest is Steve Raetz, Dir. Research and Market Intelligence at CH Robinson. Steve is a perfect person to discuss strategic use of the spot market as he not only brings 30+ years of experience in a variety of roles at CHR, but he currently leads CHR’s research efforts working with universities and others. The topic of spot as a strategy has been a research focus for the last few years and is gaining acceptance in the market.

This week’s guest is Kelly Abney, Chief Logistics Officer and EVP for the United States Postal Service. Kelly has over 30 years of experience in retail and third-party logistics prior to joining the USPS. He previously held senior roles in transportation at Walmart, New Breed Logistics, XPO Logistics, and most recently, the US Postal Service. During the conversation, Kelly shares how the postal service is being transformed based on the Delivering for America plan that the USPS adopted in...

This week’s guest is Jennifer Carpenter, President & CEO of The American Waterways Operators or AWO. Most shippers are not as familiar with the US Domestic Tugboat, Towboat, and Barge Industry. This episode should shed some light on this often-overlooked segment of the freight transportation industry. With more than thirty years in the industry, Jennifer has great insights into where it has come from, where it is going, and how it contributes to the national economy. In our conversation...

This week’s guest is Alex Leslie, Research Analyst at the American Transportation Research Institute. Alex is the lead author on ATRI’s latest research publication “Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking: 2023 Update”. ATRI has been publishing these very detailed reports on trucking costs for over 15 years now. Using detailed polling and data analysis, Alex is able to reveal not only the current average per mile costs, but also changes in the individual cost components, the impact...

This week’s guest is Seth Clevenger, Managing Editor at Transport Topics, where they just released their 2023 Top 100 Carriers List. Published annually for over three decades, the Top 100 Carriers list provides the most accurate detailed snapshot of the leading companies in the trucking industry. In our conversation we discuss some surprises in this year’s list, recent mergers and acquisitions, and future trends for the industry as a whole.

This week’s guest is my colleague Jeff Hopper, CMO for DAT. Jeff is leading DAT’s initiatives for combating double brokerage and other fraud on transportation load boards. Working with shippers, brokers, carriers, government agencies, as well as other platform providers, DAT is actively designing and implementing approaches to both keep bad actors out and detect behavior that indicates potential fraudulent activity. In the conversation, we talk about what fraud looks like, why we are seeing...

This week’s guest is Professor Yossi Sheffi, Director of MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics and author of the recent book, The Magic Conveyor Belt: Supply Chains, AI, and the Future of Work. Written mainly in response to the general public’s newly awakened awareness of and interest in supply chains during the pandemic, the book explains in great clarity how supply chains work, why they are complex, and where the challenges are. Additionally, he addresses and explores the impact...

This week’s guest is Matt Harding, Head of 4PL Data and Analytics at UberFreight. With over 25 years in the industry at logistics.com, Chainalytics, Transplace, and now UberFreight, Matt is a leading light in applying analytics and visualization to the transportation industry. In our conversation, we trace the evolution of data science in trucking, discuss the understanding gap between the C-suite and transportation executives, debate the impact that the wide availability of market data has...

This week’s guest is Dr. Jason Miller, Professor and Head of the Supply Chain Management Department at the Michigan State University's Eli Broad College of Business. As an economist working in the logistics and freight transportation industry, Jason always has great and often unexpected insights into the transportation market and overall conditions. In our conversation we discuss the current macro-economic conditions, debate the impact of more rate data on the volatility of the TL market,...

This week’s guest is Corey Johnson, VP of North America Product Supply & Merchandising at Procter & Gamble. Corey has been leading P&G’s journey transforming their physical distribution into what they refer to as a “Multi-Dimensional Supply Chain”. In our conversation, we discuss exactly what P&G means by “Multi-Dimensional” to include increasing automation within their facilities, digitization of processes, and, most relevant to this podcast, growth of their private fleet....