Introduction: 0:00

Welcome to the Tennessee on Supply Chain Management podcast. Listen in as co-hosts Ted Stank and Tom Goldsby set sail into the world of end-to-end supply chain management, diving deep into today's most relevant business topics. They'll share insights in pressing industry issues and tackle the challenges keeping supply chain professionals up at night. If you're enjoying the ride, download and subscribe to Tennessee on Supply Chain Management on your favorite podcast platform now.

Ted Stank: 0:28

Hello everybody and welcome to Tennessee on Supply Chain Management podcast. We were just informed by our producer, brian Kniever, that this is season two, episode 12, the last episode of season two. Tom, have you heard anything about whether we're going to get produced again for next year?

Tom Goldsby: 0:43

I think we might get picked up, but a lot rests on today's show, so it had better be good.

Ted Stank: 0:50

No pressure, huh. Well, my name's Ted Stank, one of your co-hosts, and that was Tom Goldsby, our other co-host. Hey, Tom, how are you doing?

Tom Goldsby: 0:57

Doing great Ted.

Ted Stank: 1:05

We actually happen to be recording for you during a session of our Global Supply Chain Institute Executive Advisory Board meeting, and so our guest today, elijah Ray, who we'll introduce in a little while, is joining us from that ad board meeting. We just had a wonderful meal. Was that chicken or pork? It was chicken.

Tom Goldsby: 1:15

There was chicken and beef.

Ted Stank: 1:17

Chicken and beef. Like always, we're going to start off with some news from the broader economic and geopolitical world and then talk about some things that are going on in supply chain, and then we're going to bring Elijah on to talk about what's happening in his world of third-party logistics and some of the stressors challenges that he sees coming up. Tom, what do you got to lead us off?

Tom Goldsby: 1:37

Well, I think we've got to lead with the presidential election right here in the United States of America. Big, big overtures, big changes since our last podcast and you know we usually don't delve into the political, but we did a little bit in that last podcast. But there's just no way to avoid this news. It's so substantial, with Joe Biden stepping out and handing over the reins of the Democratic nomination to Kamala Harris and, of course, former President Trump taking a shot.

Ted Stank: 2:10

Man, those two weekends in July were just unbelievable, incredible.

Tom Goldsby: 2:13

Well, they say sometimes what a decade happens in a month, and other times a month happens in a decade.

Ted Stank: 2:20

Yeah so and all the momentum was to former President Trump for a week and then all of a sudden the news about Biden backing out and just completely changed the dynamics of the race and obviously for those of us in supply chain management there's a lot hanging on. Who wins that election? You know, if the Trump administration comes in promises of 100 percent, potentially 200 percent tariffs on product coming from China or from Chinese companies located in Mexico, you know a lot of big supply chain issues going on, that what happens with geopolitical relationships and where suppliers are located and global network designs, lots of different things that everybody's kind of just sitting around waiting on to see what happens.

Tom Goldsby: 3:01

Well, we heard a presentation just this morning from one of our own forum members talking about how the EV market could dramatically change overnight, depending upon which way that election goes right, and so entire businesses are kind of on hold. Supply chains may be on hold.

Ted Stank: 3:18

Yeah, so we're going to be coming to you with podcasts over the next three months as we head into November. It's going to be interesting times, right? Elijah, an old friend of ours, tom Mentzer, rest in peace. One of his favorite sayings was may you live in interesting times. Wow, and it was a curse, not a blessing.

Tom Goldsby: 3:37

There we are. There we are Interesting times, no doubt. Speaking of interesting times, you know talk about the presidential election. I'm sure we will in more depth in future podcasts. But the stock market has been taking such a wild ride as well, which is just kind of an exposition of the uncertainty, different levels of chaos. It seems like the big hit to market about two weeks now has kind of leveled out. But we're now getting the earnings reports too, which is pretty interesting, A real mixed bag of earnings reports, a mixed bag of earnings reports.

Ted Stank: 4:07

So can I be controversial?

Tom Goldsby: 4:10

You've let me do this before.

Ted Stank: 4:11

Yeah, let's do it. You know our friends in finance and I'm not talking about corporate financial people, I'm talking about Wall Street investment financial people. I've been sitting here entertained over the last several months as Wall Street had this euphoria about. We're going to invest in tech companies because of the AI boom and it's just going to keep going like this forever and it's going to bring the stock market to unrealized levels. And then one report that comes in from like an NVIDIA that is not up to what their expectations were. The world is failing. Ai is not going to be what it was supposed to be. We got to back out of this. It's like come on, guys, you know. It's like anybody who knows business could sit back and say we know all this is going on, it's all fake. What are you doing? You know? And yet here we are. And I just I mean, if so much money wasn't at play, it would be really humorous.

Tom Goldsby: 5:07

But you're right, You're right and just failed. Swoops swinging and swaying in all directions as if they've always got it figured out and really, really they don't. You know, you and I Elijah, I'm going to bring you into this too I mean, we're pretty fundamental when it comes to business. Right, you make something, you sell something, you know all this hocus, pocus stuff.

Ted Stank: 5:28

Sure, Just don't get too excited, so we're Warren Buffett's when it comes to finance.

Tom Goldsby: 5:32

That's right, I got to understand the business model.

Introduction: 5:35

That's a model I can buy into, you know what we keep talking about Elijah Tom.

Ted Stank: 5:37

You want to introduce Elijah. He's sitting here with us. Yeah, no, we really should.

Tom Goldsby: 5:40

Why don't you bring him in? So a very good friend to Ted and me also to our program here at the University of Tennessee, mr Elijah Ray, chief Customer Officer at Sunland Logistics Solutions, based in Greenville, south Carolina, he's a member of our advisory board, also past board chair of CSCMP, another organization that means a great deal to us and primarily through CSCMP, ted and I have known you for decades.

Elijah Ray: 6:04

Yeah, absolutely Look. First of all, let me just thank you all for having us. It's great to be here with you. You guys are good friends from many, many years ago, so we're very grateful to share this platform with you.

Tom Goldsby: 6:17

Well, we appreciate it.

Elijah Ray: 6:18

It's great to have you with us.

Tom Goldsby: 6:18

We figured that while you were on campus today, we'd pull you into the podcast.

Introduction: 6:22

Really appreciate that you did.

Tom Goldsby: 6:29

Maybe to provide a little more perspective for folks who may not be familiar with Sunland.

Elijah Ray: 6:31

Can you tell us a little bit about Sunland? So Sunland Logistics is a South Carolina-based organization, greenville, south Carolina. The company has been around for about 40 years with an emphasis primarily in contract logistics or warehousing and value-added services. I mentioned that we've been around for 40 years, but over the last 10 years we've experienced just significant growth and we are a growth organization. We serve five verticals across the country, primarily in the eastern part of the country, but we're growing US wide. We have a global leadership team. If you look at our leadership team, we have senior leaders from throughout the 3PL spectrum and so we're excited about where we are as a 3PL and as a growing 3PL in the country.

Ted Stank: 7:21

Elijah, great to have you with us again, really looking forward to getting your perspectives on what are some of the bright spots, some of the challenges, both for Sunland and for the industry in general, as we move forward.

Elijah Ray: 7:32

I am responsible for elite growth and customer relationships with Sunland, and so one of the things that we're seeing is we've seen a softness in the marketplace over the last several months, and so there's softness in our business and the number of opportunities that we get, and then there's some softness in the business of our customers as well, and you know what that means. We're already under a cost microscope, if you will. It's with greater intensity in times like these, so one of the things that we're seeing with our customers is the microscope on cost and cost management, as we typically see in times like these.

Ted Stank: 8:12

So that really plays into some of the things that Tom and I are tracking in the broader economy right, the Fed is talking about less focus on inflation. Inflation numbers seem to be kind of coming back to pre-COVID levels that the Fed wants to see. The July CPI came in below three, which you know. That's kind of the good news. The bad news is unemployment inching up Some of the earnings, even from we were making front of Wall Street, but even from some of the main street businesses like Home Depot, some softness in the earnings report.

Ted Stank: 8:44

So you're certainly seeing that, exactly, exactly, yeah, I guess. Unemployment up to 4.3% Right, not huge from historical standards, but the direction has been up the last couple of months.

Tom Goldsby: 8:55

Right.

Ted Stank: 8:55

I think the other thing you know that economists track is credit card debt Americans' credit card debt's way up and more people missing credit card payments every month. So again, this affects us at Main Street.

Elijah Ray: 9:07

right, it does Exactly.

Tom Goldsby: 9:09

Exactly Now, elijah, something I'd just like to ask you. As you were just describing, the logistics service industry is a derived industry. Right, you have clients and you're going to ride the waves with the highs and the lows with them Exactly. And you use the term softening. Can I use just another expression of just kind of catching?

Introduction: 9:27

your breath. Do you think?

Tom Goldsby: 9:27

maybe there's an opportunity to kind of catch your breath here a little bit, because we talk about labor issues. That's been such a struggle for service providers. Is there some sense that maybe things are starting to stabilize and that could be a positive.

Elijah Ray: 9:40

Yeah, look, I think that to some extent it does help. We see the labor situation easing a little bit, but you know, we started talking about this labor thing 10, 15 years ago and I think it's just the reality of the market, the 3PL market, and not just the grassroots labor or the labor in the warehousing floor, but even the talent base in general, even the professional talent base. But at the grassroots level I think it's getting a little bit better, but there's still a challenge getting great people, and so that's something I think we'll have to deal with on an ongoing basis in our profession. We don't have the sexiest jobs, if you will, with forklift operators, you know, in a warehousing-based organization. That's the challenge for us when it comes to, you know, hiring great people and quality people to accomplish what our customers want us to accomplish.

Tom Goldsby: 10:34

Well, it's something I go back to and Dave Clark in our last episode kind of challenged the US labor numbers that we were using. But I think we can observe that the number of warehouse workers presently employed in American Warehouse more than double where it was, like a decade ago, right. And it's just incredible to think about how we've been trying to soak up that talent. As you point out, warehousing is not usually the first stop for folks if they're thinking about where they want to employ themselves, put their time right.

Tom Goldsby: 11:01

So that just kind of provides some context to the challenge you all have had. Like you said, it's not just in the last few years, it's going back 10, 15 years.

Elijah Ray: 11:08

Yeah, it really is. And I think what we have to do when we're talking to people who we want to hire in warehousing, that it's not necessarily the end of the road. If you have aspirations, you can go further than just a forklift operator and you can become a lead person or you can become a supervisor, you can become a manager, because there are growth opportunities and as our profession becomes more prominent and we know there's more recognition on our profession and on our discipline, especially since COVID we thought even before COVID we started to see the evolution and the elevation of our profession.

Tom Goldsby: 11:41

Well, we've always thought it was cool. We always thought it was cool, we've always thought it was really cool.

Elijah Ray: 11:46

Yes, exactly, you know, when you wake up one morning and you see Tom Goldsby on TV talking about logistics and supply chain, you know and you can see that our industry has evolved and obviously, as we've looked at what has happened with COVID and the prominence of our profession, it continues to gain traction at the CEO level. So, look, probably don't need to say that, but the reality is that is what drives us now is that we're going to see more and more prominence to our profession, which not necessarily makes it easier, but I think it makes it easier to sell, if you will.

Ted Stank: 12:20

Let's pivot to some other things that are happening out there, Elijah, and get your take on how it will influence your part of the supply chain, Kind of related to labor, right. There are some major labor issues going on with some of our big transportation arms in the supply chain. Canadian railroads very likely to go on strike this week. They've actually stopped taking shipments of hazardous materials because they can't leave those unattended on the tracks if the workforce walks out. So that started on Monday of this week, Today's Thursday, so that is an imminent labor issue about to happen. Obviously we get a lot of product from those Canadian railroads.

Ted Stank: 12:59

And then the other one is the impending labor negotiations for Gulf and East Coast ports. Things are not looking as rosy there as they had been in the not too distant past in terms of how those negotiations were going. The union's asking for up to an 80% increase in wages and the port operator's making an offer that they thought was fair and the union's saying no, it's not even close. So your take on how that might impact us in the near future from a supply chain disruption standpoint and maybe longer term, from a labor and labor negotiation standpoint.

Elijah Ray: 13:32

Yeah, ted, that's an interesting question. Yeah, ted, that's an interesting question. I think that, as we think about labor in general and how these situations like that will end up, I think we have to think about how we elevate the roles of those positions and be sensitive to what they do and how they serve our companies and serve the supply chain in general. Of course, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what the outcome will be.

Ted Stank: 14:15

As part of our advanced supply chain collaborative, we've been doing some research on what does it take to retain this younger workforce? What are the things they're looking for? And we look predominantly in manufacturing in the past, although I think we're going to look more in the distribution warehousing element as well in the future but a lot of it was not wage related. It was other things that they're looking for in an employment situation to keep them on the job.

Elijah Ray: 14:39

Right, yeah, exactly, and look the both of you. We know a person who's done a lot of work in this space. This guy named Robert Martichenko, and I think to this issue whatever labor type of issues we have with large organizations and unions a lot of it gets back to some of these basic things like dignity and respect and trust, and this is what you know, some of the work that Robert Martichenko has done. And so in our organization we spend a lot of time on this.

Elijah Ray: 15:11

Care for the individual Culture is big for us, really, really big for us, and so that's part of how we try to win the recruiting and retention game by making the workplace just really pure and building a trusting environment between our leadership and the people who work on the floor, who work with us. So creating that environment, that type of environment, is essential for us and a priority for us. And I say that because and I bring up Robert's name because he has recognized that as a significant issue and especially, but not just in our discipline but disciplines period, but in in our profession, given the nature of it, whether it's rail, whether it's warehousing, whether it's port, they're the same issues of dignity, respect, understanding and empathizing with individuals and that trust.

Ted Stank: 16:12

I'm not as familiar with the warehouse environment and the workers' requirements, but I have done some work with driver retention. And you hear things like they pull up to a dock at a manufacturing location and they're not allowed to come inside and use the restroom, or they have to keep their truck running and using fuel because they're sitting out in the parking lot in 100-degree weather waiting for a dock door to open up for hours. I know how I feel sitting on the tarmac in an aircraft.

Tom Goldsby: 16:46

So I've attacked Wall Street now. But, Elijah, you're absolutely right. I mean, there's some universal themes here, regardless of where we're talking, you know, transportation, warehousing, logistics or healthcare. Yeah, that's another big one, and just recognizing again this notion of meaningful engagement, which is what. Robert has really helped to shine a light, and that's just a little teaser for a future podcast because we are going to be featuring Robert and your CEO, Arch Thomason, in a future podcast.

Ted Stank: 17:14

If we've been picked up for a third season, we can do a little self-serving, I guess, if we're so fortunate to get that third season.

Tom Goldsby: 17:20

this is going to be a few episodes in, but we've got them lined up for the forum.

Ted Stank: 17:23

Are we getting that, Brian? Are you Two thumbs up, not just one?

Tom Goldsby: 17:26

That's really encouraging. Hey, you also dropped some reference to trust there and absolutely that's essential employer, employee. But also I'm thinking about how that trust transcends to your client engagements and in these tumultuous times, how critical is it that, hey, we've had your back in good times and bad, regardless of what the future might have in store. Those clients are looking to your organization to absorb a lot of this chaos, right, Absolutely, and it takes immense amounts of trust. Can you talk a little bit about how that culture that you have within the organization at Sunland kind of transcends and reaches to your client base?

Elijah Ray: 18:09

Yeah, so great, great point.

Elijah Ray: 18:10

So, look, we like to think of ourselves as an extension of our customers, and how we do that is through our people, right? Whether it's the senior level, whether it's the grassroots level, we inspire the confidence of our customers and the trust of our customers through our people, regardless of the level. And so if we don't have trust at the grassroots level and if we don't have that collaboration internal, our customers won't feel that either. So that's really a priority of our business is to bring people in, have that internal collaboration and that internal culture which reaches our customers, and it's not just something we just talk about. We have systems in place that have regular cadences, if you will, with our customers at various levels, so that they feel that connection with us and that we are serving them. You know, in the uncertain times as well, that we have systems in place to communicate and to talk to each other, so that we might not be always ahead of them, but we can respond and react accordingly to some of the issues that occur in the supply chain.

Ted Stank: 19:29

I heard from several shippers if you will right, manufacturers, retailers during the pandemic pandemic that if they had great relationships with their service providers, they were far better able to deal with the uncertainty that we were encountering on an almost daily basis during that time period. Have you seen that trust level with some of your client base that was established because you bailed them out during the pandemic? Have you seen that continue or have we gone back to business as usual?

Elijah Ray: 19:58

No, I actually think and look, it really does depend a lot on the cultures within those companies, but for the most part, whenever you bail someone out of a bad situation, we see that trust accelerate. We do, and look, we've been in situations where we've been very new with a customer and we saw the mutual cultures or the common cultures in difficult situations where we got in there toe to toe, didn't necessarily agree to everything, as we were in the battle or in the war, if you will, in the battle or in the war, if you will. But because we got to a different level, we solved problems together, that trust accelerated, that the relationship is now tighter, and so that's the power of these relationships, that's the power of culture and looking for the foundational points for culture as you enter relationships as well. And so we're very intentional about that also and about the systems and building the relationships based on the things that our customers and we want to accomplish as an organization.

Tom Goldsby: 21:07

Yeah, but I suspect that's why you've achieved that growth. Again a Greenville, south Carolina-based company. I look at your footprint very high concentration in the Southeast.

Elijah Ray: 21:16

Right.

Tom Goldsby: 21:16

And then, lo and behold, you got facilities in the Midwest and the West right Is that where those clients are like hey, we love what you're doing in this footprint.

Elijah Ray: 21:24

Come with us, you're right on because that's where the growth has occurred is that we take on a piece of business for a company and they say, well, look, can you go do this elsewhere? And that's how we've grown and that's, I suspect, how we will continue to grow from time to time, taking new logos and what have you. So it's a lot of fun doing that right, building the trust, gaining the trust and continuing to grow.

Tom Goldsby: 21:48

I love that trust accelerator. Yeah, yeah, it is Is today's podcast, kind of a trust accelerator, with us here. I hope so.

Ted Stank: 21:58

I hope so, guys, it's always entertaining to me to think that we spend so much of our time educating our undergraduates and our graduate students about all the concepts and processes involved in supply chain management and we always give kind of short shrift to oh yeah, you're going to go out and ultimately it's a people job and you have to manage people Right, but we're not going to talk about that. You're going to learn that.

Ted Stank: 22:23

We talk about relationships between organizations, but we don't spend a huge amount of time on it. And yet, when you cut right down to it, here we are into this podcast and most of what we've talked about is people and relationships.

Elijah Ray: 22:36

Yeah, exactly when we open up conversations with customers, we talk about people early on, and not just, again, the people at the senior levels, but the grassroots level, because that's the whole nature of our business. We have a people business and again we're a housing base where people, they operate forklifts and automation and all these things and so as our old friend Lloyd Reinhart would have said, the blocking and tackling.

Elijah Ray: 23:06

Exactly so. We have to inspire people to achieve what both companies need to achieve, so that trust is so essential and that understanding is so essential.

Ted Stank: 23:17

Great example. Thomas Deakins, our executive director of our forum, was telling me the other day that he was flying back with his wife from DC and the flight was delayed. And so they told him you know, go get food or whatever, and you know we'll make an announcement. They weren't expecting it. He was having lunch at a restaurant in the airport and gets a phone call.

Ted Stank: 23:39

I'm going to say the name of the airline, because it's a good thing it's American Airlines. It was a phone call from the gate agent saying Mr Deakins, are you going to make this flight? And he goes yeah, I didn't think it was boarding for a while. She goes no, we're boarding, we've boarded and we're waiting for you. Can you get here? And he got on the flight and he and his wife got home and you know. But if that gate agent hadn't had the care to say, hey, I want to make sure this person doesn't get left stranded, I'm going to call them, I mean that's to me, that's way above and beyond the call of duty and that's up to a person.

Ted Stank: 24:07

It's up to a person. It really is, because that gate agent could have said you know what? Not my job. He's not here.

Elijah Ray: 24:14

Too bad, exactly, exactly yeah.

Tom Goldsby: 24:16

You know I've always said, no matter how important I feel I am, the airlines don't really care that plane is going to take off. But but Tom's Deakins, apparently, is important enough to hold up. Now I will point out that that was not heading into a hub airport, that was a direct flight back to Knoxville. But and he did have status, a very high status with the airline. That he said has elapsed since, but it just makes it that much more.

Ted Stank: 24:40

But still, I mean it just to me points out the importance of your people, right, right. That's somebody who is very dedicated to her organization, to her job. I say her I think Thomas told it Some people wouldn't have done it if they didn't have that commitment and that culture, exactly wouldn't have done if they didn't have that commitment and that culture.

Tom Goldsby: 24:58

Exactly so it sounds like. Again, we invoked Lloyd.

Ted Stank: 24:59

Reinhart, which is fantastic. For those who don't know, Lloyd is a colleague of ours who retired a few years ago, but he was a champion of the nitty gritty of logistics.

Tom Goldsby: 25:08

And it seems like, as we talk about, despite whiz-bang technologies, it's still a people oriented business in which we find ourselves, you know. That said, let's kind of look out into the future a little bit. I mean, how do you think the logistics service industry will change? I mean, I think that those fundamentals that you've laid out are going to continue to be just as relevant into the indefinite future, but how do you think our world is going to change and how are service providers going to have to adapt?

Elijah Ray: 25:35

world is going to change and how our service provider is going to have to adapt. Yeah, look, great question, tom. I think we'll continue to see a greater need for automation and people will still be involved. So it's about coaching and teaching people how to deal with automation. That's one of the things that we'll deal with.

Elijah Ray: 25:54

I think that we'll continue to see complexities in logistics and supply chain and, again, thinking back on warehousing and how warehousing has changed, we'll see, because that's where you have the greatest amount of people you know in supply chain and from a logistics perspective.

Elijah Ray: 26:10

So I think we'll see complexities. I think that you will continue to see the need for partners to become closely and tightly integrated and for organizations to creating the dignity and the trust. All of those things have to be present or we're not going to be as successful. So I think I just pointed out automation, I just pointed out complexities, I just pointed out the need to really embrace the people component, because it's the people component that really is going to make the difference. You have to have leadership in place that understands how to inspire people to accomplish the end game. So, and I think, obviously, cost will always be at the top and, from a 3PL perspective. Again, the lens of a 3PL our margins are always very, very tight. Taking on relationships where customers respect the margins of a 3PL and understand that there is a value equation and there is a way to get the value, the reverse flow in terms of why you might want to engage with a prospective client as well.

Tom Goldsby: 27:32

So we want to work with good cultures, we want to get a reasonable return.

Elijah Ray: 27:58

Plus, we want to work with someone who has a need that we can serve and they're going to value the service we provide and they're going to value us as an organization.

Tom Goldsby: 28:09

I've always said that value is a two-way street.

Elijah Ray: 28:11

Yeah, it is.

Tom Goldsby: 28:12

And certainly customers are demanding, they expect to be satisfied, they want good ROI. But so few companies really understand If we talk about financial value, growth value of what a client brings to the table. In fact, years ago we did a survey of companies, found that only 16% of companies understood the financial return that they generated in working with a client. Now, in the logistics service sector, it was a bit higher.

Introduction: 28:39

Because you all make a bad deal, you feel it, you feel it You've got to run a life of that agreement, right, exactly.

Tom Goldsby: 28:45

Oh, that was hot we're not going to do that, I'm not going to put my hand on that stove Right and you all learn, and that's what we found is that project-based companies tend to be pretty good at it Manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, a lot of them, no, just didn't register, and that's where, again, do you find that when you're seeking out those clients, is it more comfortable to kind of stick within a vertical, maybe try to grow your footprint within an industry, a segment of the market, or do you find a lot of growth and opportunity outside that segment? I mean, what's most appealing, and maybe it depends upon the capital position which you find yourself.

Elijah Ray: 29:22

Yeah, again, great question. I think the verticals that we serve we try to be focused on those. However, when we see culture and an opportunity to bring value outside of the verticals that we serve and we see that mutual trust as we are engaging, we like those and we will pursue. We're very careful about who we connect with, who we engage with. But where we see similar cultures and if that company and what they do fall outside of the verticals that we are really good in, we will engage and we've seen that happen and we have great success with that. When it happens, key is culture.

Ted Stank: 30:07

Yeah. So another way of really accelerating that trust is finding those culture matches.

Elijah Ray: 30:12

Yeah exactly and really they sound warm and fuzzy, but the culture piece is real. It really is.

Ted Stank: 30:19

I had a doctoral student when I first got here to Tennessee who was really onto the topic of culture. He was a pretty senior guy, he'd been in the industry for a long time. I come from an operations background and I realize now I was being naive and not recognizing it because I think I'd always understood the culture, part of it and, and you know, even on an interpersonal basis. But I used to poo poo him about. You know, let's move on to something more meaty.

Ted Stank: 30:44

This culture stuff is just, you know, and the older I get, the more I. I mean it's the old Peter Drucker saying, right Then, culture eats strategy. Um boy, I just have become a such a bigger believer. And again, I guess, again we have a third season that's been picked up so we can be self-serving again. But as I look around, like at our executive advisory board meeting and at the team that we've built here at at Tennessee, we have a very distinct culture and companies that are attracted to us share that culture, right. So, like when you walked in last night at dinner, I hugged you and I hugged a lot of people coming in because you guys are good friends of mine.

Ted Stank: 31:20

You know, and it's not just a transactional thing, that's just the power of culture, man.

Elijah Ray: 31:25

That's why I'm sitting in this room right now, that's why I take the time out of my schedule to be come learn, come contribute, because there's a culture here that is very, very powerful.

Ted Stank: 31:41

I'm always humbled by the fact that really powerful, busy people like you take the time to come to Knoxville, Tennessee, which is not an easy place to get to.

Elijah Ray: 31:44

And there will be more of us coming later this year as well, because of the culture that you guys have here For our forum. That's right. Yeah, the forum, that's right. We're so looking forward to that.

Tom Goldsby: 31:53

Well, hey, ted, we've covered a lot of ground with Elijah and we've got to get back. We've got a whole afternoon session that we need to run through with our orbit. Elijah, thank you so much for participating in the podcast, but also, more importantly, for watching into our program and being so receptive and encouraging to what we do.

Ted Stank: 32:12

Thanks for the invitation. I love our theme. You know that the theme here has been it's all about people, people. It's all about relationships. It's all about how you deal with people in these relationships.

Tom Goldsby: 32:21

Hey, speaking of people and relationships, are you ready to receive a new batch of Vol students that are arriving on campus next week?

Ted Stank: 32:27

Absolutely, thomas and I are getting ready to teach. You have a class of 700. I think I have a class of 700. A lot of new Vol supply chain folks.

Tom Goldsby: 32:38

Yeah, yeah, it's. The new season is upon us, not just podcast season number three, but also a new academic season here, and we're expecting big things in the classroom as well as on those sports shows.

Ted Stank: 32:48

A lot of you know this is early in the season. They always say, like in baseball, hope springs eternally. I think we're ranked, I think, 15th in football preseason, but I think we're going to win it all. Right now, of course, we have to.

Tom Goldsby: 33:01

Well, hey again, elijah. Thank you so much, ted. Let's bring this one to a close. Folks know by now. I hope that they can reach us anytime at gsciutkedu and we look forward to seeing you in that third season.

Introduction: 33:16

Thanks for tuning in to Tennessee on Supply Chain Management. If you enjoyed the episode, subscribe today on your favorite listening platform to get all of our episodes as soon as they drop, and don't forget to take a moment to leave us a rating. Have any questions, thoughts or feedback? We'd love to hear from our listeners. Email us at gsci at utkedu. Join us next time as we continue pulling back the curtain on the world of supply chain, educating and entertaining you along the way. Until then, listeners.