Articles
LeaderSHIP
The Transformer
Michelle Dilley energizes her company by challenging the status quo, standing her ground, and allowing her team to make mistakes.
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Culture Builder
While credentials and experience are important factors to consider when building a team, Dante Fornari believes that it’s cultural fit and chemistry that really make a difference.
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Communicating in Real Time, All the Time
Scott Pruneau relishes the pace of change in logistics and embraces the daily opportunities to meet new challenges with resilience, empathy, and constant communication.
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In Search of the Next Great Niche
As CEO of the company her father founded, Megan Smith draws on strong empathy skills and employee engagement to keep Symbia Logistics on the path to growth.
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On-Demand, One Package at a Time
From launching Silver Top Taxi service in the 1980s, which morphed into Silver Top Delivery, to running American Expediting today, Victor Finnegan puts his entrepreneurial spirit and business expertise to work to move thousands of packages a day, one delivery at a time.
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Dan Martin: Emotional Quotient
Dan Martin’s leadership philosophy encompasses building a collaborative leadership team, staying close to the customer, and acknowledging that failure can be as important to career development as success.
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Global Game-Changer
Bob Farrell, executive chairman of technology and logistics company GlobalTranz, reveals his leadership tenents.
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A No-Fail Mentality and Sheer Force of Will
Many years ago, a few days into a new job as an analyst at Sears, Roebuck and Co., Jeff Cohen was working at his desk when the chief financial officer, Ed Liddy, walked by. “He stopped, introduced himself, and sat down to chat for a few minutes,” Cohen says. “I don’t remember what we talked […]
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What Are The Possibilities?
As chief technology officer at Pilot Freight Services, Mark Baker’s mission is to lead the company through a digital transformation. “Like a lot of companies, Pilot has had some excellent technology solutions but still runs legacy back office systems using COBOL, FORTRAN, and RPG,” he says. A business that relies on mainframe-era technology can’t easily […]
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Committing Head and Heart to Health
Chris Cassidy was eight years old when healthcare became a major theme in his life. Playing with friends, Cassidy was accidentally struck in the head with a golf club. At first, his doctor didn’t realize how serious the injury was, and had Cassidy’s mother not pressed for a CT scan, the boy might have died. […]
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DSCO Dancer
Over the course of his career, Vance Checketts has found six words to live by as a leader: Be humble. Value diversity. Be brave. MORE TO THE STORY: The Shipping Assignment That Started it All Humility means knowing when to say, “I don’t know” and recognizing that the best ideas come from other people, Checketts […]
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Fail Fast, Then Move On
Jim Barnes did not have a mentor at the start of his career. “No one taught me how to become a leader,” recalls Barnes, chief executive officer of enVista, an Indianapolis-based supply chain consultancy and software firm. MORE TO THE STORY: Getting Advice, Paying it Forward Instead, observation and experience helped Barnes develop his leadership […]
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Admiral of the Fleet
In the early 1990s, John Burke worked for Northside Foods. “We offered redistribution services on a very small scale in the restaurant space,” he says. That meant bringing smaller-volume shipments into a consolidation center and then shipping mixed truckloads, with multiple SKUs, to customers’ distribution centers. MORE TO THE STORY: Try It All That simple […]
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People and Culture First, Strategy Second
Some years ago, Dan Curtis took a crash course in logistics operations. It started in 2002, when he joined Greatwide Logistics Services as vice president of finance. MORE TO THE STORY: Balancing Act “We were a very acquisitive company,” he explains. “I immediately began working on the mergers and acquisitions transactions we were pursuing.” In […]
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Sunset’s Rising Star
When Lindsey Graves joined Sunset Transportation in 2006, the founder and CEO—who happens to be her father—asked her to learn the business by spending some time in every possible role. As the years progressed, that didn’t mean dealing just with the company’s freight operations. MORE TO THE STORY: No Glass Ceiling Here “I was always […]
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Fueling Transportation Breakthroughs
Doug Mueller was enjoying a long, happy career at Schneider National when Craig Dickman, a former colleague, proposed Mueller join him in a new kind of business. MORE TO THE STORY: On Becoming Breakthrough Fuel would help shippers save money on fuel surcharges, allowing them to base those charges not on a nationwide index, but […]
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Running a Global Organization Like Family
When Frank Guenzerodt joined Dachser USA as its president and CEO in 2004, this U.S. unit of the German-based global logistics firm was bringing in $11 million annually. By 2016, annual revenues had ballooned to $181 million. MORE TO THE STORY: Get Your Passport Ready That strong growth has continued, and Guenzerodt expects to see […]
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Average Is for Other People
Derek Leathers embarked on his first big business venture when he was 12 years old. The scene was the circus, where his stepfather helped him get a job selling popcorn up and down the aisles. MORE TO THE STORY: Call Him Coach “They weren’t able to employ me officially, but I got to keep whatever […]
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The Son Also Rises
Chuck Wall never pressured his son Ryan to enter the family business, FHI (Freight Handlers, Inc.). But in 1998, as the young man’s college graduation drew near, he asked his father for advice about the future. Chuck Wall painted a tempting picture: “If you apply yourself, within a year or two you could be a […]
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