Freightvine

This week’s guest is Matt Menner, Head of Transportation Management Sales at Uber Freight.  In our conversation, we discuss how the managed transportation sector has evolved, notably regarding the adoption of technology like AI and the increased use of spot or dynamic markets.  Matt also talks about the acquisition and integration of Transplace into Uber Freight, highlighting investments in techno...

This week’s guest is Professor Michael Hicks, George & Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Economics at Ball State University.  Mike brings an economist’s perspective on the recent introduction of tariffs as well their sudden modification or removal in many cases.  Being located in Indiana, Mike is keen on the impact that different policies have on manufacturing and agricultural firms and...

This week’s guest is Kristian ‘KO’ O’Meara, SVP Strategic Initiatives for Jaggaer.  KO has been with Jaggaer for just shy of 25 years filling a number of senior roles.  Currently, he works with the larger enterprise customers for the procurement of direct and indirect materials and services.  In our conversation, we zoom in primarily to freight transportation procurement - mainly TL.  We discuss t...

This week’s guest is Jason Haith, Vice President Commercial Forwarding US & Mexico, for DP World.  With 20+ years experience in Import/Export operations, Jason is the perfect person to discuss global trade in general and trade with Mexico in particular.  In our conversation, we discuss how trade between the US and Mexico has changed over the years, the impact of recent tariffs being enacted an...

This week’s guest is Dr. Jason Miller, Professor and Head of the Supply Chain Management Department at Michigan State University's Eli Broad College of Business.  This is Jason’s 4th time on the Freightvine podcast -  we last had him on the podcast about two years ago when we were one year into what is now called the rate trough.  Jason discusses this and how the market was expected to have reboun...

This week’s guest is Ben Steffes, Vice President, Solutions & Strategy, Managed Transportation, at RXO.  Ben was last on the Freightvine 3 years ago when he had just published a white paper on Logistics KPIs for Coyote.  RXO acquired Coyote in the fall of 2024, so this time we talk about the RXO white paper on Logistics KPIs that Ben recently authored as a follow-up to and expansion of the 202...

This week’s guest is Dr. Josue Velazquez Martinez.  Josue is a Research Scientist at MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics and is also the Director of MIT's Sustainable Supply Chain Lab.  In our conversation, we discuss his lab's focus on environmental and social sustainability within supply chains.  Josue describes the lab's work on the sustainability of freight transportation, emphasiz...

This week’s guest is Kary Jablonski, VP & GM, Broker Growth & Trucker Tools at DAT Freight & Analytics.  As her title implies, Kary previously led Trucker Tools before its acquisition by DAT at the end of 2024. Our conversation centers on her path to the freight industry, her experiences transforming Trucker Tools into a leading visibility and tracking solution for freight brokerages,...

This week’s guest is Mike Roeth, Executive Director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency or NACFE.  NACFE has been around for over 15 years - originating from a workshop run by the Rocky Mountain Institute in 2009.  Their objective is to drive the development and adoption of efficiency enhancing, environmentally beneficial, and cost-effective technologies, services, and operational...

This week’s guest is Bobby Holland,  Vice President and Director, Freight Business Analytics, at US Bank.  US Bank has been around since 1863 and is currently the 5th largest bank in the United States.  They also process over $40B in freight payments each year.   In our conversation, Bobby explains his unexpected entry into the trucking industry and the incredible reliance everyone has on it.  He...

This week’s guest is Jerrod Mounce, Vice President of Energy & Sustainability at JB Hunt.  Our conversation focuses on JB Hunt’s sustainability initiatives and the broader landscape of alternative fuels in trucking.  Jerrod discusses his 26-year career at JB Hunt, detailing his shift from operations to a focus on fuel efficiency and sustainability. He highlights the complexities of fuel surcha...

This week’s guest is Matt McLelland, VP of Sustainability and Innovation at Covenant Logistics Group.   In our conversation today we discuss the connection between sustainability and innovation, the potential impact of emerging technologies, and the paroles of overly prescriptive regulations. We also talk about the pros and cons for alternative fuels. Matt makes a strong case for having regulation...

This week’s guest is Ian Jefferies, President and CEO, Association of American Railroads.   Ian has been with the AAR for over 10 years taking over as President in 2019.  Ian was last on the Freightvine in February 2023 and obviously a lot has happened since then.  In the conversation, Ian talks about the long term effect of the 2022 Railroad Labor Dispute, how the rail industry is currently evolv...

This week’s guest is Andrew Petrisin, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multimodal Freight in the U.S. Department of Transportation and the creator of the USDOT’s Freight Logistics Optimization Works or FLOW. FLOW is a public private partnership whereby different players in the global supply chain share previously unshared commercial data to better understand changes in international freight flows. ...

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.   As always our conversation ranged wide - to include the continued soft market of 2024...

This week’s guest is Rob Haddock the recently retired Group Director of Planning & Logistics at Coca-Cola North America.  In his retirement, Rob has started a new firm (Albedo Logistics), begun consulting projects on the side, and written a book!   I asked Rob to join me on the Freightvine to discuss his book, titled, Transportation Adventures of a Food Shipper: A Shipper’s Guide to Truckload...

This week’s guest is Kevin Zweier, Vice President of Transportation Practice at NTT, formerly Chainalytics.   Long term listeners might recall that Kevin has actually been on the Freightvine 3 times: pre-pandemic in 2019, during the pandemic in 2021, and in the post pandemic in 2022.  Now that we are apparently ending the pandemic induced TL market cycle, it is time to bring him back again to talk...

This week’s guest is Tim Denoyer, VP and Senior Analyst at ACT Research.  Tim has been a financial analyst covering the transportation space for pretty much his entire career.  At ACT Research, he is the lead analyst in their transportation research effort and is the primary author of the ACT Freight Forecast, U.S. Rate and Volume Outlook.  In our conversation, we talked about the current state of...

This week’s guests are Chad Kennedy, Senior Product Manager at DAT, and Samuel Parker, Associate Director Shipper Segment at DAT.  Chad and Samuel hosted and ran the most recent Shipper Summit in Kansas City, which had close to 100 shipper customers.  As the kick-off event of DATCON each year, the Shipper Summit is an invitation-only, shipper-only event that features expert panels on procurement a...

This week’s guest is Dr. Erika Voss, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at DAT.  Erika joined DAT earlier in 2024 as our first CISO coming from a long career in security and risk at companies such as MicroSoft, Salesforce, Oracle, and CapitalOne.  In her role, she is really changing the game in cybersecurity for the entire trucking transportation industry.  Erika explains that the types of...

This week’s guest is Bill Cassidy, Senior Editor for Trucking and Domestic Transportation at the Journal of Commerce.  Bill has been covering transportation for over 30 years writing and editing at Fleet Owner, Transport Topics, Traffic World, and now for the last 10+ years at the JOC.  He has a great perspective on all things freight.  In our conversation we discuss the potential impact on the tr...

This week’s guest is Felipe Capella, CEO and co-founder of LoadSmart. After 10 years as a lawyer, Felipe decided to start a company to build something along with his co-founder, Ricardo Salgado. They chose freight transportation since it has a huge total available market, is highly fragmented, and was ripe for technological improvement. They initially started out as a brokerage but over the last t...

This week’s guest is Dr. Alex Scott, Associate Professor of SCM at UTK and co-founder of Sustainable Logistics. There is growing pressure on companies - both regulatory and socially - to reduce the emissions that they generate. One of the largest sources of CO2 emissions is freight transportation. Unfortunately, most companies outsource their transportation to carriers - so they do not have direct...

This week’s guest is Josh Brogan, Partner at Kearney. Josh is one of the lead authors of the recently released CSCMP’s Annual State of Logistics Report titled “Waiting for the tide to turn”. As most listeners probably know, the report is authored by the management consulting firm Kearney and presented by Penske Logistics. The conversation, while focusing mainly on the report itself, meandered thro...

This week’s guest is Alex Leslie, Senior Research Analyst at the American Transportation Research Institute. Alex is the lead author of ATRI’s latest research publication “Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking: 2024 Update”. I had Alex on just about a year ago for the 2023 report. Using detailed polling and data analysis, Alex can reveal not only the current average per-mile costs, but als...