President's Report

The last two years have been very difficult for businesses dealing with this latest recession. However, as the panelists pointed out in the General Session on the first day of our annual conference back on April 20th, we are starting to see positive signs in many sectors that are turning the corner to a brighter future. Also, it was very encouraging to see in attendance at this year’s Transportation & Logistics Conference (“TLC”) in San Diego many of the same faces from past years’ conferences as well as many new faces. As a matter of fact, our attendance at this year’s conference had increased by 26% over last year. This is amazing considering what many of our members’ organizations have been through over the past two years cutting costs. It is great to see our members’ companies investing time and money for their employees to attend our conference and recognizing the value they gain through the informative workshops and General Sessions we had scheduled throughout the week.

I have been a member of the TLC for 10 years and have served on the Board of Directors for the past four years. I reflected back to when I was a new member on how strange it seemed that the more you know or learn, the more you realize what you don’t know. This can be an unsettling realization that at times makes you want to stick your head in the sand and go with the ignorance is bliss approach to work and life. Unfortunately, in our profession, we cannot survive using this approach. This is why it is so important to get involved in organizations such as the TLC to learn and meet people in the industry who are experts with a broad range of knowledge and experience in the many areas of logistics and transportation. Where else can you find this kind of knowledge? I know it isn't in college where I majored in transportation and logistics. But more likely in the school of hard knocks. I’d rather avoid the hard knocks and learn from the members and associates in the TLC who have already been there and done that.

Membership is the life-blood to the TLC. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to hold this great conference each year, send out the monthly TransDigest newsletters, keeping updated the texts and publications we support, and answer the many Q&A’s that we routinely receive from our members to help them with complex legal transportation and claims-related issues. So, moving forward in 2010 and 2011, the Board’s focus will be to continue expanding our membership and providing great value and content to our current members. To help facilitate this, over the next three months we will be rolling out our new interactive TLC web site which will have a new updated look with more functionality and exclusive access for our members to the Q&A, newsletter archives, papers, presentations, webinars, along with many more features. We also believe this new web site will be a powerful tool for us to reach out to many more logistics professionals who may not know about or be aware of the TLC and what it has to offer.

One of the main advantages of being a member of the TLC is the networking benefits. Networking is one of the keys to success for your career as well as conducting business in general. However, networking requires time and effort to build strong relationships as well as access to the right people. This is one reason why it is important to embrace the latest free networking websites available to all of us such as Linked-In, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The TLC has recently added its own “group” under www.Linkedin.com to help our members collaborate and network between each other as an easier way to stay connected. We have also had non-members from the LinkedIn community inquire about our organization and asked how they can join our group. Be sure to visit and sign up on our TLC group on www.linkedin.com.

Finally, I want to thank the Board and the members of the TLC for allowing me serve as your President for this new term. We have many challenges ahead of us as we strive to grow our organization’s membership to ensure we will be around 50 years from now. Please join me in helping get the word out to your friends and associates about the TLC and encourage them to join us. Thank you all for your support and I hope to see you at next year’s conference in St. Louis.

Bob Hochwarth
Volvo Logistics North America

New Slate of Officers Elected

Thanks to all the members who have served on the Board of Directors this past year! Congratulations and best wishes to those who have been selected to serve for the upcoming year. Carol Wynstra, from Snap-On Tools Company, will serve as the Chairman and other officers and directors were elected as follows:

Officers:
President, Bob Hochwarth, Volvo Logistics North America; Vice President, Jared Palmer, Advantage Freight Network; and Sec'y/Treasurer, Steve Theissen, CCP, Schneider Electric.

Regional Directors:
Reg. 1 – Rob Silverman, Atlas Traffic Consultants Corp.; Reg. 2 – Keith Mowery, United States Cold Storage; Reg. 3 – Reed Tepper, Parker Hannifin; Reg. 4 – Brian Kiel, Nestle; Reg. 5 – Douglas L. Arents, Rite Hite Corporation; Reg. 6 – Ray Eckard, Dillards; Reg. 7 – Jerrod Slaughter, Columbia Sportswear.

Assistant Regional Directors:
Reg. 4 – Henry Swire, Central Garden & Pet/Central Life Sciences; Reg. 5 – Maria Wolter, 3M; Reg. 6 – Nadia Martin, CCP, Blakeman Transportation.

Hospitality Suite Sponsors

Door Prize Donors

Exhibitors

Thanks to the following exhibitors for helping make this year’s conference an outstanding success: