If I asked you to picture a National Public Radio listener, you probably wouldn’t conjure up the image of a truck driver. Humorists often play on the idea of the public radio listener as a snooty cultural elitist, so you might be surprised to learn that many long haul truck drivers are Super Fans of NPR – for better or worse. Even drivers who happen to find the politics of NPR frustrating and in opposition to their own views, admit to listening to the station. It seems that getting riled up about the other team is a great
Read more →Archive for the Fuel for Thought Category
Breaker, Breaker, 1…9… Before many of us ever knew we’d wind up in logistics careers, we spent our childhoods fantasizing about the world of CB radio. In an era before text messages, DMs, and PMs, CBs seemed like an elite club of the coolest big rig truckers speaking in secret code to let each other know who was boss. Even today, those new to the world of trucking often fall into one of two categories. They either can’t wait to get their hands on their own CB to introduce their own call sign, or they pull
Read more →Shortage. The very word can cause panic. When a storm is coming, just the idea that we might not be able to get bread, eggs, and toilet paper can clear the shelves and incite retailers to mark up prices. It’s a basic principle of economics: supply and demand: the amount of an available commodity and the amount of desire for said commodity factor into the item’s price. In the logistics industry, the capacity crisis has been ongoing for years. But in my three decades as a 3PL broker, I’ve never seen anything like this. Naturally, the cost
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In my last post, I shared some thoughts on the loss of my mother and Matchmaker Logistics co-founder, Eileen Skane. The post published while I was at a meeting out of the office. When I returned to the office, as is my habit, I immediately checked my voicemail and email to see what fires caught wind while I was away. When I saw dozens of notifications in my inbox, I felt that old familiar instinct kick in – time to jump in, put out those ‘fires’, and help people out with whatever they needed from me. But
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This past Christmas, we said goodbye to my mother. Eileen Skane Ryder passed away on December 20th at Davis Health Care Center; she was 90 years young. Born in New York, NY, Mom spent most of her life in Connecticut. Despite a difficult childhood, Mom achieved great success in life both personally and professionally. She was a career woman throughout the 70’s – a very successful, award-winning real estate agent. Then, in 1981, she helped my father found Matchmaker Logistics. In 1990, Mom and Dad moved the family business to Wilmington where they later retired.
Read more →For many of us, the New Year is a time to make resolutions addressing issues we may have ignored throughout the rest of the year. But because we wait to address these issues until they’ve become problematic (think: weight, bad habits, etc.), fewer than eight percent of us actually achieve our New Year’s goals. It’s an easy trap to fall into – and some say it’s why infrastructure is such a major concern in the United States. Roads, dams, airports and other structures don’t maintain themselves, and we’ve ignored them for too long. TV
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I was only five or six years old, but I’ll never forget that moment. On Christmas morning, Santa brought me the bike of my dreams – purple, with a banana seat. I can still recall how beautiful that bike looked in the glow of the Christmas tree. As an adult, giving is always more exciting than receiving. But, I still enjoyed this list of forty tastemakers, leaders, and business tycoons describing their most magical Christmas memories. So I decided to ask my team- what were the best Christmas gifts they ever got? And they delivered with some amazing
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To my knowledge, all logistics professionals are big fans of Santa Claus. It’s easy to see why – he’s a jolly, hard-working fellow best known for his ability to get things where they need to go on a seemingly impossible timeline. Over the years, this tireless commitment to getting presents where they need to be on Christmas morning has some people questioning the reality of Mr. Claus’s existence. They insist he can’t be real because no one could get all of those presents to all those homes overnight! But to logistics professionals like us? That’s
Read more →With Thanksgiving on the horizon, many of us are looking forward to a bit of a rest. After turkey, pie, and a beer or two, who can resist sprawling out on the couch and dozing off until the big game gets exciting? While building muscle might be the farthest thing from our minds while we’re in a turkey coma, there’s one muscle that we could be working every day, all year round, to improve our lives and the lives of everyone around us. You don’t even have to get off of the couch to
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Typically, November is the end of hurricane season, but 2017 has been anything but typical. With monster storm after monster storm battering Florida, Texas, Puerto Rico, and the Gulf Coast, mega storms are back in the public eye – and weather professionals aren’t ready to call the season over just yet. One common trait of Atlantic Hurricane season is that there isn’t usually more than one major active storm in the ocean at any given time. Clearly that hasn’t been the case this year. And while plenty of great scientific and climatology minds will wonder and debate over
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