Blythe Brumleve:
0:42
Welcome into another episode of Everything is Logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight. My name is Blythe Milligan. We were actually just talking about this ahead of time of trying to keep your new last name straight anytime you do public appearances or podcasts or anything like that. But now that I got that little I guess, almost slip out of the way, we are proudly presented by SPI logistics, and we've got a great episode for y'all today, because we a re talking with Laura Beagen. She is the founder of the Maritime Professor Squall Strategies, and host of by land and sea. And we are going to be talking about all maritime topics today, and this is, frankly, a segment of the logistics industry that I'm not the strongest in. And so I love learning from people like Lauren. And so Lauren, welcome back to the show.
Lauren Beagen:
1:30
Thank you. So happy to be here. And you know, that's why I'm here, right, to help break all this down. I'm trying to bridge, to bridge the gap between surface transportation and ocean transportation, because I'm still learning the surface side, and I'm learning from you and all the other voices. And, you know, that's, that's it. We're all just working together trying to get better educated on what the heck's happening.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:52
It's definitely a lot, because I wanted to record this show actually, you know, towards, you know, late 2024 early 2025 just because everything that was going on with the port strikes, and is there going to be one? Is it there going to be one? Or, you know, nobody really knows. And so we avoided it. But are there any sort of residual effects of what has happened since the port strike was avoided in January, 2025 I
Unknown:
2:19
mean, oh god, yes. And no, I we were talking about this. I think I talked about this with everybody, like the word unprecedented has taken on a more neutral tone to me these days, right? Because, like, everything is unprecedented these days, we are just in once you hit a series of unprecedented times, does it just become the times like, does it just become normal? So I think that that's part of what's happening. So yes, the port strike was a big deal. We almost had a port strike, if you remember, on the west coast just a few years ago, and then we did have the three day port strike on the East Coast. I think that there will just continue to be the conversation of how much tech and advancement can we have at the port to make us efficient and competitive on the global stage, paired with the the need and desire to keep people real people working at the ports, right? I mean, it's an incredibly dangerous job. You don't just get hurt, you get killed. And so that's the thing about working at any port, is if we can find tech advances that help with safety and security and just ways of making sure that people don't get hurt, slash killed, that's a good thing. But on the other hand, at some point, you have to also be a business, and you have to make sure that you're still being competitive on a global stage, because every port is competing against the other port next to them, that how can you have that competitive advantage? And some of it is through throughput and efficiency. Some of that's paired with labor, and some of that is is alternative advances. So that will continue to be the conversation. And I think that now that there's a master contract in place for the six years with some kind of protections for I think there's like, a group that can review and, quote unquote, like, approve some of the new tech advances. There's at least some buy in from the Labor when tech starts coming to the ports and when that efficiency conversation starts happening.
Blythe Brumleve:
4:19
And so what were some of those things, I guess, that were a major hang up, because for folks who I guess, to put it in perspective, from what I understand, the ports are all around the country, not this country, but all around the globe. I should say it's almost eerie that you can go and see a port and there's no humans working. It's all automated everything from the cranes to the trucks to everything is automated and really controlled by people sitting in almost like a room full of video game controllers. They're just operating the port that way, versus an American port where there's probably 1000s of workers everywhere, and to your point, you know, sometimes very dangerous situations are port workers wanting to work in those dangerous situations. Or is that a situation where they would want to have, you know, automation, takeover or technology come in and help, or do they maybe get more money if they work in those dangerous jobs? Like, what? What is the incentive of, I guess keeping some of this tech out. Yeah, I mean,
Unknown:
5:19
so I think there's two points that I want to bring on. This one is fully automated. We right. We have long beach container terminal at Long Beach, so that is pretty close to that's very automated port. And then we also have another one, I believe it's in Virginia. But in general, across the world, we only have about seven. Percent that are fully, fully, fully automated. So people, you know, it's a little bit of a misnomer to think that everywhere else is fully automated, and we're not, because, for the most part, right? 93% then the other side of that would be, are not fully automated. But then I think you also start to talk about there's probably a generational split. And maybe it's a split right around COVID pandemic, of those who want butts in seats, right or like, want to be in person, seven to three, you know, it matters if you show up. And then we kind of have this new generation of people who want the flexibility and the work from home and the you know, they doesn't have to always be in incredibly dangerous positions, and there's a camaraderie that you lose with that. Sure, I totally agree. I teach organizational behavior as one of my classes at Massachusetts maritime Academy's master's program, and that's one of the biggest things that comes up, is, what do you lose from not being in person? Because some of these students that are coming out have never had an in person job, they've only had internships that were virtual, or they've only had, now entering the workforce, real jobs that they're still entirely virtual. So like they may never know that camaraderie. And I think it looks like we're having a shift back towards in person, right? We're five years post pandemic, or five years since pandemic started, almost to the day. Oh, that's a little eerie, right? I think it was Friday the 13th that that New England shut down. So I was
Blythe Brumleve:
7:03
right around St Patrick's Day. We're recording this on on March 11. So yeah, almost five years old,
Unknown:
7:08
wild, but, but I think that we have a little bit of a generational divide on people want a little bit more flexibility, if it's possible, and so remote control might be that that, like, kind of, that, like, break in the chasm of of trying to figure out, how do you in an otherwise have to be there in person position, how do you find a way to have a little bit more flexibility? I think that's going to be balanced with just general workforce and general labor practices that are happening across the board. Are we going to continue to push for work, for work from home, or are we going to move more toward everybody's in the office as a default? I think it's going to be a balance, right? Everything's going to be a pendulum swing for a while. But that being said, the new generation might not be, and I don't know this for sure, but they there might be an opportunity where they see some benefit to some of this tech advancement so that they can have the flexibility, you know, that otherwise wasn't there. You had to be there in person, steering that wheel, perhaps now, like you're saying, you could be on a remote control, you know, and working from home, at least in, like, a few of the jobs. And I don't know if that's you know, that that certainly wasn't the message coming out. But there's something to be said about a generational divide.
Blythe Brumleve:
8:18
So it's a generational divide that's going on with a lot of the workers. What is sort of, can you give us a sense of maybe, and I don't know if you know this, but maybe, like, the average age of a port worker, because, like in trucking, it's that big debate that goes on between, like, younger drivers and trying to get younger drivers to even be interested in truck driving as a profession. But the average age of a truck driver is, like, 56 years old. Are we seeing some of those same I guess discrepancies in age range for port workers too.
Unknown:
8:46
You know, I think that we have similar I think it's a parallel industry where you tend to have an aging workforce. We certainly see that in maritime generally, across the board. So I can only imagine that it's equally true for port workers. But, I mean, I think that you still have a large desire for port workers to enter the port field and to enter the maritime workforce, because I think that there's this sense of adventure and kind of, you know, maybe the danger is a little appealing too, right? I mean, I can't say it enough. It is incredibly dangerous job. I mean, these giant boxes, whether they're empty or filled, if they fall on you, like, that's it, right? And I have many, many friends who have said, the first day they started on the job, somebody died or, you know, just, it's wild, how? And perhaps that, security, safety, advances that have happened in the past, you know, 2030, years, have helped alleviate some of that, but it's still, I think there's still this kind of adventure, your outdoors, right there. There's kind of all those good things that are associated with some of those more have to be in person positions. I think that we still see a desire to work in the industry. But yeah, I think that that's across the board, were having trouble filling all roles, right, with the younger generation. So
Blythe Brumleve:
10:02
we're, we talked a little bit about, you know, sort of the technology aspect of, you know, I guess the the dispute between port workers and whoever they were, whoever they're negotiating with,
Unknown:
10:13
yeah? So it's the employers, so the, yeah, yep. So basically, that's kind of how you generally capture it. Us. Maritime Alliance was the East Coast. Pacific maritime association was the west coast. But you basically, kind of say the workforce versus the employers.
Blythe Brumleve:
10:27
And then how did those, how did those two associations? Because I heard you say on another interview, and I know I'm kind of jumping around here a little bit, but it just popped into my head that there's something like 200 The maritime associations within the maritime industry.
Unknown:
10:41
Oh, like, what kind of associations do you mean, like, all different kinds
Blythe Brumleve:
10:45
of associations. So you just mentioned, like, the East Coast and the West Coast. But I imagine some of the other associations maybe aren't as powerful as those two, and they just exist to, you know, sort of be an informational resource or networking resource,
Unknown:
10:59
yeah? So those associations, so yeah, the US maritime Alliance, or Pacific maritime Association, those are kind of associations or alliances of of the employers themselves. So, you know, that's how they're they're kind of the counterbalance. But similar to surface transport, there's associations for all sorts of subcategories within the maritime industry, right? I mean, we have ports associations, we have regional ports associations. We have commodity based associations and councils, right? I mean, any just similar right to to maybe trucking associations that might be regional or national. So you certainly have that on the maritime side. And I think that it's important to have that, because sometimes you have broad brushstroke things that are happening, which is kind of taking it a little bit away from the US maritime Alliance conversation, but more into, like the value of associations based on commodity or similar workforce, because there's issues that come up that you know, sometimes it takes a larger collective I mean, you have to be very careful, though, because at some point that turns into collusion, that turns into monopolistic behavior, if you start to get that competitive advantage because you're sharing trade secrets or some of that confidential business information, not legal advice, but just be very careful. But that's but that's where you know the associations do well, because they can take some of those trends that are happening across the industry, maritime, or wherever, whatever subset and raise those as larger issues that should be addressed.
Blythe Brumleve:
14:01
And so, were there any, I guess, permanent changes that happened after the negotiations outside of technology, and, you know, just, you know, maybe allowing those that those advancements on a case by case basis, was there anything else that came out of the negotiations that now affect the industry today? I mean, the increased
Unknown:
14:18
wages is going to have, you know, it was. It was a very valuable thing for the workforce. They haven't had an increase in the past six years, right? Because every these master contracts are negotiated over six years, so the the increases are built in, but they're kind of stagnant within the contract. So certainly salary increases is good for the immediate workforce. But then also that means that that port and that workforce now is a little bit more expensive, and so that does impact the rest of the industry of Okay, now we have to kind of absorb that. So whether that's the ocean carriers or the terminals, or even the shippers and the BCo is the best of Chicago owners actually moving the goods anytime, anywhere, as you know, right in the supply chain ecosystem, anytime anywhere, gets a little bit more expensive, then that can have a knock on effect, and it gets shared around. We're probably seeing it similarly with with some of the tariff scares and some of the actual tariffs going into place. Well,
Blythe Brumleve:
15:10
speaking of tariffs, I mean, that's a good segue into the next question I wanted to talk about, because you just got back from TPM. And TPM is from what I've never been but I've always heard that this is one of the best conferences to go to. You know, we were talking before we hit record on on all of your videos that you posted from it looks like a super fun event. So for folks who don't know what TPM is, can you kind of give us an overview, and then what your first time experience was like? Yeah,
Unknown:
15:37
so Trans Pacific maritime is what the conference is called, but TPM, everyone just calls it TPM. It's a conference of Joc or S and P Global. So it's an S and P Global tends to be kind of more shipper focused, but it's basically all ocean shipping related issues. So there's some surface transport, but it really stays focused on the ocean shipping side of things. This conference is so good, I'm telling you, like this conference was top life experience. While I was there, I kept saying, this is ocean shipping nerd camp. I never want to leave toward the end of the week. You know, like when you were a kid and you were kind of like, Oh, man. Like, oh, man, I've had so much fun at this, like, sleep, way camp. That's how I felt. And I was like, lamenting that it was coming to an end. And then, you know, you kind of have like, one or two last events. And there was a co hosted event by the Port of LA and the dcsa Digital container shipping Association. And it kind of felt like that last lunch that your mom lets you go to with all of your friends from camp and like, it's, it's like the best lunch. That's kind of how that last event felt, that it just was the best, the overall best experience. I'll tell you that I got years worth of networking done within a few days. That's how amazing this conference has become. I've heard that it's always been amazing, but every year it gets a little bit more impactful and really kind of dynamic, I guess is as terrible as that word is, but it really, I mean, like the truest sense of that word, this is such an all encompassing everybody in the industry of ocean shipping is there, and if they're not, they're staying closely engaged. Engaged on LinkedIn to kind of create the illusion that they're still there. I have so many special LinkedIn friends, is what I was calling them, that I was finally meeting in person, that, you know, I had close relationships with some of these people, and I just never met them in person. And so it was, it was almost like, Oh, I didn't realize they were so tall, you know, because I just never met them. I didn't know how tall they were.
Blythe Brumleve:
17:35
So Steve Herrera, shout out to him. Yeah, exactly tall. I didn't
Unknown:
17:38
know he was super tall, but I, but I've kept in touch with him for the past four or five years. Like, I feel like we're special, LinkedIn, friends. Yeah, it was, it was, I mean, like, I'm not even being overly boastful. I am not a paid advertiser. Like, that's just truly my experience. It was phenomenal. That's
Blythe Brumleve:
17:56
and so is it just, I don't want to say just the US community, but it feels like it's more of a global community, because I echo your statements every time I leave manifest. And like I'm walking out of the last session, I feel kind of sad, because it's like, all the signage and all of the other thing, you're just walking out and you're seeing it for the last time, and it's like, oh, you have so many good memories. So I imagine that that experience is the same at TPM. And is it more of like a global audience, or is it mostly US based,
Unknown:
18:23
yeah, global. I mean, we had, you know, some of the ocean carriers CEOs were there in person, giving presentations on panels. I mean, we had Soren talked to wall. All these, all this tariff news, and all this ocean shipping and ship building, right? We have the joint session present speaker speaking to Congress. When Trump went and spoke to Congress, that happened in the middle of TPM that, like, the very next day, everybody was like, did you hear there's an office of shipbuilding gonna be stood up? And everyone's like, this is the most maritimes ever been in a, you know, address to Congress, like, you know, just like nerding out on the little things that. Like, had you been back at your own house? Like your kids, your parents, you're like, your husband, wives, they don't want to hear about that. Like, they're like, oh, cool, the ship building.
Blythe Brumleve:
19:06
Let's talk about some of those, I guess, bigger topics that that you experience or were discussing with other people, Office of ship building. What exactly is that going to be? Because I saw the announcement too. Friend of the show, Salma cogiano, was very excited. John Conrad, of course, as well, big movers, and I guess online with facilitating that discussion to the forefront of people. And so it's cool to hear that it was just as exciting for the folks at TPM. So what is the office of shipbuilding?
Unknown:
19:35
Yeah, so it's still being stood up, so it's kind of a little bit amorphous now on what it's ultimately going to be, but, and there are people, you know, being stood up in the office, but until it kind of gets it's like formal announcement and formal here's our mission. It's hard to totally say, but how into I mean, the thing about maritime ship building in the US is we have fallen so far off the map on kind of a competitive player of us built ships that we are down to God, I want to say we have maybe 60 or less ships that are us, flagged us, like You know, us, built or manned, or any of that. So, you know, we get to this point where it's very much like, if we don't have ships, we're not prepared. And it used to be, if you ruled the seas, you ruled the world, right? And that was kind of like all these Netherlands at one point. They ruled the seas because they ruled or they ruled the world because they ruled the seas. We just don't have the capacity. We do have shipbuilding, it's still happening, but that's something that we just don't have the capacity anymore to turn vessels around and really get them out there. And so that's not even just from a military perspective, but that's kind of the part that's been attached to why maritime security is national security. Because if we don't have vessels to either we're still creating and building naval vessels, and so that's happening, but we need vessels to support that. And that's where you build into sea lift operation seals capabilities, which is basically the support vessels that go out and help the military vessels that are out there. And so if we don't have our own vessels to go out and do that then, you know, we're at a, at a military competitive disadvantage. But then that's not even speaking about the commercial side. I mean, the US flag fleet, we talked about all the ocean carriers, and they have, and I think, unfairly, been clumped into these foreign bad guys, right? I mean, they're, they're, they're the only ones out there, and we don't have a US presence in in a significant way for this kind of commercial fleet. So everybody, of course, is going to be a foreign guide to us. Wouldn't it be wild? And I think that's part of the directive here, is if we became not only like a competitor again, but like a competitive competitor, where we had US flag vessels and now all those foreign ocean shipping companies, maybe it's just all the ocean shipping companies in the US is one of them, right? Like so then you get, you kind of control a little bit of the messaging here. And I say, I don't think that the ocean carriers are necessarily the bad guy. I think there's been differences of opinion on how, you know, charges and surcharges and things. Like that, and it's being worked out, right? That's part of what the FMC is working through, is making sure that surcharges are appropriately assessed in a way that everybody kind of understands is the appropriate way, right? There's a little bit of incentive principle and like making sure that it's for the fluidity of the movement of the goods. But you could almost distill it down that some of the disagreements over the years have been just differences of interpretation. Should it be for lost business? Should it be for, you know, if they still need the box, or they still need the the equipment moved, you know, if it's sitting there with somebody else's goods in it, is that a competitive disadvantage for that ocean carrier who's trying to, you know, continue to get business and continue to move stuff? So, you know, I've kind of segued into a little bit of the side here, but you know, that's where the alliances are important, because they really are a way to monitor the movement and creation of the ocean shipments and the ocean carriers in a way that we can see. Because the alternative is then they all start buying each other up, and then that's mergers and acquisitions, and then you really do have monopolistic behavior. So But getting back to it, us being a competitive player in that field, like we used to be, and we used to have sea land, APL, you know, we have a certain a couple of others that are, that are in the world, but we just need more vessels. And so where do you start? Is ship building. We also need more vessels to train more mariners, because we have a significant, severe Mariner shortage right now and but you can't really train the the mariners unless you have the ships. You can't really have the ships unless you have the mariners. So it's kind of a often set a chicken and egg problem. So just the fact that we're taking steps forward with the we will have shipbuilding as a priority of this White House is, I mean, mind blowing, because maritime has rarely been talked about. I remember when Biden, under one of his congressional addresses, said, you know, the ocean carriers, and this is probably why I was talking about carriers so much. He said, I want to bop him in the nose. And everybody was like, I don't even care what he said. He mentioned maritime. Like, I'm like, This is so amazing. And so, you know, that was wild, and that was kind of like a negative connotation. Here we are moving, you know, couple years forward, and we have, like, something that we're building, something that we're creating. You know, how it's going to happen, all of that still kind of being worked out, but just the intention of we will be a ship building nation, again is wild. I love it. I mean, anytime that you are pumping money into maritime and for a US fleet is going to be something that will, in my opinion, bring dividends back to the country. And
Blythe Brumleve:
24:46
that's such a great point to bring up, especially among the relationships, because it's completely opposite of what sort of trucking is in the US, where there are so it's, I think it's 93% of the carriers in this country have seven trucks or less. And so it's very few companies that control a lot of the trucks on the road, where it's the inverse, on ocean, on the ocean carrier side, where it's a handful of companies that control all of the ships. And so I'm curious, Why would, why would the United States ever, like, I guess, look away from that strategic advantage. What? Why did they let the time program and ship building kind of fall to the wayside over the last, I guess, few decades?
Unknown:
25:28
Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different reasons, but I would say part of it is it was cheaper labor, less stringent workforce requirements, right? I mean, there was probably some, some bottom line decisions being made around there, and there's other reasons too, but I mean, that was part of it as everybody was moving toward this, like, cheaper, faster, you know, model. Part of that became offshoring and then moving it faster and cheaper, and it just kind of all snowballed into it became more expensive to have, you know, good paying jobs, or American, you know, American levels of wages, American levels of workers. And you know, that's where the Jones Act sometimes comes into the conversation. Of where it's it falls on both sides, right? I think there's arguments against it, there's arguments for it, but really what it does is it ensures that we have this American workforce on American vessels. But in order for the Jones Act to really be successful, you have to also fund it. You have to also have the industry funded behind it. And so as funding kind of dried up for shipbuilding programs, and, you know, kind of that long term viability, I think that the Jones Act kind of suffered through that. And, you know, I think that we're going to see, we're going to see this continue to move forward, and I think that the shipbuilding initiative is, is really such a significant and successful step one? The
Blythe Brumleve:
26:57
only thing that worries me, I guess, about it, though, is that, is this just going to be a priority for four years, and is, is the next administration going to come in and, you know, completely gutted again, because it takes a while to build these ships, right?
Unknown:
27:08
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, we're not going to have 100 vessels in four years. Dollars, right? So, but then having CMA CGM come out the other day and say that they're investing $20 billion through kind of different initiatives of investing in the US flag fleet and shipbuilding and kind of different areas that is money that they're not soon going to be turning away from in four years, right? So I think that there's, it's It's everybody's like, Why is everything moving so quickly? And I think, to me, that's part of the the theme, right? I see, when we change administrations, you know, I try not to get too worked up about, okay, what is the change? Because, look, it's the administration. Like, we're moving forward. Let's, let's see what's going on. When we switched from to Biden last administration, it was okay, so what's the new theme that's happening here? It was going to be diversity. It was going to be environment. Now we're switching over to Trump. And okay, what's the new theme here? What's going to be appealing, kind of, what's the theme that you want to tag on to seems like it's if it makes business sense, it makes overall sense to him, right? Like creating the business case, and that USA first seemed to be the kind of two major themes that I'm seeing. And so bringing it back around, I think that that's part of it is, okay. So CMA CGM is, is investing $20 billion into this USA I don't want to say USA first, because they're, they're a foreign company, but like this USA initiative, and so if there's going to be a further increase in the USA flag fleet. Now they're part of it right, and now they can continue to be part of it. And so I don't think we're going to end the at the end of this four years. I don't think we're going to end at this 60 vessels only. I think we'll have kind of sufficient contracts in place so that those vessels want this once they're built, have a place to go, have things to do, and have kind of a smart business case associated with them, so that they can sustain
Blythe Brumleve:
28:58
and who is this company, I guess, what? What country are they from?
Unknown:
29:02
Yep, CG CMA, CGM. They're out of France, so they're out of Marseille. Yeah, so there's a few different, yeah, like MSC is with, yeah, there's a few different. If you look at these ocean carriers, I mean, they're, yeah, they're, Costco is from China. They're, they're kind of associated with with countries. They're not only that country, right? But, you know, I mean, but wouldn't that be wild if the US can now be like, Oh, well, you know, I don't know if we're going to continue to call it sea land, because sea lion actually got bought by Mayor way back when. But maybe we'll kind of come around to like, I mean, let's be silly here. Maybe it's the the Gold Group. I feel like everything Trump's creating is like gold. So maybe it'll be like the gold fleet. Oh, they're based in the US, you know, like, red white fleet, or, you know, something red wine, blue fleet, yeah, but, I mean, but that's it. Like, it we've gotten so far away from that, and I think that's why Sal really kind of digs in on this, is like he even said it the other day. It's been outside of his lifetime that we've been a competitive force in shipbuilding or just sailing on high seas. And so to be able to get back to that just creates so many more opportunities. And when things go real wild in the industry, you can still, I mean, you have to be careful, because you're not going to the FMC is flag neutral. So that's important to know. So the federal Maritime Commission that I often talk about, who's really kind of the competition authority for ocean shipping, they're flag neutral. So even flag neutral to us, flag they're just looking for competition things. And so they are for the promotion, or they're for the benefit of the US, importer, exporter and consumer. So that's really who they're focused on, who they're trying to protect. But that's flag neutral. So, you know, I just say that because I think that we still need to, even if the US were to become, become a competitive player in this field, it wouldn't be able to now all of a sudden be like, Oh, rates are high. We're only taking us cargo, and we're going to just protect our own like you still have to be careful there. And
Blythe Brumleve:
30:57
so if you if everything goes to plan, and I guess tentatively right now, what is a realistic expectation of how many ships we could see from this administration at the end of year four? Hard
Unknown:
31:10
to say, because I also, I'm waiting for, potentially, a conversation about tech advances, because I've also heard that he doesn't just want paper weight vessels, right? Like, he doesn't just want, like, the the big steel hold. I think that there's a push for research and development for tech advanced vessels, so that it's kind of like the coolest ships out there. And obviously those are going to be more expensive and take more time, but maybe they won't right, like, maybe there's something that we're not even really talking about on a larger scale that could make this faster. I don't know, right? I don't know. I mean, he's got some big tech names associated with him these days, and they make things. I mean, Elon makes spaceships, so, you know, a spaceship laying down is kind of like a vessel in water. I, I don't know, but I mean all that to say, I wouldn't be surprised if we heard some some announcements or something along the lines of, like, there, there's also, as we're doing this ship building, we're going to recreating some of the. Regular vessels that we've come to know and love. But then there might also be some advanced vessels that I don't know, I don't know. Hopefully it's
Blythe Brumleve:
32:19
a good variety, you know, of the big vessels the smaller vessels you know, to be able to compete with all the different ports, because not every port can take, you know, some of the giant vessels that you know have been created in the last couple of years, but, but then some of them are, you know, cater to smaller ships. I think we, we saw a lot of that during, you know, just that all the shipping drama that's happened in the last like five years, yeah, yeah,
Unknown:
32:40
well, and that was part of the diversification of entry, right? And being able to go to, instead of just shipping all of your goods out of the largest ports in the country, going and finding some of the smaller to medium port size ports, so that way you can control a little bit of that backlog, if there's, if there's congestion, or, you know, they may be those smaller or medium ports might be less likely to feel the congestion when it hits big time. You know, the other thing that this administration keeps talking about is icebreakers. And I know that you and Grace are particularly, particularly interested in the ice breaking. Actually, I am too. I used to work a little bit on extended continental shelf project of the Arctic, and that is something that we desperately need, right? Because there's only the two icebreakers, large icebreakers, and really one, and she's often in and out of dry dock getting fixed up anyway. So like, we have a desperate need for ice breaking and ship building in the ice breaking category. And I don't think that he said specifically, I maybe he said 30 very large icebreakers. It was, it was a little bit of kind of a general statement, but, yeah, I know that there's an intention for ice breaking capability as well. Well, you, because you
Blythe Brumleve:
33:51
worked on, I think mapping, like the Arctic shipping lanes, is that? Am I getting that right? No,
Unknown:
33:56
yeah, that's yeah. So it wasn't the shipping lanes, but it was so I actually teach law of the sea at Roger Williams School of Law. So that's partly why the maritime professor came in, because I'm, like, teaching all these courses anyways. But yeah, I used to work on the US extended continental shelf project, and so it was a contracted position. But what that position was, was looking at the underwater. So like, you have the water, and you have the land, and then you have the continent basically dips under, and that's where the sand is, and then it keeps going out, and then at a certain point, it dives even further out, and that's the extent. So you got the continental shelf, and then beyond that, it's the extended continental shelf, and there's some numbers associated with how far out, 200 nautical miles, and then up to 350 nautical miles, but like really far offshore. But in those areas, that's where they're finding manganese nodules, that's where they're finding diamonds. In some respect, that's where they're finding some of those, potentially oil and gas deposits, all sorts of things that we don't even know what's out there, but that was part of the project was kind of mapping what we have, the hydrography, the geological sediment that's under there, kind of making the case for how far out. And it wasn't just in the Arctic. It was basically anywhere we have a continental shelf. So us, East Coast, West Coast. I mean, everywhere. Hawaii. So, yeah, so it was, but it was the Arctic that was, like, I was particularly interested in, but, so, yeah, I got to know kind of the the the world of Arctic and ice breaking and the need for it. Oh, my God. And that was 1015, years ago. And I'm like, we still need to be having these conversations, right? Like we still need these icebreakers like we needed them yesterday, but also today.
Blythe Brumleve:
35:35
And that's because, you know that, I guess, for folks who may not understand, a lot of the Arctic ISIS melting, so it's opening up new trade lanes that could drastically reduce the shipping time from, especially from East Asia and Russia over to the United States and vice versa. Do I have that kind of right? Yeah.
Unknown:
35:54
But the trouble is, there isn't a lot of search and rescue operations that are available up there. But then also, you know, if, if you have an oil spill, it's a different salinity, it's a different density, you know, just the environment that you're in up there is a lot harsher. So the commercial viability of new shipping routes is probably not quite there yet, mostly because I think you have to really be careful, like, Well, what happens if, and you know, anywhere, right? You don't want oil to go anywhere, but it's, it kind of has this connotation of pristine up in the Arctic, right? And so you don't necessarily want, that's just a concern. But then also, I mean, if you get stuck right, like, if, if something happens, there's not a lot of options for being able to just come and, like, helicopter you in and out, like, medivacu. So that's also, it's, it's incredibly dangerous without the support that you might need. So there are, I've been hearing of, there's here, and there cruise ships that are going through, but I think they're kind of on a limited basis, and there's interest in it certainly, because it would cut down time. But I don't know, I don't know, the viability of, like tomorrow, all of this just switching over, but it's certainly something that people are looking at,
Blythe Brumleve:
37:10
and especially from the I guess. The Greenland aspect too, which obviously we were recording this in the middle of March. So who knows, you know what, what has happened by the time that you've listened to this? But there's also the, I guess, the Greenland argument too, that kind of ties into, you know, the Arctic shipping lanes and wanting to secure those natural resources, and, I guess, more solid land, because to to your point, if something does happen in the Arctic. You can't get a truck up there because the road, just roads are too sloshy, and then the closest thing that you can get is another ship. And if you don't have any icebreakers, and you're stuck in the ice, like, what are you going to do? So it's kind of this, you know, I guess, combination of a bunch of different terrible things that could go on. But hey, there's tourists that are paying a lot of money, you know, to, I guess, to go on one of these icebreakers and to get off and kind of walk on the ice for a little bit. Yeah,
Unknown:
37:59
yeah. They call it the god, what? It's something like the polar bear walk, or something like to be able to get out, yeah? I mean, that's the thing is. So, you know, the Greenland conversation is so interesting, because when that was first presented, maybe a lot of people thought about Greenland as maybe this, like, Okay, what do we need about Greenland, right? There's no major cities. Like, what are we talking about Greenland for? Because of my, I guess, exposure to the Arctic and the vastness of the of the resources. I mean, my instant thought was, oh, my God. Like, that's, I mean, if that happens, that's wild. Like there's so much opportunity and availability. I'm not getting into the geopolitics, right? Like, I don't you know that that's for everybody else to figure out whether Greenland wants to or doesn't want to, and you know, all all of that kind of how that politically works out. But just from a land mass perspective, there is so much that Greenland has available to it in natural resources, and there's, like, political positioning and all of that. But I mean, like we're saying anything that's up in the Arctic is really kind of this untapped resource, and I think it feels like we're moving closer and closer to the Arctic becoming more of a central playing zone than we ever had in the past. I mean, it's still permafrost, right? I mean, it's still going to be significantly isolating, but wouldn't you rather have all the preparations made, right? Like going back to the icebreaker conversation, wouldn't you rather have all those kind of pieces laid out in advance before we need them. And I think that's part of the conversation for why ship building is so important in general, right? If we ever need more vessels across the world, that might be something that, let's make sure that we have those vessels now and they're ready to go, then when we need them, and they take, you know, couple years, five to 10 years, to get the fleet going. So yeah, I mean, all of this is it's just so exciting to have maritime in so many large conversations. And I'll tell you, I have not talked about maritime more with my family than I have in the past year or so. It's making national news, which it never used to do that before. I mean, even the port strike, it took until one or two days before the actual strike, and everybody in the industry was like, Oh, my God, I think, I think we're going to have a strike on the first time. Yeah, I think it was
Blythe Brumleve:
40:19
like, even, like, a poly market bet as well, where you could bet on if the part the port workers were going to strike or not. And so I think a lot of people lost money if they voted in favor of a strike. But I mean that, you know, teach their own so Okay, so we've talked about, we talked about TPM, we talked about Greenland. We talked about shipbuilding, icebreakers for the fifth, I guess, sort of complicated topic. Let's talk about tariffs. Who knows what's going to happen by the time that you actually like listen to this conversation. The tariffs are very much like, on and off again, versus Canada versus the Mexico versus the rest of the world. How are you helping? I guess maybe your clients navigate some of these just confusion and and just Yeah, I think confusion is probably the best word for
Unknown:
41:07
it, yeah. I mean, right now is a very sticky time, right? There's a lot going on, and I think there's a lot of political posturing that's happening from tariffs, and I think that we're seeing that play out, right? I mean, one day we have tariffs, the next day, you know, there's been a new political positioning taken from the administration because of the tariffs. So, you know, getting into the actual specifics of what's good and what's bad, I tend not to do that, what I do. And I think I kind of mentioned this. When administrations come in, I always kind of advise my clients to look for the themes, right. Look for the themes. And instead of pushing against what's happening, find opportunities with those new themes. And so, like I said, it was, it was previously, it was environment, it was diversity. Was very much the theme of how you can, you know, kind of create business opportunities under the Biden administration. Now the business opportunities are going to be coming in the form of making business cases, right, like running things true to businesses, running the what we're seeing it looks like is the United States being turned into a business and and kind of running it so that it no longer runs at a deficit. And. So, you know, the argument is okay, so the tariffs are going to be doing that. I'm not saying whether that's good or bad, the right decision or not, but what I'm advising my clients is try to find those themes and try to find ways to parallel with them, because you'll find less resistance. You'll find, hopefully, opportunities in those areas. In the meantime, though, like, what do you do tomorrow? It makes it really tough, because there's a lot of uncertainty. We said unprecedented times are now just becoming precedented times. And so what does that mean? I mean in general, right? The way you run a business during unprecedented times or uncertainty, diversification, that's that's always right? We were saying diversification of income. You can't always do that with with a business, but sometimes, when the port congestion was happening, maybe diversification of the ports of entry might be one way to start looking. So that way, if one port has something that gets impacted, you have other options. Or East Coast versus West Coast, right when you're having the labor discussions trying to diversify some of those ports of entry to either side of the US might be an avenue. It might be more expensive one side or the other, but if one side goes down with a port strike, you have the other side to kind of rely on. We're at least four years away from the next conversation about port strikes, but now might be the time to start having those conversations about diversification of how you kind of approach that you don't but the other thing is, it's easy to say diversification of ports of entry, but some of these commodities need certain warehouses or need certain systems around the port that they only get in certain areas. And so maybe now part of the conversation is increasing engagement with some of the other areas that you might want to diversify your ports of entry to, and saying, Hey, what do you have to offer this industry? Right? This is an area that we would like to diversify where we come in. You know, are there any opportunities to do that? We have a lot of infrastructure development happening around the ports in general. So I think that we're still going to see port infrastructure development happening with this administration. I think that we're probably going to see perhaps a little bit more towards strategic ports, which is money, funding toward ports, that they can be turned into military or military helpful ports. That's something that strategic ports is kind of a term of art. So that's something that's already available. Not every port out there has the strategic ports, but there might be some funds available along those lines. One thing that we saw there's the ships for America Act that came out. It was the Kelly waltz Bill previously it, but it turned into the ships act. So that was Mark Kelly, Democrat senator from Arizona, and Mike waltz, a Republican congressman from Florida. Ultimately, when the bill was presented, Mike waltz had turned into the National Security Advisor to the Trump administration. But it also says to me, when he was working as a congressman on this bill, it was a lot of push toward military readiness. Military security is national security, right? That's one of the themes that I keep seeing, that if you're moving toward military assistance or military promotion within the industry, that's going to be supported, it seems like, by this administration, especially because he became the national security advisor. So at the time, I was like, well, at least we know maritime will come up in the conversation. Now we have, you know, now we have the maritime I think there's an actual maritime person in the national security advisory area. Then you also have this office, the shipbuilding. It was so much maritime. So just a few weeks, but all that to say. So what do you do with the tariffs? I mean, obviously, continue to watch them, but it's going to be, it feels like it's going to be a little bit of a wild ride for the time being. Maybe some of the best things that you can do is, like I said, I mean, you don't want to overreact right there. And I say that very cautiously and carefully, because I don't want to say that reacting at all is overreacting, because some of these things are might put people out of business, right? I mean, that's that's part of the if you weren't able to sustain some of this movement, then some of these are going to have some major impact. It feels like, in the short term, though, it feels like the conversation keeps coming back to this is going to be a short term thing for a long term gain. So what do you do? Find ways of aligning with the theme, right? Find ways of, kind of creating new business opportunities where you can align with what's going on, so that you know if, if and when. I mean when, right. We can't have presidents that stay forever. So when we have the next administration change, same thing. Don't fight against the grain there, right? Go with the theme that's developing, and find ways of really kind of aligning and finding business opportunities there. I mean, it's, it's gonna, it's gonna feel a little wishy washy, right? It's gonna feel a little pendulum really swinging. And so maybe you just kind of stay in the middle of it all and keep your head down. I mean, maybe, if it's not affecting you directly, maybe you just kind of continue business as is, and then hopefully you find more business opportunities when the dust settles a bit. I'm, you know, I'm not saying anything people don't know, right? It's, it's, it feels like a wild time. But you also. Want to assume that the administration that's in is doing the best they can and trying to help the overall American people. And so whether that was the Biden administration or now the Trump administration, you know, maybe it's looking at it with Okay, what does success look like to them? What does winning look like to them as the administration and finding ways of meeting them at the finish line there, I don't know, just different ways of looking at it. Well,
Blythe Brumleve:
47:37
I think it, it kind of all sounds like, whenever shit hits the fan, like this, that it really comes down to finding really great, maybe consultants, really great internal, you know, experienced employees, probably also technology, and combining all of those to, you know, try to stay ahead and and create contingency plans. Is all of that sort of playing a role when, when stuff like this happens like because I would imagine this is a perfect use case for AI to, you know, find different sourcing of your materials. Find the ports with the warehouses that are close by that can store those goods trying to avoid as many tariffs as possible. Is that, does that solution exist on the market, or is it really just combining, like the consultants with the subject matter experts and technology? I think
Unknown:
48:25
it's all right. I think it's all of it. I mean, obviously AI feels like it certainly, I mean, significantly speeds things up. But on the other hand, you have to know what you're talking about, because it could be speeding up bad data, right? I mean, I've, I've looked through and, you know, I'll admit to it, I when I'm doing some of my podcasting, if I'm kind of struggling with how I want to word things, I'll throw it into AI, see what it comes up with. And then sometimes, I mean, it even just the other day said, well, the FMC, Dan chairman, Dan Mafe. And I was like, that's bad information. Like it's, it's Lu sola. He's been the chairman for a while now, you know. So it's if you didn't know that you would have just taken that as truth. And so creating a business based on AI outputs is a dangerous game if you don't know the game. And so that's where having the consultants, if you don't know the game yourself, bringing consultants in to help augment your your expertise in the game, because you can make pretty bad mistakes by just not quite knowing what the heck's going on. And you have to follow it pretty diligently and obsessively, almost to really kind of know what's happening, and that's where you know, even, even me as an ocean shipping consultant, and really kind of helping, I help my my clients, kind of navigate global ocean shipping regs. That's not tariffs, right? That's not necessarily customs, that's not all these other places that feel like they're all part of the same thing. And I kind of obsessively watch ocean shipping, and that's why I love 2pm last week, but that's it. Is finding people who are, I mean, pretty connected to what's happening, pretty clued into what's happening, maybe connected, not the right word, really clued into what's happening and watching it, almost in this obsessive sense, so that you can have the best information around you for you to make that business decision. Because the consultants don't make the business decisions for you. They just give you a larger like coloring of the of the coloring book so that you can fully understand, okay, I know that Santa's belt is black. You might not have known that had you not known. Maybe it's red. No, his jackets red, right? Like, that's kind of the the consultants help you find out what you firm up, what you may or may not know, so that you can make a business decision in somewhere that like might not be totally clear.
Blythe Brumleve:
50:40
That makes a ton of sense. And I feel like that's such a great sound bite. Like waiting to happen. You see me like riding off to the side. I'm writing down timestamps every time you said something good, and we're running out of room over here on, on the post it note. Okay, last couple questions here. Is there anything else that it was a, I guess, a an important topic to your clients, also at TPM. Is there anything else that is going on in maritime right now that other factors of the logistics audience or segments should know whether it's warehousing or trucking, because they all, you know, intertwine and play a role together. But was there any other themes or takeaways that you thought were important? Yeah.
Unknown:
51:21
I mean, I think every obviously, everything, right, everything that's happening out there, I think the biggest thing that anybody can do is just educate themselves on what's going on. So whether that's hiring consultant or, you know, maybe shameless plug here, but I'm gonna have E courses coming out on just general information about what I do. So my consultancy is really the direct application, right? It's that that's where you bring the lawyer in the direct application of what the ocean shipping regs are doing and how that relates to the specific environment that your company is going through. But then sometimes you just want to know, like, Who the heck is the federal Maritime Commission anyways, right? Like, who might have just started in the industry? And you're like, there is no reliable 101, like, what are alliances? Why are they better than the alternative? So you know that that's part of the classes that I'm going to be pushing out with the maritime professor. I do. Live webinars on that, and that's just so that you can kind of have a first stop approach. Of, I want to know a little bit about ocean shipping. I don't necessarily need to hire somebody directly, but I do need to stay informed on what's happening out there. And so that's where I, you know, I've kind of found a an opening where there really wasn't that available, and we have surface transport kind of, but there's this world of, I just want good information, and I need it to still down so that I don't have to listen to somebody, you know, ramble on about a topic for four hours in a class. I just want, like, half hour, 45 minutes of what's going on. What do I need to know? And so that's part of what I do with the maritime professor is finding those trends and help saying, Hey, pay attention to this case, right? Holidays and weekends is one thing that's happening at the FMC right now. They've been working through whether or not you should be charging for demurrage or detention. There's a case TCW versus evergreen. It's still very much fluid. It went out to US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. It's come back to FMC now. FMC just recently put out a decision saying that they kind of double down saying, you know, if you're closed, it's, it's, it's not aligned with the incentive principle. And that's one thing that the FMC has been saying. It's like fluid, fluidity of movement is the incentive principle. You should not be charging. This is what the FMC kind of is arguing. You should not be charging for detention and demurrage unless it's actually providing that incentivization of the movement of goods, like so if your box is sitting there, and I mean, the assumption is you don't care about it, unless you start getting charged for it, now, all of a sudden it becomes top of mind, and you're like, Oh, I got to get that out. I you know, I'm getting charged. But like the FMCS argument here is, if the port is closed on a holiday or weekend, you can't get it anyway. So no amount of of demurrage or detention is going to actually get you to move it, because you're like, dang it, it's a Saturday. I want to move my stuff, but I can't. So that's the FMC side of it, the other side of it. The the argument on the other side is that, well, isn't that an incentive itself? Because now you know, if it's a weekend plus a Monday Holiday, if you don't get it out on that Friday, you're gonna have three days of charges that you really don't want, and so it makes you move even faster to get it out on Friday. So that's the crux of what's going on with this holidays and weekends case worth paying attention to that's something that I think will really have some strong operational impacts. Of, are you going to be charged this detention demurrage? Because that's been one of the biggest issues since COVID congestion, of, how do I mitigate or how do I plan for detention and demurrage? Or how do I get out so that I'm not part of the detention and demurrage world? Because it adds up quickly. And if you have more than 10 boxes, and then per box every day, I mean, those are big charges, and at some point you come to a point of, well, the demerge, or the detention is more than the contents of the box itself, and so you might have abandonment. That's the balance effect of detention merge. But that's something definitely worth watching. It wasn't totally talked about at TPM, but also, there was a lot going on at TPM. There's just in general, you know, I think there was some talk about the new alliances and how those are structured. The Gemini cooperation has more of a hub and spoke model. That's kind of a newer is it? You know, the question is, is it more of a marketing thing, or is it an actual new operational you know, the idea is they come to, kind of the hub ports, and then they transload and move it around. From there, they're saying that they have 90% 90% reliability in their schedule because of the hub and spoke model. And that was the whole promotional piece of trying out the Hub and Spoke bottle. They were saying we will have significantly increased reliability in rivals and your goods moving. So that was a big conversation piece is, is this Gemini cooperation, you know, working the new kind of reshuffling of some of the alliances? What that means? What those Alliance reshuffles mean? I think one of the biggest things over the past few years for ocean shipping and the alliances, though, is the realization that, and it's not always clear, not all of those companies fleets, are part of these vessel sharing agreements. And that's what these alliances are, is their vessel sharing agreements. So like MSC came out, I think there was a report saying that they have 900 vessels. Not all 900 vessels were part of that 2m alliance that they were part of, and that because you kind of see, okay, well, they're 40% or 57 market like that. You know, as a company, they had a large significant portion of the of the market share, but it wasn't, it didn't go into the whole Alliance. And so that's why that alliance probably isn't as nefarious as people were saying, right? Like, oh, they're just guys, like, they're all just combining. And this is just another name for a monopoly. It really wasn't. It was really the intention was that they were trying to get better service availability. You know, instead of five vessels going across the same route, now you have two vessels. Was going across the same route with some of their competitors cargo on it. They're just sharing vessel space, so that you have two full vessels instead of five, not as full vessels, and then the other three can now go to smaller ports. And there you have it, some of that diversification of ports of entry or availability of ports. So that might be great for companies too, because it might be closer to their warehouses, you know, if they're able to go to these smaller, medium ports abroad, and I think
Blythe Brumleve:
57:36
it just speaks to your your earlier point about the importance of diversification, and, you know, protecting your own business. And you know, if you got cargo waiting around for a while, plus tariffs, plus, you know, all of these other different, you know, things that are impacting you know, global shipping may can get expensive really quick, and then who pays for those things at the end of the day? It's the US consumer, or maybe it's the carrier. Probably not the carrier is probably going to be the consumer at some point or another. Lauren, this has been an incredible discussion, and I think it just sort of really rings home true of paying attention to consultants like yourself, professionals like yourself. I'm curious, as we kind of round out the this conversation, you know, are there any besides yourself, of course, which will put links in the show notes to where you can watch all of your content and sign up for the maritime Professor all that. But I'm curious, are there any other, I guess, sort of sources that you pay attention to as well, or other, you know, creators that can explain things in a way that you do, which is, you know, an easier way to understand it, and also, you know, make the business case too, yeah. I mean,
Unknown:
58:37
obviously all your stuff, right? I mean, you're, you're right on the heart of it, and you're helping me to learn a lot more about the surface transportation side, which I totally appreciate. Grace Sharkey, right? Obviously, she does a great job with the tech side of things. And any freight waves is wonderful. Joc is wonderful any of those major publications, but Salma cogliano, we've talked about him a few times. He does such a good job, and he's a professor himself too, that he does such a good job of just distilling down what's going on, and he's a maritime historian, so we've really kind of increases the understanding by coloring the rest of why is this important? What happened in the past? How does this all relate? Now, you know, he's much more precise on some of those numbers. Of you know why we had vessel fleets in the certain number before, and now what they look like and where things have gone. So he is a phenomenal source to follow himself so, but there's all sorts. Matt Leffler does a really good job. He's often talking about chassis and trailer maintenance and surface transport and tech. And, you know, we actually used to talk quite a bit. My podcast is called by land and by sea. At one point he was helping to bring in some of that by land conversation. So that was kind of the intention of bringing over that podcast really does mean I, obviously, I focus a lot on federal Maritime Commission, but part of the podcast is really kind of helping, as I said at the outset, bridging that gap between surface transport and ocean transport, I was getting a lot of questions right around that pandemic of what happens on the other side of the gate? Right? You're either on one side of the gate or the other, and so what happens on the other side? And so I'm still learning the surface side, although I have a much larger appreciation for the warehousing and the rail and the drayage providers and everything that happens on the other side of the gate, and that was kind of my personal interest in learning more there. But on the ocean side of things, what happens inside the port? What happens on the other side once it gets on the vessel? How does all of that work together? Because it was kind of this black hole, but as long as it showed over the port. People didn't really care once COVID congestion happened and we were getting detention, demurrage, all these different things. And wait a second, I want to know more. And they kept peeling back the onion. You know, it was, it was this, how do I learn more? What? What is there to learn? How do I become a better educated just user of the industry, and really, that's the name of the game. Is educating yourself on as much as you can so that you're in the best position to make decisions when you need to. Oh,
Blythe Brumleve:
1:00:58
perfectly said, What mic drop moment like? That's such a great point to end this conversation, because I feel like I could talk to you, you know, for hours and hours more, but, you know, I want to be respectful of your time. And Lauren, where can folks, you know, follow the podcast I mentioned? I'll leave it in the show notes, but go ahead and tell us anyway. Yeah. So
Unknown:
1:01:17
go ahead and look at the maritime professor.com that's where you can find the podcast on there. That's where you can find the E courses, all of the the live webinars, all the different content that's purely based on creating open and accessible supply chain knowledge for all. But then if you do have a legal question, if you would like to hire, you know, for legal purposes, not necessarily litigation, but kind of navigating, how to do B to B, and kind of pre litigation side of things, or how all of the global ocean shipping regs work toward you. I have client based navigation of those global ocean shipping and it's through small strategies.
Blythe Brumleve:
1:01:50
Amazing. Lauren, this was an incredible conversation. I think we both should start maybe a fan club for Salma cogliano, so we can, you know, just just continue, like pumping up his his his tires, for the content that he puts out, because I think he makes all of us smarter. And then obviously, with you and all of your content, you make all of us smarter. And this industry is just like you said. It's an onion. Every time you peel back a layer, there's several more layers to go. So appreciate your time, appreciate your insight, and we look forward to having you back on again in the future. Thanks so much. I hope you enjoyed this episode of everything is logistics, a podcast for the thinkers in freight, telling the stories behind how your favorite stuff and people get from point A to B. Subscribe to the show. Sign up for our newsletter and follow our socials over at everything is logistics.com and in addition to the podcast, I also wanted to let you all know about another company I operate, and that's digital dispatch, where we help you build a better website. Now, a lot of the times, we hand this task of building a new website or refreshing a current one off to a co worker's child, a neighbor down the street or stranger around the world, where you probably spend more time explaining the freight industry than it takes to actually build the dang website. Well, that doesn't happen at Digital dispatch. We've been building online since 2009 but we're also early adopters of AI automation and other website tactics that help your company to be a central place, to pull in all of your social media posts, recruit new employees and give potential customers a glimpse into how you operate your business. Our new website builds start as low as$1,500 along with ongoing website management, maintenance and updates starting at $90 a month, plus some bonus freight, marketing and sales content similar to what you hear on the podcast. You can watch a quick explainer video over on digitaldispatch.io, just check out the pricing page once you arrive, and you can see how we can build your digital ecosystem on a strong foundation. Until then, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'll see you all real soon and go jags.
Unknown:
1:04:14
You
