Efficiency, Well-being, Environment are the Three Pillars of the New Logistics Paradigm

Hey, everybody. Welcome to hammer down on the market scale, podcast network. My name is Mike Bush, and if your fur if this is the first time joining your show, I wanna say thank you first off. The idea behind hammer down is really simple. I think supply chain is a cool, cool industry. I think we do a ton of cool stuff I think that we do a terrible job of promoting it. This is a trillion dollar industry where every when you look around your house, everything was created. Everything was manufactured, and everything showed up in a truck. And as an industry, we suck at touting how great all of those accomplished. Are. So the idea was let's start a show. Let's bring on some of the most interesting people in freight and connect them with an audience of people who might be thinking about our industry. And when it comes to people who are interesting and comes to people who are connectors, one man stands above the rest, he's Robert Baine, the strongest man in freight, Robert. Welcome to the show, brother, man. Hey, man. Thanks for having me. I appreciate that. That's quite the intro. I don't know if I can back that up, man. The list that I I I I tend to be hype man for, for these. I had I had Liz Ward on, a couple episodes ago over from, from Z box and she asked, hey, we we go everywhere I go and start introducing me into the rooms I'm gonna walk into. So we're working on that as a side hustle for I I like that. I I could use a town crier for myself too. Like, I don't know, like, what would be said, but it'd be kinda cool to have that. But what would be said is really interesting, ma'am? So your career I'm gonna just jump right into it. Your career is fascinating to me in that there there's three sides, of things I I've I've I've learned about you over time. One, you're, like, a hell of a podcaster, man. You've bought, like, four or five different shows you've been a part of and spearheaded. And as we were talking offline before we started, you you basically are scheduled to be on every podcast under the sun. Yeah. Second to that, The the brand name, the strongest man in freight. And, how much do you bench? Well, first of all, bench is stupid, so it'll be very clear about that. But, yeah, Most in competition is six ten, most in training. I've touched, seven zero five with my shirt, and then I've, I think I've done, like, seven fifty five in my competition shirt off a two word, and there's a training apparatus called a band shirt. I did nine twenty five. That I touched my chest with that. That's that that's just kind of a a exhibition thing. I I don't like the band shirts, but yeah. So I've I've had some pretty big weights, my Okay. And then finally, you're also a freight guy who is on kind of back and forth on the operation side between in in house carriers, brokerages and consultancy. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. I've sat in just about every operation I'll see you get think of. Okay. Why? Like, like, tell me about this. What what attracted you to this why, man? I I do love telling this story. So I grew up in Northern Virginia, moved east, Iowa, and, went to college there. I I went to college for three reasons. I wanted to play soccer, party, and buy somebody to marry. So the great great experience for me. While in high school, I started working in restaurants because I wanted it was easy, to get a job there in high school. To, I love food. And I love I developed a love for entertaining people. There is something very cool about connecting two people through cuisine. And I love doing that. The problem with that is typically if you're working in the restaurant industry, your nights, your weekends, your holidays, those are taken up by the store. And I like that. My wife and I had kids young, we were nineteen and twenty. We got pregnant with our first kids. So I wanted to be around for my kids. At least I wanted to take them to soccer games or or whatever they were gonna do. I wanted to have weekends I I wanted to do vacations. Like, I I didn't want to live the restaurant life, for the rest of my life. So I went looking for an office job. I did not know what logistics was. I didn't care what it was. And I had an interview, and it was funny because I walked in and the guy that was interviewing me He and I played soccer at each other in high school and we hate each other. Ashley hated each other. And he had no intention of hiring me, but just wanted to go through the process because again, that he was just interviewing folks. And during the interview, they so this, organization moved cars. And They did that it's some private moves, but you just for like high end customers. They did a lot of stuff like the auction houses, the repo yards, dealerships, So one of the, ladies awards with some of the high end clients, as we walked by her desk, we overheard this conversation, and she's talking about moving and Mercedes, SLR McLaren. So this is back, you know, almost twenty years ago. When these first hit the market, these things, and they're still expensive. They were on the secondary market for a couple of million dollars. And so it was a very expensive vehicle, and I looked over and say, I heard that. I like exotic cars. I think they're fun. And I see, an AMG sixty three on the screen. A stock photo got the MSRP on there. Like, that's not the vehicle you're talking about. I said that out loud. I probably shouldn't. If I I really, like, I overstepped there, to just interviewee, and they're like, that's not the car you're talking about. So the SLR, it's million dollar vehicle, make sure it's a closed, make sure it's got proper insurance. She essentially blew me off. So I ended up getting a call a week later. I got the job, I start, and I go over to her desk. I wanted to see what happened. And, she wasn't there. So I asked my now boss, who again John and I at that time didn't like each other. Like, what what happened? So he finally sat me down. He's like, here's the whole reason you got hired. You were right. They moved out of an open transport, and the upper hydraulic failed and crashed out on top of the vehicle as a hundred and seventy five thousand dollar damage claim. And the carrier only had a hundred and fifty thousand in cargo insurance. Well, if you work in the brokerage world, if you hire that carrier who's on the hook for an extra twenty five grand, you are. And so that three to five seconds of me saying that's not the right picture, make sure you guys do the right thing, would have saved them twenty five thousand. So when the COO heard about that, he's like, find that kid, hire him. Whoever you hired, fire them, and hire that kid. Got it. And that's how I got logistics. And so I love it. Alright. So so your first boss was somebody you hated. I I how did you because I was gonna sound pretty sure I know I know why you why you left the first job. Yeah? We actually left because in, the summer of two thousand eight, there was massive flooding in Cedar Rapids and it actually, it some pretty shaky financials that we had. Our business was down for two days and that two days turned into that was June of two thousand eight. And August sixth of two thousand eight, our CEO pulled up in his Ferrari, walked into the temporary location we were at, told everybody at three hours of your stuff and get out. By the way, we don't have enough money to cover payroll. He hasn't worked for free for the last two weeks. So that's why I love that job. Now I saw that coming. So I was part of a group that very quickly got absorbed by CRST. Probably about two thirds of the staff got absorbed by CRST large carrier in Cedar Rapids Iowa, And that's really where I started to learn like freight. Like, not just, you know, general trucking. So, like, I learned freight at CRST, I worked on the asset side. So I was a fleet manager. I worked a bunch of different stuff there. It's funny. You asked a question about me hitting that boss. So Once John and I got to know each other, we liked each other a lot. The the the issue was this is I I played at a high school that was notorious for having a very bad soccer team. My senior year, we we got destroyed by his team, to to their credit, eventual state champion, they didn't feel bad about but it was we ended up going eight and eight, and we came within one game of the state tournament, losing to them again. And My high school has never had a losing season since. So going on, this will be year twenty four, hopefully. Go, go paradox. But so, like, we we had this stigma about us. So he's like, you were just some one trick pony. Like, you were fast. I'm like, well, a little more than that. They play in college and they play a little after that. So, like, wasn't just a one trick pony my guy? We got to know each other, we actually got along really, really well, and he liked my way of doing operations, because that was just incredibly thorough. And to the point that, like, I would be in the office at seven PM, everyone's leaving. I'm like, no, we still have, like, stuff we have to get done for this client. And that was at that time, Express Auto's largest client via Desa auction house. So yeah. So we we end up getting along great. We still chat every now and then to this day. If you guys are playing fifa, who's gonna win? I would play fifa probably him because I'm not as dead serious as they used to be. If we're in the pitch, you never know. I mean, he's he's still pretty skinny. I get through my way to run pretty well. I'm pretty nimble for a big guy, so we'll see. Gotcha. Alright. So so fast forward, I know you you spent time correct me if I'm wrong. Uber Freight, Yep. Carrier direct, which became meta for now you're at, remind me it's JLC? ELCS. Correct. Correct. ELCS. Okay. Talk about this because you you went from the carrier ops side really into more technical or tech focused connectivity. Is that right? Correct. Correct. So, you know, as I look at the journey, you know, I I got very interested in just just drivers in general. So so all this kind of sends back to to this. Living in Iowa, you you recognize a couple things. If you ever seen Iowa guys, they've got a sticker on their helmets says, ANF, American Needs Farm. Which is true. America doesn't need farmers. A n t, America also needs charters. And so I re I recognize that fairly early in my career is that you you have to take care of truckers because and you have to care of farmers as well. Those two things go away. The entire economy shuts down in a couple days. Everything goes away. I had no desire to work a farm. I like being on them, but didn't wanna work on it. But, like, I can impact the American professional driver if I can start to make an impact in the industry. And so I kind of, in the back of my head, decided I was gonna do this as a career, but I still wasn't really sure. Started getting on the tech side because what I recognized as I got deeper and deeper in the space is there is a lot of wasted motion across the supply chain. Here's what I mean by that. You may have a transaction that goes on. You have a shipment that moves from Chicago to Atlanta, and there might be seven to eight intermediaries in there. Between the manufacturer of the widget and the carrier that is moving that from Chicago Atlanta. And everybody's taking their piece in there. Right? And I don't begrudge that because, I mean, with deregulation that it brought a lot of opportunity to people in the industry, I've opened the industry to a lot of folks that otherwise would not have been able to get in. But what it's done is it creating these extra layers, extra motion that ultimately takes from the American professional driver. And so what I wanted to do is I wanted to be around four thinking leaders, people that wanted to implement technology, get rid of some of these unnecessary layers. And ultimately, you know, try to take that money and get it back into driver pockets. We we you hear all these different things about, like, driver shortages and driver utilization and and okay. Ultimately, like, what attracts young people to work? Can I make a good living? Can I see my family? Can I do so that's interesting? And, you know, can I do something that's worthwhile for me? There's other things too. Those four things are usually gonna hit it. Right? For a while, like, can I make a living wage, truckers? It was tough. It's still tough. And so ultimately, again, that that money that is at the very top of that food chain, If you take out these layers that are ultimately redundant and are are unnecessary, and then, you know, there's a whole debate on what ones are in art, but technology's gonna help that. Then you can start to improve that quality of life for professional drivers, and then you can start to take that technology and you can start to leverage that into a younger population that is used to technology and everything they do and start attracting young people to the professional driving It's still a challenge with the age requirements. It's a whole different issue, but if they know that they can leverage this experience they have, you know, being a in a connected generation, because really truckers used to be, hey, you get behind the wheel and and you drive. Now there's a whole different plethora of things that, are available to these individuals. And so so it was multi, fold where I wanted to get more money in their pockets. So I also wanted to create a situation where drivers can or y'all people are attracted to the the industry because ultimately you need to have drivers. Will there be a place for autonomous Absolutely. Do I think we'll get to level five? Probably not not our lifetime. But again, you're still gonna have to have professional drivers in the industry on some level. And the reality is is we do have an Asian driver population. So how do we fix that? You bring young people in. So it's got a long long winded way of saying that. No. I loved I loved it. And I love, like, I so so this is this is an insider's take, and I I think you you did an amazing job of of avoiding the the trope that, oh, drivers aren't tech just drivers doing, like, technology. Right? And I think it's the craziest thing in the world. The first people to live in tiny homes, the first people to have remote offices, they were truckers. It's not that drivers don't like technology. My experience says it's drivers don't like technology that doesn't work or technology that complicates their their life. So, you know, you've taken the standpoint of, look, we're gonna make stuff easier for you. It's just an awesome approach, man. What have what have you learned along the way? So I learned a few things. One, that, to your point, driver's knowledge resisted as people think they are. I've also learned that the general motoring public wants everything on a truck, but doesn't wanna deal with trucks. And so that's a whole different conversation to have around why it is so important. Supply chain logistics truck trucking transportation. I think twenty twenty really showed people that, just again, you know, supply chain issues, all the things that went on. But the other thing I've learned too is that no matter what you do, this industry never goes away, because you can't email a pallet, and So it it is something that can become generational. I think that's awesome. And I think that there's few industries that can truly say like almost no matter what this would be a generation, potentially a generational, industry. And that's something that to me is important, is kinda how I was raised in my family. And so I just think it'd be really cool. This might, my children have watched me now build a career over the last almost twenty years. And they recognize and are starting to see the the different benefits of what dad's done, as a, for instance, you know, my granddaughter was born six weeks ago today, Thank you. Thank you. My part was easy. I just made sure the kid didn't die. And that is you got that is you got pregnant. But what's been really cool is that they've experienced now, like, my network beat as excited for this as I am. And so they, I mean, free stuff shows up at our house. You know, free to the baby, obviously. And so, like, well, what is this? Like, this this is my friends. Like, I put out your, your Amazon wish list for the baby. Put it on my LinkedIn. Boom. People were super nice and very, very generous. We got customized, you know, onesies and hoodies. I I can't stand up with my friends at capital logistics who mean, they did an embroidered hoodie for my granddaughter. Like, it's one thing to do a screen print, but do an embroidered hoodie. Like, that's a whole different animal. And they're not doing it for their, you know, they're most of their employees, but they did that. They have a it was a twelve month size hoodie. So come this winter, file it's all set. I'm like, that's that's super cool. And my kids got to watch and experience that. That's cool. That's actually one of my favorite parts of the industry is, like, you know, it's I I I make the joke. It's the biggest small industry in the world. Everybody knows every you're gonna you're gonna cross paths with people again. And, you know, it's there there's two ways to approach it. Right? Like, you could say I'm gonna be everybody's competitor. And I'm gonna go win at all costs or you can walk in into how do we collaborate, and that latter group is is way more fun in my mind anyway. And they're winning right now. I think that's that's something that we've been talking about at GLCS, a lot over the last few months, especially since I came on board, was was collaboration is is the name of twenty four. And, I think it was, I think Ed Burns put this out. You know, there's something about being friends with your competitors. And and I and I I took that. I was like, you know, you're right, but also if if you truly are a differentiator, like, I I know Talon's got differentiation amongst their their peers in the industry. I know we have differentiation as well. You no longer become competitors. You're complementers. You know, what what you do is different than what I do, but both can help you know, even the same client because of, again, that's what those expertise, expertises are. And so that's something that I think is really take a hold as, especially this generation so that I say this, like, early thirties to mid forties generation has kinda come up because we've all kind of grown up with some semblance of that. And that's that's one of the things I'm really excited about with the industry is that, hey. I'm I'm gonna play to my strengths. But also, like, I'm gonna have a network of people that complement my strengths and turn me into a into a juggernaut and vice versa. Tell me a little bit about what GLCS is doing. You know, if, so somebody calls you up, what what what are they calling? What are they asking for? How does your company operate? What do you do? Mean, we're gonna help you take over the world. That's that's the bottom line. World domination is something we care about. You know what's funny is I I make that joke sometimes. I have like list of, like, ten or twelve jokes I was just gonna have on tap ready to go. And that's one of them. And the first response I got from somebody at manifest was, tech company got it. Like, that's amazing You've heard this so many times. But our our focus has has always been technology. We we work in three pillars which I think is interesting because I do a lot of things in threes. This kind of keeps my mind, same. The first one is, managed manage IT services. So you can outsource part or all of your IT to us, and specifically we work in the transportation, trucking, and supply chain spaces. That's it. So if you have an IT group of one, and you need either a couple extra hours, couple extra hands, or need a full team to to assist with the project. We're we're the folks for that. We also do application management services. Oh, I'm sorry, man. Let me let me let me let me get right there. Yep. Because I hear IT for trucking. That could mean, look, everything from we're gonna set up your Gmail and ship out a new laptop for a new hire We're gonna stitch together all of your solutions via APIs so that your TMS talks to your banking solution and automates the process of getting an your bill out. Where do you fall in that or is it full scale? Full scale. The the more complex the operation is typically the more it's in our wheelhouse our team, you know, and I've mentioned, you know, my experience, you know, nearly twenty years in this space. I'm one of the least tenured people in transportation on on our team. You know, we've got about thirty folks on the team. And I'll tell people is I I tell people is wherever I go. If you have a chance to talk to Nate Johnson, our CEO, He is quite possibly one of the best and brightest minds, in technology and transportation, both and separately and together. That I've ever met. He's he's absolutely astounding and but also one of the most down to earth, the nicest guys you'll ever meet. So that's pillar one, pillar two is our application management services. So this can be, where we will help develop applications for you. We will help to your point stitch together, items this is a usually a monthly service and we'll buy in a lot of hours. And again, this is supports their IT team. And then we have our our consulting services which, you know, people think of consulting that could be anything from organizational design, compensation design, scaling plans. It could be post merger integration, can also be pre merger, diligence. We work with a lot of different folks, doing that. The majority of our work has been done on the transportation and trucking side, specifically the asset side of the business. My goal here, coming on board is to help, really balance out the portfolio with our 3PL offerings. We do work with three pls. We've done it, you know, for a long time. But again, this, not been our focus because we have so many folks that are so in grade in the in the trucking space. We are as Sim Sarah's largest domestic integrator. We do a ton of work with a Trimble and T and W with cloud. Again, I could list all the different partners. It's all on our website. But, yeah, but I mean, we we we do a lot of really, really cool stuff. You know, definitely falls in the category of our life is dope. We do dope shit. Nice. Love it. In terms look, what what haven't I asked you that I should have? I when it comes to to being a veteran for for prepping for podcasts, I know you're the king of this. Whatever I asked you, whatever I set you up with, man. You know, that's that's a great question, man. I think I love about this is it's very conversational. You know, this is a couple things that I think people need to to understand when it comes to transportation. No one has it fully figured out. Like, and and it's kind of the podcast game too. Like, no one has, like, the full formula for this, even Joe rogan, like, people, they talk about his as, like, the standard for for shows. Right? Because when you look at the contract, you know, ball a lie, But do you really wanna sit for four hours and listen to the guy? Maybe you do, but it's not always optimal. Right? I started this interview with a with a really stupid kinda goofball question about how much you bench. Where where does, like, exercise and where does training fall into your career? Well, it's let me start with this. So, like, my my sports background, I I played soccer my whole life, which people look at me and go, there's no way. Like, I was I was smaller than. But I I discovered strength sports, very, very early. I actually started watching world's strongest man on a ESPN two back in the day. With my dad. And I was probably twelve, thirteen years old. We used to watch old reruns of world's strongest man followed by sumo wrestling, and I was just I I was enthralled with the concept of being strong. And I also knew that, like, talking to my dad, because my dad's a very well balanced man, in some respects. And Bruce always told me he's like whatever you do in your professional life, if it's if it's what you love, great. Understand that mostly aren't gonna do what they love. It's just it's it's your kind of check. You might be really good at it, but it's not what you love. Find something outside of your home and outside of your office that you enjoy and you can be passionate about. Because it will drive everything else in your life. And and he he forced me and my sisters to all pick something to go do that with. Initially with soccer. And, about ten years ago, I little more than that. I was working out because I started working out when I was in college and I I like the weight room and this creepy old Russian dude sees me and bullies me into doing a power lifting me. And I fell in love with power lifting in my first meet, And what it's translated to is when I take time to really think about how I've gotten to the point that I'm at. Because, like, I'm not special in my mind. But if you look at, against the breath of humanity, sure. I am. But what I've done has been very, very consistent for the last twenty three years, twenty four years of training. I log my workouts. I am in the gym a minimum three times a week on some level. Sometimes it is literally just I get on the treadmill and I'm there for twenty minutes, but I check box. I do I'm consistent doing something every single week. And and what that's done is that is also then bred into my professional life is, like, I may not hit home runs every time because you're you're you're not going to. Like, that's just reality. But I'm consistent. I do. I do the things every single day that allow me to, have the flexibility in my schedule to do what I want. To be able to provide awesome solutions for my clients, to be able to provide value to the organizations that I'm a part of, and hopefully provide value to the industry and he has just been consistent every single time. And that consistency over time truly is a separator, and that's I I I look at there was a guy that I trained with when I first got into power lifting. We're about the same way. Usually, I remember who I was. And He's still sitting about the same thirteen fifty or fourteen hundred pound total when that we both had when we first started. A nervous pile submitted total thirteen hundred I placed fourth out of five guys and I was with one guy bombed out of the meet, so good for me. I've now joined a very select group of people that have total over twenty three hundred that has squatted over a thousand pounds. But again, it's not because I'm special per se because I all I've done is I've done those little things every single day that no one wants to talk about. No one wants to, you know, do back raises. No one wants to do heavy pickups with your squad. You know, when there's no one around except for your coach. But I've done that work, and it's been able to reap the reward. And I've done that across my career, my personal branding, the training, my family, and it's I'll tell you what, man, it's led to led to a pretty awesome life. Listen, the one of the final questions I ask every guest is you walk into University of Iowa. You're talking to kids who are thinking about joining the supply chain. Wanna know more What's the one piece of advice you hope they come away having learned from you or having taken from you? This is regards to getting a logistics logistics just happens to be the canvas that I found. But but I'll tell you it's it's it's an incredible one. To your point, it's It's the biggest smallest industry in the world. You can you can be connected to every major brand, to every continent, and in theory to every person in the world, because all of us have things to be manufactured. So they're forced part of the supply chain. So to those that are thinking about getting in, you know, If nothing else, I've I feel it almost checks that box kinda like, beat a server or, like, work in retail, like, you'll you'll learn certain things about yourself in those arenas. Right? But having the stay power and just staying in the industry allows you a lot of freedom if you choose for it too. And again, I mentioned those kind of consistent things. And it allows you to find your voice. It allows you to find your story. And I think that and tell your story, and ultimately to write your story. So when I when I look at this life overall, you know, and I ever want somebody to come away from a conversation with me of like, what could I do with myself? Take hold of the pen that writes your story and don't ever let go. I love it. Robert made if somebody wants to get in touch with you, where can they find you. Other than Oh. Rebroadcast in America. Yeah. You you'll see me on the podcast. Just walk into Spotify and search his name, you can't listen. Just don't go for the pre there is a preacher named Robert Dane. He's he's interesting. He's an interesting guy. Just know that. That's out there too. But, you've emailed me, arvane at g l c s dot net. You find my link Robert Bean, tagline is the strongest man logistics. If you wanna watch that strength journey, you can find me on Instagram at bane three sixteen other than that, catching on desk planes or whatever you basically have a conference this year too. Alright, brother, man. Thanks so much for being a guys, Sam hammer down. And thank you, mister and missus listener. We we appreciate all of I'll be checking it out.