[00:00:05] It’s time for Supply Chain Now Radio Broadcasting live Supply chain capital of the country. Atlanta, Georgia. Supply Chain Now Radio spotlights the best in all things supply chain the people, the technology, the best practices and the critical issues of the day. And now here are your hosts.

[00:00:29] Good morning and Scott Luton here with you live again with Supply Chain Now Radio. Welcome back to the show. You can probably hear the buzz. NEWSROOM. We are broadcasting from our studios in Atlanta, Georgia today, but rather we’re broadcasting live from Austin, Texas, home of EAF TS Logistics CIO Forum, a Reuters event where we’ve been interviewing some of the most innovative thought leaders, the movers and shakers doing big things across the end end supply chain industry are Supply Chain Now Radio team has really been proud and excited to continue our partnership with Nick OSRF t_f_t_ and the whole Reuters event team to cover the event and the coveted thought leadership was coming out of this event. So welcome in my fearless co-host here today, my esteemed co-host. My legendary co-host, Greg White Hatoon Greg.

[00:01:17] Can you say Kronic disruptor just once. I just love that. Yes. What? You know, how did I not say so?

[00:01:22] So Greg is a serial supply chain tech entrepreneur. He is a chronic disruptor. He is a trusted advisor and he is a growth guru. Wow. All of those things. Yeah. And you’re. You make one heck of an interview. Yeah. Thanks. And with this backdrop we’ve had here, we’ve had the hits keep coming. Each interview we’ve we’ve talked about this a good bit. They’re saying this seems to be one of the most consistent events that we’ve covered where interview in an interview out there and some compelling stuff.

[00:01:49] Well, I think people come out of the sessions that they are in. I think they come out of the sessions right into these interviews. And they’re energized from the. I mean, we’ll be able to ask here in just a second. But they’re energized from what they’ve learned or what they’ve shared at this session.

[00:02:03] Yeah. Right. Agreed. And I think we’re going to continue that trend here with our featured guest for this segment, Chris Langford Vise, president of Engineer with Next Trucking. Chris. How you doing? Doing great this morning. Welcome aboard. We are to be here. No pun intended. Great to have you. And it’s been a busy day for you. You had a panel session, will touch a little later on. But any early key takeaways from the event? What have you enjoyed about so far?

[00:02:28] So this late first Logistics event, I’m really not from the Supply chain industry originally. So a lot to learn from a lot of great speakers, a lot of interesting topics, kind of keeping a technologist at heart. Being in the Soffer development industry for a long time and being able to see the intersection of this industry win or that with the supply chain industry and actually seeing it in the foreground versus sort of living in my bubble with the next trucking. Yeah, learning the stuff there. But being out here with other industry leaders has been super revealing.

[00:03:00] So so that we’re on that note. Yes. And the network has been good, too. And we’ve heard a lot about the sidebar conversation, how they structure things. But we want to before we talk next, trucking want learn more about Chris Langford? Yeah. So beyond the fact that you’re a diehard Steelers fan. Right. And we’ll cover that in the NFL hour here this afternoon. I’ll be the go to bring you back home. What did ExoMars but bullets get to know you better? So where do you grow up? You know, and you know what you do before being part of the next trucking team?

[00:03:30] Sure. Can I intervene for sheriff? I can before. So Chris shared with us that he doesn’t really like to talk about himself. He’s a humble guy. Right. Don’t look so. So the question the question I’d like to ask is tell us a little bit about yourself, man.

[00:03:43] Make it easy on me. Let’s do this. So I answer the question where I’m from. So, yeah, I was raised in California.

[00:03:50] California native lived there most of my life. No, I did get out for college. I went to the Midwest, Indiana University. I studied physics. Hoosiers. Yeah. Hoosiers is terrible football team. Great. Yeah. Not the years I went. My freshman year was the year Bobby Knight got fired. So that was right. Pretty interesting to be a part of that. If you throw a chair when you heard it.

[00:04:10] I think a lot of chairs were thrown that were not just in Indiana. Yeah.

[00:04:16] Yeah. So I studied physics, moved back to California and just drove into software development is something I was interested in. And then the rest is history. So it’s interesting. So I mentioned that this is you know, I’ve been with Max for a year and a half. OK. And prior to that, I was in the health care industry for 10 years. So whilst erupting like the serial disruptor here. We were I was focused on disrupting the health care industry for 10 years prior. And there’s a lot of similarities between health care and Logistics. And that’s a massive industry. Yes. I went to the Logistics industry is in desperate need of disruption. But there’s definitely opportunities to to disrupt.

[00:04:53] You would not be wrong by saying desperate. You might it might be a little inflammatory. Right. It’s not also not dissimilar to. Health care exac. When I when I started one of my companies, it was in Supply chain for a major health care company. That was where our first customer. And when you see that intersection of those two industries, each each with and and in some cases with good reason for why they have their have held onto their old ways. It is it’s a fascinating juxtaposition. And coming from one to the other has to be fascinating.

[00:05:27] Let me intervene. Why? So grown up in California. What took you to Indiana for college?

[00:05:33] So I get asked that all the time. And my go to answer is I wanted the traditional college experience. And what my friends in high school went to local university interested in California. But Indiana had that quintessential campus, sort of quintessential away from home college experience. Yeah, I really enjoyed that. Wouldn’t change it for anything. Do you still have the sweatshirt?

[00:05:53] You have big block letters entity. Oh yeah. I thought that was a requirement that can’t grad is reality in the Midwest. Yeah. Yeah, I get it.

[00:06:01] Give a big shout out to Jeff Smith back home in the Atlanta area. The biggest Indiana fan I know. Well, maybe, maybe the second now. But and this is this is the time of year you celebrate. Be an Indiana fan, right. College basketball season or go home. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let’s add one last question about that physics. Yeah. So how did you. I’m not sure.

[00:06:21] What do most folks do when they graduate with a physics degree, usually not become physics people. So usually they would go on to graduate school and get a p._h._d and be a professor or research. Oftentimes they’ll go into industry also. Many more have been going in to sort of quantitative economics or quantitative trading on Wall Street or go into research and development for like aerospace or things like that. And I I took a computer, a couple of computer science classes in college and then really liked it and then graduate and picked up a book, read something sort of playing for jobs. Now here I am. Wow. Tastic.

[00:06:55] So that’s why you don’t want to share too much about yourself, because you don’t want everyone to realize you are smarter than them.

[00:07:01] Everyone that creates a really a fluffs social dynamic can bring you back on talk about called quantum computing. Let’s do it. All right.

[00:07:12] So what is so talk to us about the time from the time you graduated to your early professional career before you joined next year.

[00:07:20] Rucking what you did? Yeah. So I mentioned before I was in health care tech. So I started off as a software engineer working for a startup in Southern California that built software that facilitates clinical trial research. So basically it helps people conducting clinical trials to capture the data from the results of the trial. And then we got acquired by a British clinical research organization. And then that company got acquired again by a United States based clinical research firm. Wow. So I was there for four for six years. And then it was time for me to move on. And I were there for six years. And what? I wired twice, four years. I apologize for you of what happened right when I joined. So that didn’t really account while it did, but it was pretty early. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I was there for four years. Then I moved into an adjacent healthcare space at a very young startup and in Irvine, California, focused on building software that helps small doctors’ offices stay independent. Hmm. Now this is actually interesting. I’ll tie it back to my time. Sheer next.

[00:08:19] But so over time, doctors’ offices have slowly been getting subsumed in these larger medical groups and the independent doctor is kind of a staple of communities and it’s really important. Lots of people prefer going to independent practices. So we built suffered to help doctors stay independent, to help run a good business, to help with the medical billing insurance claims and practice marketing, et cetera. So I was there during some major growth of the company from about 10 million to almost 80 million revenue. And then this opportunity next, Sherkin came knocking and I couldn’t pass it up. Wow, that’s fantastic. Well, what? So why could you pass it up? What appealed to you? So I felt like at that point I had my share of the healthcare industry and that’s starting my conversations with next sucking. I didn’t know much about Supply chain Logistics and the opportunities there. I didn’t even know how big the trucking industry is. And you hear people throw around and say 800 billion dollar a year industry in the US. That was all news to me and it piqued my interest.

[00:09:16] And then starting to learn about the problems in the space, the opportunities where software specifically can come in and start to help improve the lives of drivers. And now that’s an important aspect of next that really resonated with me. And this is time back to my my previous company where your next mission is to basically allow the drivers to work how they want when they want to basically empower drivers. And that’s a great tie in to your previous company. And that really resonated. We want to help independent owner operators be able to work more effectively. Yeah. And keep that independence. Whereas a previous company was the same thing. We wanted help. Doctors can be independent. So that resonated. Now here I am, so listless. Keep talking about next trucking. Yeah, yeah, is that you? You’ve kind of just mentioned a little bit at a high level what you do. But tell us more about what the organization does. Sure. So fundamentally, next is a two sided freight marketplace. Digital native and we work with very large shippers. So six, the top 10 shippers in United States, we work with them, put their loads in our marketplace and connect with over 16000 drivers across Southern California, just across southern California. Wow. So but there’s a plan to expand it short. Yeah. So we principally focus on Drage loads today as we found that Drage is an opportunity for us to drive Vetlanta called density and relevancy into our marketplace. So let me interrupt. Yeah. You know what I’m asked to. Yeah. For some of our listeners that may not know what Drage is, Shawn. What is that? So trades in the context that I’m using. It is specifically port loads, so moving containers from a port terminal to a local warehouse. Perfect. Thank you. Please continue. So we focus on Drage and that is interesting to us because independent owner operators have a plethora of apps they could potentially use like uber freight or combo.

[00:11:04] So they want to use us because we have a deep, a deep amount of local loads that are available for them.

[00:11:11] So they know when they wake up each morning they can pop up in our app and there will be loads available for that. They can they can do within a day and they can do multiple turns per day with the wow. And that we feel like resonates and also aligns their messaging of allowing these these and representing the penalties we can provide them consistent, reliable work.

[00:11:29] Yeah. And that’s the key. I mean that’s really the key. You get from from being part of a bigger organization is that is the sales organization that brings you customer.

[00:11:39] Exactly. And working with large shippers allows us to get access to a large amount of loads. And then we sort of have that choke point of the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, which is a huge volume. Floats come in every day. Right. And having access to that gives us that that depth ability lets our audience can probably hear.

[00:11:56] Chris Langford, you’re bringing the bus, man eat board, get a live audience as we continue our interview here. The EMT Logistics CIO Forum, which is a Reuters event, talking with Chris Langford, Vise president, engineering with next trucking. So, Chris, in your role as V.P. of engineering, where do you spend your time? And secondly, what’s your favorite activity where you spend your time?

[00:12:18] Yeah. So next, trucking builds. We build all our own software, so we don’t really use any off the shelf software outside of accounting software and things like that. But we build all of our own technologies. We’ve got a pretty robust suffered developing organization and product organization that helps us do that. So I spend most of my time is in the direction and design of our platform architectures. So the systems that underpin the product that we present to the customers and where I like to spend most my time is doing that stuff. So working with the engineers to help come up with the right solutions. Hiring, I love I love hiring great people. That’s something that I enjoy. And so that’s really important to us to build, attract and retain great talent. It’s actually been a theme here today, trying to understand and learn from each other how companies in the supply chain industry attract and retain great talent. So that’s another area that I enjoy a lot. I’m building the team, developing the culture. But really, I think that it’s about building great technology that supports our end user experience.

[00:13:16] Love that. Let’s go back to town for a second. I want to ask you your take it and see if you agree with this or if you disagree with this. So we had a great guest come on a month or two ago from a manufacturer in Georgia. She leads talent acquisition for this this very large employer. And she was the first person to come on and say this war for talent you hear about, that’s a fable.

[00:13:38] If you really intentionally diversify your approach and get creative and don’t adhere to the traditional talent paths, there’s plenty of town out there. Disagree, agree. And what’s your take? That’s an interesting comment. So I think on one dimension, there is a war for talent. So if you’re going for a traditional like in my world, we’re hiring software engineers. Right. We have to compete with Google, that Google, the Facebooks, the Herald, the air being beats the world and those are attractive companies to work for. So we try to position ourselves well within that market to attract them. And we’ve been able to do so, fortunately. But then, you know, the previous guest of yours raises interesting point, which is something that I’ve had to learn in my career, which is, you know, just because they’ve worked for these big companies, just because they’re able to work with big companies doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to be the best talent. Good talent. Great talent comes from lots of different places. Yes. And you need to be as a hiring manager, as a leader, you need to be softened to those other potential sources of talent and be creative and look for them and and be, you know, be scrappy and how you find them.

[00:14:43] Yeah. That allows you to almost sidestep the war on talent.

[00:14:48] I think you’re right. I think a lot of companies look, they they published the traditional job description, whatever it is. And and if you publish it in a sterile way. You’re going to get sterile candidate and you’re gonna get fewer candidates. I think one of the things that I’ve seen companies do very effectively I feel like we have done very effectively at companies I’ve been with is to identify why. Why next trucking, right. Why Blue Ridge, why Supply Chain Now Radio and and hiring?

[00:15:20] Yes, we have. And we are hiring, as a matter of fact. You’d look for a gig.

[00:15:25] We do need a CTO, but you could also be a host. I think we. But I think you know, I think you have to identify those things that make the business attractive to use it as as a as a fellow associate of the company.

[00:15:43] Right. And and when you do that, and especially the way that people look at jobs now, they want to be inspired. They want to have a purpose. Right. They want they want to understand that there is a fit. Then I think you do at least have a leg up in the war for talent if if not completely sidestep it. Agreed. Right. I like that.

[00:16:04] I love your answer there. I think a case can be made on both sides. Yeah.

[00:16:11] All right. So let’s talk about before we get your some your your observations on what’s taking place across in in Supply chain. What brings you here? Yeah. So I was a panelist on a digital freight matching panel with some other wonderful folks. We had a great time sharing our insights and experiences and building up digital freight organizations to some of the the phenomenon we’re seeing in the market. Also enjoying the all the other talks. Yeah, sure. And I bet you can get lots more invites. And I think you mentioned this is your first def Logistics conference, is that right? Some attending a Logistics.

[00:16:44] Oh, boy. We need to introduce you to Scott Auslin. Have you met him yet? I don’t think so.

[00:16:50] So he is the C.O.O. at golf relo freely by some speak.

[00:16:55] So he took an eight week, eight week intensive course in Supply chain, like so many of us. Yeah, he didn’t grow up saying, wow, I really want to be in Supply chain. Right. But when he did like you, he committed and and and dedicated himself to learning a lot and the skills and particularly his passion for talent. I think you two would share a lot of.

[00:17:19] Agreed. Agreed. All right. To shifting gears again, this has been a great event. And I hate to I missed your panel. But it was a fast. Any talk on that? How do you put it?

[00:17:28] The phenomenon that we’re seeing, man, we’re talking to love that guy. Right. I love that. I love the match.

[00:17:37] Other thing they can talk about to be way over my pay grade. All right. So let’s get some of your observations. And there’s so much going on. You know, we’re living in a business environment, global business environment where changes taking place. Second, the second, really. And there’s no shortage of hot topics and trends and developments. But what what are a couple that are more on your radar more than others right now?

[00:18:00] Yeah, it’s a great question. And there’s so many things that see at this event. You’ve heard people share blockchain, IATA. It’s like a golden corral. They change all sorts of cool things, you know. So when the big jump is, of course, cutting through that, what matters most to each organization for us and for me right now, what are the things I think is most important? It’s not one of the big sexy things like blockchain or IAG. It’s APICS interoperability in VDI. So I think people are generally familiar with FDI and the relationship it has with the industry. It’s mostly necessary evil in terms of requiring IDBI to get good interoperability between trading partners in software systems. And we of course offer an API solution, but where we need to get to is a much more standard way of interrobang. And I’d set out with that goal where VDI has a canonical schema that can be adhered to. But everyone’s diverge from when everyone has their own flavor. All right. And that makes interacting with each other from a software perspective very difficult.

[00:19:02] If you just spend a ton of time implementing the unique flavor VDI that you’re trading partner has. Right. And that eats up valuable time. So for us, we want to explore ways and push ways to build standard. Will one get rid of the EEI protocol? It’s archaic. We want to use modern practices, not even that modern, but it’s like standard API is chasten over HDTV. I would really appreciate if you would get rid of VDI does that.

[00:19:28] Eric and I had us at a conference about fifteen years ago. I made that bold statement and boy did I get some nasty looks at some.

[00:19:37] So I’m sure no one’s o’shanassy looks. Now when you say no. Because I think that serial disruptor. Right. Serial does have chronic this Rod chronic disruptor. Yes, please. I didn’t.

[00:19:49] Yeah. So that’s I think where we need to get to is the industry needs to to to buck up and and start making the hard decisions to homogenised the way that they communicate with each other. And we would also make sure we don’t make the same mistake with API as where if if we have every organization builds their own API and it’s thrown out there, it’s a little bit easier to build integrations with that. But you still can over time run of the point where everyone’s got their own and you can build adapters and middleware platforms to be able to translate between all of them. So we have to find a way to build industry standards, especially with the goal. You hear this all the time, probably end end supply chain. Visibility is like what Sipper wants, everyone wants. And right now it’s hard because every league with supply chain data is siloed up. So being able to have a sort of an API standard out there will allow for us to more readily achieve that visibility more realistically, more easily.

[00:20:43] And that’s a real that’s a really interesting perspective, because one of the things that we’ve talked about on some of our past shows is how everybody has got their silo of the supply chain we really dialed. But there are huge gaps in data where even in some cases it still goes back to a manual pen and paper or whatever type of spreadsheet.

[00:21:03] Carrier pigeons, Sunny Express still in Yacht’s. I’ve heard a history book. Yeah, fax machines, I believe. But but you know, the data is in and out of of kind of the core flow.

[00:21:19] Right. And every opportunity is an opportunity for it to get lost or mishandled or or or mangled. Right. And then go back into the next stage incorrectly. So this is a really important thing. And you being a technologist, you have recognized, I’m sure, from integrating technologies together that this ship has already sailed on on a kind of canonical standard in Europe.

[00:21:44] And I can’t even use the words he uses, man. I just had just went a lowly waste on a good basketball team. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good hoops.

[00:21:55] But so. So you have seen the error of our ways and in other way, other areas of manipulating and creating and connecting through API. So having seen that, will will serve you well as you try to help with that standardization. Yep.

[00:22:15] So don’t get your take. As I picked up my phone to take couple snapshots of you and Omid. I hope I look good. Great. Awesome. So I’ll get five D service. How do you see it to you? Is that a big deal or is that is that going to bring some big opportunities to supply chain and to next trucking and to the industry or yet to be seen?

[00:22:38] To me, it’s yet to be seen. I’m a natural skeptic and I’m olean on life as expected. Yeah, without being a scientist, you quote. You know, I’m a I’m a blockchain skeptic also.

[00:22:50] So these things I blockchains have a solution looking for a problem. 5G feels a bit more practical given it’s just you know, it’s just more bandwidth whereas speed. Right. So really what? But I think 5G will do more than anything. That’s just generate a lot more signal. Right. So when IATA, more or more devices can communicate more, more information faster. Right. And with that, just more volumes of data, which then needs to be shared more effectively and used more effectively. Some will affect next Sherkin directly, not immediately. I think it will just give, you know, more get more people online, more data flowing, which will be good. So we can maybe capture more rich datasets from our end users via our marketplace. Yep. And then as we’re looking to expand our capabilities in yard spaces, as we move into 002, that will also mean plan as well, especially as your continued growth to you. And then they get a big emphasis on the West Coast right now, but you are going coast-to-coast and beyond. The goal is to. Yeah. So growing right now in Southern California, working with the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, we’d love to expand to other port facilities throughout the country and hopefully eventually around the world.

[00:23:57] Outstanding. You know, we’ve had the opportunity to sit down with the the ports of Charleston, our Satellite Ports Authority and the Georgia Ports Authority. And it is just amazing that we’ve toured the some of the terminals down there in the Savannah area. It is it is amazing what they do. And at the same time, we hear this a lot. It’s not my opinion, but we hear this a lot. A lot of folks go in there and and they think of a government operation or they think of maybe bureaucracy or what have you. It cannot be further a unique kind of a public private sector. Most his ports have have a unique structure to them. But, man, they operate at a world class operational efficiency, particularly South Carolina.

[00:24:43] Now, I mean, their their leadership there is unbelievable. And you know that the growth of those ports is directly attributable to the to what you talked about with with Long Beach. Right. Because Long Beach has reached capacity, maybe even exceeded ATDC than. And and because it’s a long drive across America, people are coming in droves to Savannah and to Charleston predominantly. And there there are issues with the ports up more up north as well.

[00:25:12] So those two areas are growing really, really rapidly as we look to expand what we’re really thinking deeply about the the maturity of the port facilities. And we want to expand into we don’t want Los Angeles. Long Beach can be a challenge for lots of reasons. And we’ve we’ve taken a long, hard look set like the ports of Savannah and Charleston because of the quality of the facilities, the efficiencies they run out of those efficiencies directly impact the truck drivers and directly impact our ability to effectively service those truck numbers being choice full time Liegghio. Yes. That is not the word we’re supposed to use, but we can use long queue times. Yeah, it’s terrible. Yeah. So we want to we want to keep that in mind as we look at. And also know Charleston or something. Was it Savannah? They’re two of the fastest growing ports. Yes. Jerai now. So what better place to look for. Yeah. Next.

[00:26:04] That’s true. So many things coming in and out. And then the other component about the ports that I find pretty fascinating are the inland ports that both states are building out for a variety of reasons. But chief amongst them is the power, e-commerce and the power. There’s those soon to be one day delivery time frames. Right.

[00:26:24] Well, and also to break the you know, to break the deadlock in the in the port itself, it allows them to move some of that processing outside the physical constraints of a sea port. Right.

[00:26:35] Good point. OK. So Chris really have enjoyed sit down with you. Learn more about the really cool things next. Trucking. Congrats on all the growth and the innovative things that you are doing. How can folks tune in to learn more? How can a, you know, learn more about the organization or compare notes with you?

[00:26:54] Yeah. So of course you can reach us that next trucking dot com or Web site or info at next trucking dot com. Talk to some folks on our side, but also reach out to me on LinkedIn. Christopher Langford, you’ll be able to find me. I’m going to do that, right? Always able to connect. Yeah. Lovely.

[00:27:10] Well, we should also say hello and give big thanks to Mike Bush. We stumble across Michael on social media love. You know, you’ve got a really neat story and he’s great at telling it. He really he really is. And I’ll be really curious to kind of observe y’all in the coming months and years as you do begin to expand and you have in these different ports. And of course, when you come to Georgia, we’ll have to go get a break. Bread together. We’ll do. All right. So big thanks to Chris Langford Vise, president of engineering with Next Trucking. You can learn more at next trucking dot com, right? Yep. I’m sure they’re hiring my aunt. We are hiring. We’ll put that out there. But different types of positions. So take a look. Careers big. And it seems like they’re passionate about bringing good people and providing plenty of opportunities for the people to come on board. Thanks for joining us. Sit tight. One second as we wrap up today’s episode. Man, another. Another good one.

[00:28:06] Yeah. I don’t know how we do it. We’re just that good. We extract sand radiates out of no heat. Again, it’s our extensive screening process. Rod gives us people with physics degrees that get over our head that quick. That’s right.

[00:28:20] Oh, really? I’ve enjoyed speaking with Chris Langford here. Next, trucking to our listeners. Stay tuned as we continue our coverage of the EMT Logistics CIO Forum, which is now Gregg. It is now. And a Reuters event. That’s right. Can you believe that? Congrats. CFT team entering a big growth phase here. To our audience, be sure to check out other upcoming events, replays or interviews, other resources at Supply Chain Now Radio dot com.

[00:28:46] You can find us where, Greg, wherever you get your podcasts. Your job was done on YouTube. I see how comfortable I am. So I’m back in my chair. Scott’s got it from here. Don’t forget. Don’t forget YouTube. That’s right. Apple podcast. I heart radio. No, forget Spotify. Coming on strong.

[00:29:05] They really are on behalf the entire team here. Scott Luton. Wishing you a wonderful week ahead. And we will see you next time on Supply Chain Now Radio. Thanks, everybody.