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Capital Ideas, Cargo Theft and Chameleon Carriers · The Intermodal Logistics Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker: Thanks very much for joining us on this edition of the Intermodal Logistics Podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker: I'm Kevin Baxter with my Co host today InTek Logistics, President Shelly Austin.
• 0:12
  Speaker: Shelly.
• 0:13
  Speaker: Hey, Kevin.
• 0:13
  Speaker: And for this episode, we are going to be recapping a bit of the Capital Ideas conference, which happened a couple of weeks ago as we record and dive deeper on a few other hot topics in the industry with Transportation Intermediaries Association or TIA President and CEO, Chris Burroughs.
• 0:35
  Speaker: Chris, thanks very much for coming back on the podcast.
• 0:37
  Speaker: Yeah, thank you both for having me back on the podcast.
• 0:40
  Speaker: Excited to be here.
• 0:43
  Speaker: Great.
• 0:43
  Speaker: And so for people who maybe weren't on the first podcast or are a little unfamiliar, tell tell folks about TIA and what it what its place is in the industry.
• 0:55
  Speaker: Yeah, so, so TIA, we're the professional organization for the third party logistics industry.
• 1:01
  Speaker: It's like any good trade association.
• 1:04
  Speaker: We do a variety of things, obviously advocacy and what we do in Capitol Hill, you know, being the voice of the industry is kind of the tip of the spear of what we do.
• 1:13
  Speaker: But we also have annual conferences and meetings as we just talked about also education and further networking opportunities.
• 1:25
  Speaker: So, yeah, so we're the voice of the industry and you know, excited to play play a role in advancing our our membership.
• 1:36
  Speaker: And we, we had you on, we mentioned that this is your second appearance on the show and your first one was around I believe January of last year or so.
• 1:47
  Speaker: So now that you've been in the the President's CEO role for a while, I know you've been with the the TIA for a while before that too.
• 1:54
  Speaker: How has this been from from that perspective?
• 1:58
  Speaker: Anything that surprised you, anything that any challenges that you were not expecting?
• 2:06
  Speaker: Tell us a little bit about how your first year plus has gone.
• 2:10
  Speaker: Yeah, I think, I think it's like I said the last call, I think it's gone, which was just a few months in.
• 2:16
  Speaker: I probably said probably a little more nervous than the last one in terms of where where the direction was going.
• 2:20
  Speaker: But this one, you know, obviously you know, if things are going great at Tia, like you said, Kevin, I've been with TIA think go on 15 years at this point.
• 2:29
  Speaker: I think it's 15 years in July.
• 2:29
  Speaker: So been with the organization a long time.
• 2:32
  Speaker: You know, I think if I went to a different trade association that I didn't have familiarity with, with the membership and the the issues and kind of the whole gamut of what we do at Tia would have been more difficult.
• 2:46
  Speaker: But you know, this is, you know, go, go to the conference.
• 2:49
  Speaker: This was my 14th conference.
• 2:49
  Speaker: I missed one because my, my daughter was born right before one of the conferences in April, a number of years back, 12 years ago.
• 2:57
  Speaker: Exactly.
• 2:57
  Speaker: But you know, it's obviously know everything that ends in doubt of TIA.
• 3:04
  Speaker: And, and, you know, when I joined TIA 15 years ago, there was I think nine of us in terms of staff.
• 3:08
  Speaker: So we were very small.
• 3:08
  Speaker: And then although I wore the the hat of government affairs, you really did a little bit of everything.
• 3:13
  Speaker: You know, Chris, we need you to pull into the meetings.
• 3:16
  Speaker: We need your help with education, need you to hear.
• 3:17
  Speaker: And that was true for everybody.
• 3:19
  Speaker: It wasn't just me.
• 3:19
  Speaker: So, yeah, you, you learn, you know, a small trade association, you've learned quite a bit and certainly set me up for success, you know, running TIA, you know.
• 3:32
  Speaker: So mentioned the Capital Ideas conference just a couple of weeks ago.
• 3:34
  Speaker: So and Shelley, of course you were there as well.
• 3:37
  Speaker: I'll, I'll turn it over to both of you.
• 3:40
  Speaker: So how, how did you, how did you feel the conference went?
• 3:43
  Speaker: What was the attitude?
• 3:47
  Speaker: We've got a lot of ground to cover from that.
• 3:49
  Speaker: But I mean, first, from your perspective, Chris, how did you feel the the conference went?
• 3:52
  Speaker: Yeah, I think the conference went went extremely well.
• 3:55
  Speaker: I think there was a lot of energy at the conference, which, you know, a lot of a lot of TIA shows have have a lot of positive energy, a lot of great networking opportunities, ton of really good education that, you know, Shelley and Shelley spearheads.
• 4:12
  Speaker: One of those really important education sessions and one of those really, really solid networking lunches that we do around intermodal.
• 4:17
  Speaker: But yeah, I think the energy was great this year and we're excited about what the future holds and we'll continue to look for ways to improve the conference.
• 4:25
  Speaker: But we were very pleased and I've got nothing but positive feedback from attendees and everybody who's there.
• 4:30
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 4:33
  Speaker: I, I, I would echo that.
• 4:33
  Speaker: I would say from an intermodal perspective, which intermodal is, is a smaller segment of what happens at the the TIA conference.
• 4:43
  Speaker: And you know, we started many, many moons ago doing the intermodal piece at the TIA and we've seen kind of peaks and valleys of the attendance in the excitement for intermodal.
• 4:54
  Speaker: And I would say we're starting to see it peak back up with the truck brokers and with that with the group that's there understanding that it's becoming a critical piece of what they need to have in their kind of toolbox to to help their customers.
• 5:07
  Speaker: Because a lot of these customers, they want their partners, their 3PLs, their brokers to be able to handle more, you know, more things and give them more flexibility and more options as we continue to see these market disruptions.
• 5:18
  Speaker: And I felt like, you know, this year, we're starting to see that climb again.
• 5:24
  Speaker: And we, we, we saw a lot more attendance, a lot more interaction from, from our panel in our luncheon.
• 5:30
  Speaker: And so that helped with the excitement from an intermodal perspective.
• 5:32
  Speaker: But from an overall conference perspective, I can't say enough about what the TIA does.
• 5:39
  Speaker: I mean, it, it is literally one of the most attended and one of the most educational active conferences that we go to every year.
• 5:44
  Speaker: And I don't feel like it's, it's lost any of that luster.
• 5:48
  Speaker: It it's just only improved each year.
• 5:49
  Speaker: So I think that it was done very, very well.
• 5:52
  Speaker: So you've been doing them for, for a while the, the industry kind of ebbs and flows itself.
• 6:01
  Speaker: Does it seem like there's a little bit more optimism at this conference than even maybe last year after there had been some some ups and downs and and the last few years before that as well?
• 6:13
  Speaker: Yeah, I think it was part of that energy from the conference.
• 6:16
  Speaker: I think certainly optimism plays a role in that.
• 6:18
  Speaker: You know, we we heard from Donald Broaden who's who's our chief economist and well known respected transportation economist out there and you know, signs are definitely pointing in the right direction from an economic perspective.
• 6:30
  Speaker: I think there's obviously a lot of hot issues going on with tech, with technology and what does that hold for the future and optimization within your business.
• 6:38
  Speaker: And then, you know, things are really the FMCSA is doing a lot and here in DC to combat some of the cargo theft that's going on to combat, so the bad actors that are in the space.
• 6:49
  Speaker: So there's a lot of momentum in this industry and I think we saw that certainly resonating with the folks that attended the conference in Phoenix.
• 6:59
  Speaker: So I think one of the important parts Chris, and you can highlight it on more is it not every three PL. or broker is, is part of the Tia and and that's it.
• 7:08
  Speaker: I think important to highlight here because there's that additional layer of security and safety and and just support that the Tia offers three PLS when they go to their customers.
• 7:20
  Speaker: I think it's almost a nice little thing to have on your logo or whatever that the customers know that you are kind of a little bit higher level broker that has these additional levels of security.
• 7:31
  Speaker: And that comes into play big time with what is challenging because a lot of people could say brokerage is really challenging right now, truckload brokerage because of the bad actors and because of all the situations that are happening.
• 7:44
  Speaker: So I think it's extremely important that the Tia be be highlighted in the fact that hey, when there's a 3PL or a broker in this organization, they have the understanding and the knowledge and the support network behind them to try and be at their best to do their best to prevent those types of things for their customer.
• 8:04
  Speaker: Hopefully I explained that correctly.
• 8:06
  Speaker: No, yeah, absolutely.
• 8:06
  Speaker: And that was certainly one of the, one of the sessions and one of the topics that kind of resonated for me for the conferences.
• 8:14
  Speaker: We had Louis Pugh, who's the Executive Vice President of OOIDA, the owners, Owners, Operators and Driver Association with us on a panel.
• 8:21
  Speaker: And we, we kind of talked about the relationship between, you know, carriers and brokers.
• 8:27
  Speaker: And, you know, I think there's a lot of different narratives out there.
• 8:28
  Speaker: If you go on social media, you, you would certainly think that, you know, the two, the two sides absolutely hate each other and want nothing to do with each other.
• 8:35
  Speaker: And it's just this visceral hate.
• 8:36
  Speaker: But in reality, there's, there's a lot of good partnerships that are out there.
• 8:41
  Speaker: And I think that, you know, that's one thing that we've been working on with, with TIA, not only with OOIDA and, and ATA and other truck trekking organizations.
• 8:48
  Speaker: And I am on their mental side, but also with the shippers is you know, that the brand does matter.
• 8:53
  Speaker: You know, we, we make our members here towards the code of ethics.
• 8:55
  Speaker: They have to follow those ethics guidelines and and including that is doing fair business practices.
• 9:01
  Speaker: So it's a very important to us because really the brand reputation is what we all have as businesses.
• 9:08
  Speaker: And that's no different from a trade association.
• 9:09
  Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
• 9:13
  Speaker: And, and I would say that that's always been important, but in our world today, it's probably a little bit more important.
• 9:18
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 9:18
  Speaker: I would agree, yeah.
• 9:22
  Speaker: Well, I mean, with the, with the cargo theft issue, I'm obviously that's something that's, that's been a key point of advocacy for, for Tia for quite some time.
• 9:32
  Speaker: Does it feel like they're, you mentioned an FMCSA, he's taking some actions now.
• 9:35
  Speaker: Does it feel like there's actually some more momentum to penalties out there getting getting after the bad actors?
• 9:44
  Speaker: I know there had been frustration in the past that you're talking about it, but not necessarily a lot had been done at that level.
• 9:52
  Speaker: Yeah, there.
• 9:52
  Speaker: There's definitely momentum at the federal level.
• 9:55
  Speaker: And I always like to preface by saying that, you know, everything that's about government moves at glacial speed.
• 10:03
  Speaker: So it's not going to move as nearly as fast as we want it to, but there is certainly signaling in the right direction that they're taking a lot of positive steps.
• 10:11
  Speaker: And that's coming from from the White House, it's coming from the agencies, including FMCSA, and it's also coming from Congress.
• 10:16
  Speaker: You know, I think there's at least 5 or 6 different pieces of legislation right now centered around cargo theft and, you know, getting some of these unsafe, harmful bad actors out of the marketplace.
• 10:32
  Speaker: So there's definitely a massive push going on.
• 10:35
  Speaker: The agency has done a lot of things and some of the things behind the scenes to really address this problem because they don't want, you know, the criminals are fraudsters to know everything they're doing.
• 10:43
  Speaker: Because if we, if we give our playbook, the other team, they're obviously going to know everything we're doing.
• 10:48
  Speaker: So yeah, it's been a huge issue for Tia for a number of years.
• 10:52
  Speaker: I think I mentioned this on the last call.
• 10:53
  Speaker: The first piece of legislation I worked on when I joined Tia was the Fighting Fraud and Transportation Act.
• 10:58
  Speaker: So that was 2012.
• 11:02
  Speaker: That was signed into law by President Obama.
• 11:05
  Speaker: It's something that we've obviously been focused on for years, albeit back in 2012 when signing the law was quite different than what it is now.
• 11:11
  Speaker: It's well organized criminal activity at this point where before it was just kind of double brokering, you know, not for nefarious reasons, but you know, we want to level playing field and saw that as you know, unlawful activity.
• 11:24
  Speaker: But you know, we, we launched a hotline back in December of last year.
• 11:31
  Speaker: And I think, you know, the six months or so that we've taken reports, I think we're well over 120 reports of, of cargo theft.
• 11:40
  Speaker: That's unique company reports that are coming in.
• 11:43
  Speaker: It's well north of north of $30 million in terms of lost cargo, lost, lost theft in terms of the freight.
• 11:51
  Speaker: So it continues to be a massive problem.
• 11:53
  Speaker: You know, there's a lot of different strategies.
• 11:57
  Speaker: You know, these these actors are very smart.
• 11:59
  Speaker: They continue to change their tactics as as they get educated on the marketplace and as industry adapts to kind of combat their tactics, they find different tactics.
• 12:11
  Speaker: You know, the one we was just talking with with our staff person that's really kind of spearheading our hotline.
• 12:17
  Speaker: And, you know, the latest one is, you know, masquerading, impersonating shippers.
• 12:20
  Speaker: So they'll gain access to a shipper, they'll they'll post loads on load boards.
• 12:28
  Speaker: You know, 10/20/30 loads will get put out.
• 12:30
  Speaker: And these are legitimate loads.
• 12:30
  Speaker: Carriers are not paid.
• 12:33
  Speaker: And they obviously, you know, kind of get screwed in this and are looking for, hey, Mr.
• 12:36
  Speaker: Broker, why didn't you pay me?
• 12:39
  Speaker: And we're like, we don't know where you even got these loads from.
• 12:41
  Speaker: So it's just a massive problem of impersonation.
• 12:45
  Speaker: And you know, a lot of people think of the kind of the smash and grab, kind of the traditional cargo theft, but a lot of it is the strategic theft side of things of just, you know, gaining access to your system, using your credentials to log into a load board, using your credentials to go into FMCSA and change things.
• 13:02
  Speaker: So it's, it's very sophisticated.
• 13:05
  Speaker: We're we're excited.
• 13:05
  Speaker: We lost the hotline.
• 13:07
  Speaker: It's been obviously positive.
• 13:07
  Speaker: We're partnering with the FBI as kind of an information share to get that information to them so they can go out and get some arrests.
• 13:15
  Speaker: And there's been a couple of arrests.
• 13:16
  Speaker: Again, this, these are not things they're going to make the, the news at night because obviously, you know, FBI, they don't share a lot of stuff for the reason I talked about before in terms of keeping everything quiet.
• 13:27
  Speaker: So they really, really can go after these guys.
• 13:29
  Speaker: But they, they knew who the bad actors are.
• 13:31
  Speaker: They're just building the case.
• 13:31
  Speaker: And you know, we, we play a very small role in that and there's a lot of other organizations that are doing what we're doing.
• 13:37
  Speaker: But you know, we're happy with the role we're playing on that.
• 13:39
  Speaker: Well, you mentioned that the maybe the arrests and, and certain pieces are not hitting the news, but it also seems that on the flip side, there are a lot of these theft and cargo theft and fraud cases that have have started to get some coverage.
• 14:00
  Speaker: I mean, we've sometimes it happens to be the, the type of freight.
• 14:01
  Speaker: I mean, this one was in Europe, but there was the Kit Kat thing a couple of months ago and then the tequila from.
• 14:08
  Speaker: Last fall.
• 14:12
  Speaker: Yeah, the Guy Fiery 1, but those are like, I mean, the, the Guy Fieri 1 is a good example of one that that really went pretty hard into explaining the whole process of, of what happened there.
• 14:22
  Speaker: How important is that to to raise awareness?
• 14:25
  Speaker: And I'm sure it helps with the the congressional support as well if they're seeing, oh, this happened here and you know, this is a problem.
• 14:35
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 14:35
  Speaker: We, we, we've been, we've been trying to get media presence on this for a number of years, as you can imagine, really, really since the, since the pandemic when it really exploded.
• 14:43
  Speaker: And, you know, we kept reaching out to local media and, and to their credit, they would, they would, you know, get back with us and, you know, kind of hear us out.
• 14:51
  Speaker: But we when we brought out the tequila thing, we said, hey, you know, have you heard of this tequila heist with Guy Fury and Sammy Hagar's tequila brand?
• 15:01
  Speaker: They were like, no, tell me more about that.
• 15:03
  Speaker: And then that's, you know, that's the story that got picked up by 60 minutes.
• 15:05
  Speaker: So if it took a celebrity to get or two celebrities to, to get this issue kind of mainstream media, then you know that that's a great thing.
• 15:15
  Speaker: But there's a lot of other folks that are out there that are getting harmed by this.
• 15:16
  Speaker: And you know that you don't hear about the lobster heist involved.
• 15:22
  Speaker: One of our one of our members was involved with right before the Christmas holiday.
• 15:25
  Speaker: You know, that one also exploded on, on the scene.
• 15:28
  Speaker: And you know, I think that was just a commodity and timing thing.
• 15:35
  Speaker: We didn't, you know, expect that to, you know, kind of go viral on the on the, on the media the way it did, but certainly did.
• 15:41
  Speaker: And you know, we just want to get a new shot light on it.
• 15:43
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 15:43
  Speaker: And you, you mentioned something, Chris, that I think is important.
• 15:49
  Speaker: It's these these bad actors have gotten they've, they've always been smart, but they, they continue to get smarter.
• 15:56
  Speaker: And we all spend so much money on technology and processes and different things to make sure that we're protecting our, our customers valuable cargo.
• 16:03
  Speaker: And even at that, they're still finding ways to crack all of those.
• 16:10
  Speaker: So I'm sure in the technology space, it's just crazy right now because you know, it what we used to be good enough and confirm that you're, you're doing the right selection is now there's some gaps in it because they've gotten smarter and they can figure out how to play those systems as well.
• 16:25
  Speaker: So I think it's important that, you know, the good thing is, is your organization not only has the three PLS and the brokers, but you also have the technology providers a part of the organization as well where it can be of this collaboration to to all work together with as soon as those things are identified where gaps are, everybody's working for a solution to close those.
• 16:43
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's the topic they came up at the conference.
• 16:46
  Speaker: Obviously technology and the role that plays.
• 16:48
  Speaker: And also the flip side of the coin is that, you know, obviously they're using technology as well to, you know, impersonate people.
• 16:58
  Speaker: I mean, it's amazing what what, you know, AI can do in terms of, you know, video and and voice and it's it's crazy.
• 17:07
  Speaker: So yeah, it's a blessing and a curse a little bit in terms of technology multi side of things.
• 17:09
  Speaker: But yeah, we we absolutely have to lean into our technology providers to help us navigate the space and think about it.
• 17:15
  Speaker: And then and then the FMCSA is doing that as well.
• 17:18
  Speaker: You know, for an agency that really hasn't been the best, I would, I would probably give them a, you know, score of AD in terms of their technology adoption.
• 17:28
  Speaker: You know, was it many years ago?
• 17:31
  Speaker: We were kind of like, you know, why are you regurgitating all the MC numbers?
• 17:34
  Speaker: Like why are you going back to 1?
• 17:35
  Speaker: They're like, oh, our system can't add another digit.
• 17:37
  Speaker: And it's like, wow.
• 17:40
  Speaker: But but you know, again, to their credit, to this administration's credit, you know, they are embracing technology to combat this.
• 17:44
  Speaker: So that's a huge, it's a huge positive step.
• 17:47
  Speaker: It is.
• 17:52
  Speaker: So another piece that's related to this also that's gotten some news coverage lately was the chameleon carrier piece of things.
• 17:59
  Speaker: And that's been a topic that we've been hearing about a bit.
• 18:01
  Speaker: For those who don't know, explain explain what that particular issue is and and why that's troublesome.
• 18:08
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 18:11
  Speaker: Given the agency a lot of credit, I'll continue to do that.
• 18:12
  Speaker: But you know, I think I did a LinkedIn post recently about chameleon carriers.
• 18:18
  Speaker: I think I found comments that we wrote back from like 2009 kind of warning the industry or warning the agency about chameleon carriers.
• 18:24
  Speaker: So essentially it's, you know, a carrier for for reasons probably, you know, for safety violations or their profile may not be the cleanest would essentially kind of reincarnate or be or have a chameleon carrier identity where they just have a string of different authorities and they'll just continue to bounce from one to another.
• 18:44
  Speaker: As one gets bad, they'll bounce to another and they look like it's a clean record and look like they're safe.
• 18:48
  Speaker: And obviously we know the issues that exist out there with the data and 94% of carriers not having safety ratings, a massive problem.
• 18:57
  Speaker: But yeah, it's, it's becoming a huge problem.
• 18:59
  Speaker: And again, you know, kind of like it, it took, it took a celebrity to get the kind of the cargo theft on the map.
• 19:05
  Speaker: This one unfortunately took some really high profile accidents and some fatalities and some truck crashes to really bring this to the forefront, which is, you know, extremely devastating.
• 19:17
  Speaker: But it's an issue, you know, the agency is working on it, as Jesse Ellison mentioned at our conference is the deputy administrator for FMCSA when he spoke a couple weeks ago.
• 19:29
  Speaker: But you know, again, we kind of had the 4th we saw this many years ago.
• 19:32
  Speaker: But in true federal government fashion, it takes time to kind of resonate and, and they really need to see those those impacts to it and the impacts being felt now.
• 19:41
  Speaker: It's unfortunate.
• 19:44
  Speaker: And yeah, I've got a lot of friends that are from CSA and you know, they're, they're candid about it with us and they're candid about in their public speeches.
• 19:49
  Speaker: You know, their, their system has been broken.
• 19:53
  Speaker: They have databases that are antiquated, that don't work.
• 19:56
  Speaker: The registration system was obviously extremely outdated.
• 19:59
  Speaker: They've done a lot of things the last couple years to address that by bringing in IDEMIA, who does all the TSA security to make sure the folks that are coming in or actually who they say they are, they're not fraudulent, they're not criminals.
• 20:10
  Speaker: And you know they don't.
• 20:13
  Speaker: They don't.
• 20:13
  Speaker: Print the percentages of folks are turning away, but you know, my guess is it's probably 20 or 30% kind of looking at some of the things I've seen that's that's massive when you think about they're turning away 20 or 30% of folks that are looking to get authority as a carrier or or a broker or forward or whatever the case may be.
• 20:31
  Speaker: Keeping those folks out of the industry is extremely important.
• 20:36
  Speaker: So hot topic for sure.
• 20:36
  Speaker: Certainly pick up a lot of steam with it with that 60 minutes piece as well.
• 20:41
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 20:41
  Speaker: And, and, and what in terms of that, that 60 minutes piece that it was a little controversial in terms of of how it was covered.
• 20:48
  Speaker: And I know you you wrote some follow-ups to that too.
• 20:51
  Speaker: So, so tell us a little bit more about kind of where you come down on on the way it was covered and and maybe some whether people had maybe a misconception or two in there.
• 21:03
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:06
  Speaker: That was the CBS Sunday Morning piece that I wrote the the follow up on, but kind of this kind of the same.
• 21:12
  Speaker: And this, this one was a little, a little more of a, we'll call it a hit piece on, on a, on, on one of the larger brokers chapter Robinson.
• 21:18
  Speaker: But I think there's just, there's a massive misconception on, you know, the, the situation in terms of carrier selection.
• 21:25
  Speaker: Like I said, the system is massively broken. 94% of trucking companies are unrated.
• 21:34
  Speaker: The agency has a warning on their website that says do not draw conclusions from the data points that exist in here.
• 21:40
  Speaker: There's been multiple different studies that have come out from the University of Maryland, from the National Academy of Sciences who was tasked by Congress to look at the data that's going into the system.
• 21:49
  Speaker: They've all found there's really little to no correlation to crash risk.
• 21:55
  Speaker: But yeah, this is the data that, you know, for instance, that piece would would like our industry to dig into.
• 22:03
  Speaker: You know, we we're firm believers that the FMCSA is obviously the safety agency.
• 22:06
  Speaker: They are tasked with giving authority to the trucking companies and making sure that trucking companies and brokers that are safe and viable continue to operate in the marketplace.
• 22:18
  Speaker: Obviously there's a lot of technology out there that can help with that.
• 22:19
  Speaker: But if the data, data they're getting from the agency is, is flawed.
• 22:24
  Speaker: And again, there there's the warning label right on their their own website saying don't draw conclusions.
• 22:30
  Speaker: There's a lot of steps they can take. 1 is they've got, they've got to change the right way that trucking companies are given safety ratings.
• 22:36
  Speaker: We've got to move away from the physical audit system.
• 22:38
  Speaker: I think before the pandemic they said they were doing maybe 5000 audits a year, just 500,000 roughly for hire trucking companies.
• 22:48
  Speaker: They're never going to be able to touch that.
• 22:49
  Speaker: They just don't have the resources.
• 22:51
  Speaker: I think.
• 22:51
  Speaker: I think Administrator Barr said recently there's 300 or so enforcement agents for the FM CSAI mean that that's crazy.
• 22:57
  Speaker: They need three times that many people.
• 22:59
  Speaker: So you got to change it to data and not not talking about the in the CSASMS model, which is what I was talking about in terms of the flawed data, but the finding an algorithm, this ferret industry that can properly rate these carriers based on, you know, an absolute system versus a relative 1, which is what SMS is.
• 23:23
  Speaker: And, you know, again, the agency's doing a lot of good things in terms of getting some of these bad actors out of the space, enforcing the English language proficiency, going after some of these fraudulent folks by assessing penalties and enforcing the principal place of business requirement in a variety of different ways.
• 23:38
  Speaker: Again, it's going to take baby steps.
• 23:41
  Speaker: It's going to take time.
• 23:44
  Speaker: But we thought the piece was was a little bit unfair in terms of the way the brokerage industry works.
• 23:51
  Speaker: And, you know, the timing of it was certainly interesting with the Supreme Court looking at the Montgomery case as we currently speak, so.
• 23:56
  Speaker: Yeah, Speaking of that case too, I mean that's one that I know has been working its way through for for quite some time.
• 24:05
  Speaker: What are the implications of of whichever way the the ruling goes there for broker liability and and what are you watching from it?
• 24:19
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:19
  Speaker: I mean, the, the Montgomery case really kind of boils down to, you know, whether there's a law passed in 1994, it's called the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act or F4A, certainly a mouthful, but it prevents state negligence selection claims against freight brokers for a carrier that they have picked when they're involved in a truck crash.
• 24:42
  Speaker: You know, this particular case, I think dates back to 2017 where somebody was severely injured Montgomery and you know, should the Supreme Court is basically looking at should be broke.
• 24:53
  Speaker: Should brokers be held liable for negligence selection when it when a truck accident occurs?
• 25:00
  Speaker: I believe there's two district courts that have said yes.
• 25:03
  Speaker: There's other district courts that have said no.
• 25:05
  Speaker: So obviously when there's a difference of opinion at the District Court level, it gets bounced up to Supreme Court and ultimately the Supreme Court is hearing the OR heard the is hearing the argument or arguments were in March.
• 25:18
  Speaker: So we're kind of in a wait, you know, waiting period.
• 25:23
  Speaker: Our counsel and other lawyers in the space think maybe June or July, we could we could potentially give decision could be earlier than that.
• 25:28
  Speaker: But essentially, you know, I think there's there's also a misconception that if the kind of industry side or Ch Robinson side wins, you know, that's kind of blanket immunity for all brokers that are second carriers.
• 25:40
  Speaker: That's not true.
• 25:44
  Speaker: And then on the inverse, the opposite side is, you know, if the petitioner or the Montgomery side wins, then brokers would be held liable for every truck crash.
• 25:55
  Speaker: That's also not true.
• 25:55
  Speaker: It would essentially say under this F4A preemption provision from 1994 that talks about no state can, you know, promulgate A regulation for rates, routes and services.
• 26:08
  Speaker: That theory would therefore, you know, there would be, you know, a spotlight on that.
• 26:14
  Speaker: So that may may come that would certainly come into question from the largest court in the land saying that brokers can be held liable under this.
• 26:19
  Speaker: But but you know, there's other defenses that, you know, are the attorneys in the space can certainly use.
• 26:25
  Speaker: So there's a lot of narratives poking around on the Internet and obviously people have different motives and, and you know, it's really a motives of why they're posting that stuff, but it's not blanket immunity.
• 26:38
  Speaker: It's not the death sentence for the industry.
• 26:40
  Speaker: It's certainly something that we're paying very close attention to.
• 26:42
  Speaker: We, if we have for years worked on legislation to really kind of raise the bar in terms of the care selection process.
• 26:49
  Speaker: You know, as you know, currently, you don't, you don't have to check a single thing.
• 26:56
  Speaker: Obviously, you know, we, we are a strong proponent of checking to make sure they have authority, checking to make sure their insurance is valid and checking to make sure they have been placed at a service, which can be for a variety of reasons.
• 27:06
  Speaker: One of those is they were considered unsatisfactory.
• 27:11
  Speaker: One of them new one is, is they don't meet the English lane of proficiency that could place a carrier out of service or a driver at a service.
• 27:17
  Speaker: So there's a lot going on, a lot to unpack.
• 27:21
  Speaker: We're obviously paying very close attention to it either way.
• 27:26
  Speaker: And it's going to be, you know, a massive advocacy effort for us is we, you know, if we, if Robinson were to prevail, we'd obviously have to play a lot of defense because, you know, the plaintiffs bar, this has become a very, very lucrative for the plaintiffs bar just to be candid.
• 27:44
  Speaker: And, you know, if we and if we don't prevail, then obviously we'll continue to push for our legislation.
• 27:51
  Speaker: So a lot going on.
• 27:51
  Speaker: And I think I certainly check every week to see what decisions are going to come out.
• 27:58
  Speaker: And you know, we'll know soon, probably a month or two.
• 28:01
  Speaker: Well.
• 28:01
  Speaker: I think it kind of all ties together what we've been kind of rolling into throughout this discussion, because also the, the checking process becomes more simple.
• 28:13
  Speaker: If, if the FMCSA and others are, are doing a better job of getting better information.
• 28:23
  Speaker: So then it's easier for brokers to check and actually have confidence in, in some of the checks that they're making.
• 28:29
  Speaker: Whether you know, these things are, you know, this person's legitimate, this, this carrier's legitimate, they have this X safety record and, and, and we actually know it.
• 28:37
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 28:37
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 28:38
  Speaker: Well, one thing I recently called out on, on, on LinkedIn for was the FMCSA has, has for years kept what they call a high risk carrier list.
• 28:46
  Speaker: And it's, it's based on, it's based on some of the SMS. So the data is not 100%, but it's a much clearer picture of if you're above the threshold.
• 28:58
  Speaker: And I believe it's like 2 of the most prominent ones that have tied to crash risk or three of any of the basic categories you're considered high risk.
• 29:05
  Speaker: And at one point in time, you know, they, they told, they didn't share the list, but they told us there was like 3 to 400 carriers that were on this list in terms of consider high risk.
• 29:14
  Speaker: And they use this list to potentially go out and do hopefully go out and do audits and, and look at these companies and kind of really put them to the top of the list of folks that, hey, we need to go see these people.
• 29:24
  Speaker: I, we've been asking for years, why don't, why don't you publicize that list?
• 29:31
  Speaker: Here's 3 or 400 different carriers who I would, would probably imagine some of the folks that have been involved in some of these truck crashes were probably on that list.
• 29:39
  Speaker: Publish it and then industry will take the steps to make sure that, you know, these, these folks, the freight doesn't get loaded on these folks.
• 29:44
  Speaker: And if they do, if I'm a plaintiff's lawyer, that's probably the easiest case you're going to get is that if you use somebody who's considered high risk, that's pretty, pretty negligent.
• 29:57
  Speaker: So, you know, again, we just want, we want clarity.
• 30:00
  Speaker: It's the FM CSAS job to tell us who's safe to use and who's not.
• 30:04
  Speaker: You know, as it, we always kind of equate this to the FAA as much as we can, you know, the, the general public or let's say Kayak or Google Travel, like they're not going out and vetting the airlines.
• 30:13
  Speaker: The FAA does a good job of making sure the airlines stay safe.
• 30:17
  Speaker: We all hope.
• 30:17
  Speaker: And you know, we feel like the FMCA should do equally.
• 30:22
  Speaker: And again, their system is is antiquated and it needs to be updated.
• 30:29
  Speaker: So back-to-back to Phoenix and the conference.
• 30:31
  Speaker: Sunny Phoenix, yeah.
• 30:31
  Speaker: We kind of rolled through, you know, it kind of naturally flowed into some different topics there.
• 30:37
  Speaker: But you mentioned, we've talked about a couple of the big issues that that came up.
• 30:45
  Speaker: What, what else was there that that maybe struck you this time, that or or maybe something that you put on the program this time that you felt really resonated more than than other times?
• 30:56
  Speaker: Yeah, I'll steal something from our our current chairman, Lynn Gravely, when he just he just assumed the role of chairman at the conference.
• 31:01
  Speaker: You know, in his his speech, he talked about three things kind of what he saw as 33 threats and one really is an opportunity.
• 31:09
  Speaker: But obviously he's like, we have the threat of today of cargo theft and fraud.
• 31:16
  Speaker: We've talked about that the third of tomorrow is kind of what's going to happen with the liability and the care selection process and and what the Montgomery Supreme Court case looks like.
• 31:24
  Speaker: And then the he put it as a year, probably, probably a little sooner than that, maybe a year out is technology and how is the industry going to adapt to the ever changing technology?
• 31:39
  Speaker: And in AI landscape, you know, it's a, it's a massive spend.
• 31:46
  Speaker: Folks are really investing a ton of money.
• 31:49
  Speaker: This I said in my speech, I, I took it from a Wall Street Journal article that, you know, the big tech companies, Meta, Apple are spending so much money on AI, just the most, the most money spent compared to GDP since the Louisiana purchase.
• 32:05
  Speaker: It's just a massive amount of money being spent on technology.
• 32:09
  Speaker: And it's truly has changed the changed the way we're going to, we're going to continue to operate.
• 32:14
  Speaker: I don't think it's, you know, some people say it's kind of a death sentence to brokerage.
• 32:20
  Speaker: And, you know, everything's just going to be AI.
• 32:22
  Speaker: It's going to be automated.
• 32:22
  Speaker: You're not going to talk to anybody.
• 32:23
  Speaker: I was with Louis Pugh yesterday on a panel at another show, and we were kind of chatting about, you know, AI.
• 32:31
  Speaker: I was like, hey, what?
• 32:33
  Speaker: How does OIDA feel about AI?
• 32:33
  Speaker: And he's like, we don't really like it.
• 32:35
  Speaker: He's like, it just removes the whole relationship.
• 32:37
  Speaker: It's like, if something goes wrong, you're going to, you know who you're going to talk to If you call, call in, he's like, just think of it as your call and you know, Xfinity to, to get your, or any company to get something fixed for customer service.
• 32:50
  Speaker: Like we're all screaming the phone like representative, representative, just give me somebody to talk to.
• 32:54
  Speaker: Like I don't want to talk to this bot anymore.
• 32:57
  Speaker: So there's, I think there's always going to be that personal side of things, but I think there's an opportunity for a lot of these companies to really embrace the technology that's going on and, and, you know, optimize the way they're doing business.
• 33:06
  Speaker: And some of those companies that, you know, don't think or put the value or put the put the time into it, you know, could potentially be left behind.
• 33:15
  Speaker: That was kind of Lynn's message.
• 33:15
  Speaker: So, you know, I think I think those three, those three things really resonate in terms of our industry.
• 33:21
  Speaker: And certainly we're keeping a close eye and and as we drive value for our members in terms of education, we're going to continue to hold on on on those important aspects.
• 33:30
  Speaker: And there's obviously a ton of other great content that was there, but those are kind of the three things that, you know, kind of stood up for me.
• 33:42
  Speaker: Well, in terms of AI, you know, there's obviously that that kind of natural pushback that I think a lot of people have, but are there some examples already of of folks membership really using it to to their advantage in terms of streamlining some operations behind the scenes that sort?
• 33:58
  Speaker: Of thing.
• 33:58
  Speaker: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 34:01
  Speaker: I think, I think it was at the, I think it was Ben Gordon show chapter, Robinson, Dave, Dave Bozeman, their, their CEO put a slide up about how they're using AI to optimize, you know, booking freight.
• 34:15
  Speaker: And it's, it has drastically reduced the amount of time it takes to do task.
• 34:21
  Speaker: And they obviously cut their work, they cut their workforce quite a bit as well.
• 34:23
  Speaker: And they haven't seen any decreases in terms of productivity.
• 34:29
  Speaker: So I mean, that's that's across the board a lot of different places, you know, in terms of kind of that back office type things.
• 34:35
  Speaker: And there's some things that TI there, you know, we're looking at.
• 34:39
  Speaker: I'm not an AI expert by any means.
• 34:42
  Speaker: I hadn't heard of Chad TBT until a couple years ago.
• 34:45
  Speaker: But you know, things that we're looking at implementing with our with our organization to help, to help our membership too from an association perspective.
• 34:51
  Speaker: So yeah, absolutely.
• 34:54
  Speaker: I did hear somebody at the conference say that this is like the next blockchain, that it's just going to go away in a couple years.
• 34:58
  Speaker: I don't know if that's true or not, but I don't know, Seems like it's here to stay.
• 35:03
  Speaker: I could be wrong.
• 35:03
  Speaker: Again, I'm not a huge technology person myself, but my kids who are, you know, 12-10 and six are way better than I am already.
• 35:10
  Speaker: But yeah, I don't know if it's the next blockchain or not.
• 35:14
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 35:17
  Speaker: I think it's here to stay.
• 35:17
  Speaker: I think the the challenge is like all technology is you know it.
• 35:22
  Speaker: What version and what what, what do you adopt?
• 35:24
  Speaker: And once you've adopted, are you out of, you know, or is that old news?
• 35:26
  Speaker: And now it's this.
• 35:29
  Speaker: And I think, I think that's what I see the largest challenge with is, you know, there's definitely a place for it.
• 35:35
  Speaker: There's there's a place to, to get some efficiencies and effectiveness.
• 35:37
  Speaker: It's, it's, it's how do you select it?
• 35:39
  Speaker: And when you do select and go with a certain path, is that old news?
• 35:45
  Speaker: And by tomorrow and and you got to look at something else because it's just ever changing.
• 35:47
  Speaker: I mean it literally is ever changing.
• 35:49
  Speaker: Right.
• 35:52
  Speaker: Yeah, the the first, the first time I heard a Chad TBTI was I was actually doing a congressional event with a member from New York.
• 35:58
  Speaker: And I sat down and then their staffer was there and they said, you know, hey, we we we pulled your bio off.
• 36:03
  Speaker: A Chad TBTI was like, I have no idea what the hell that is.
• 36:06
  Speaker: And and they were like, it kind of came back a little weird.
• 36:10
  Speaker: And they were like, were you in the movie Sideways?
• 36:12
  Speaker: And I was like, no, So they had me like as a movie star and then doing something else.
• 36:17
  Speaker: And I was like, that's not me.
• 36:17
  Speaker: So I, I haven't, I, I've embraced it for a few things I do, but yeah, you can't 100% trust it so.
• 36:26
  Speaker: That's.
• 36:28
  Speaker: Funny.
• 36:28
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 36:30
  Speaker: I'm trying to think if if there is an actor that like had a name similar.
• 36:33
  Speaker: I don't know.
• 36:33
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 36:33
  Speaker: I I looked it up there, there an Internet Movie Database.
• 36:36
  Speaker: There wasn't there wasn't Chris Burroughs that was in Sideways.
• 36:39
  Speaker: So good, good movie, but no, it wasn't me.
• 36:41
  Speaker: The ChatGPT response was a little sideways.
• 36:47
  Speaker: A little sideways.
• 36:54
  Speaker: So, so back to the the intermodal piece, because that was, you know, that was something you're involved with Shelly, how was, how was the discussion there?
• 37:02
  Speaker: You mentioned it was there.
• 37:02
  Speaker: It seemed like there were a little bit more, there was a little more diverse interest in it.
• 37:07
  Speaker: Maybe this time then that's other times.
• 37:09
  Speaker: Yeah, I think, well, we've done really hard to to get more engagement and get people in there and get people listening about intermodal.
• 37:17
  Speaker: So I think I think that helps a lot.
• 37:20
  Speaker: And we call us intermodal folk, the fun, the fun crowd.
• 37:23
  Speaker: So, you know, we're a little bit biased in in that we like to have a lot of fun in our panels and sessions.
• 37:29
  Speaker: So hopefully that that plays out.
• 37:31
  Speaker: But really what I noticed was more the interaction, right?
• 37:34
  Speaker: I mean, you can, you can have a panel and you can, you can have amazing speakers and they can all sit up there.
• 37:40
  Speaker: And it really what makes a panel effective in my opinion, is the interaction with, with the audience and what kind of questions you get.
• 37:46
  Speaker: What are the content of the questions?
• 37:47
  Speaker: How many questions do you get?
• 37:50
  Speaker: And we just, you know, I think it at least this year, we, we had so much engagement from the people that were in there.
• 37:55
  Speaker: And the engagement wasn't from just our own little groupies, us little intermodal groupies.
• 37:59
  Speaker: It was engagement from people that haven't been using intermodal, are interested in using intermodal and wanted to learn more about it, which is really why you're there.
• 38:06
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 38:13
  Speaker: So, so as we look ahead now the that the capital ideas 2026 is behind you, what's what's coming up next for, for Tia?
• 38:21
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 38:21
  Speaker: So our, our policy forum, which is kind of our, our, our fly in, in Washington, DC where we bring, you know, 100 plus TI members to the nation's capital here and, and participate kind of in the advocacy process is coming up in September.
• 38:35
  Speaker: We have our technology conference in October.
• 38:39
  Speaker: So we're excited about both of those.
• 38:41
  Speaker: We're already starting, believe it or not, we're already starting to plan for 2027 capital ideas conference.
• 38:48
  Speaker: We'll be in sunny Orlando, FL.
• 38:53
  Speaker: So we're very excited about that.
• 38:56
  Speaker: We have a new schedule, which I know has been a big topic certainly at this conference.
• 39:00
  Speaker: But yeah, that the schedule next year is much better for the conference where you're not going to miss, you're not going to miss the weekend, which has been challenging.
• 39:08
  Speaker: But we signed these contracts years in advance.
• 39:10
  Speaker: I I haven't actually signed a contract yet for, yet for a conference.
• 39:17
  Speaker: That's how far ago 2 CEO's and then and then and inside the next three that we have.
• 39:20
  Speaker: Yeah, we're excited about it.
• 39:23
  Speaker: We got we got a lot coming up and we're going to continue to kind of innovate what we're doing here at TI to help our members.
• 39:28
  Speaker: You're not picking the cold climates in March, huh?
• 39:32
  Speaker: That golf's a huge part of it.
• 39:34
  Speaker: So we got to pick.
• 39:34
  Speaker: We got to play golf, yeah.
• 39:38
  Speaker: Please stick with the warm climate.
• 39:41
  Speaker: Speaking of the intermodal panel, you know, Jeff Brashears is obviously a big part of that and he's reported he's already booked his Disney hotel for the company.
• 39:49
  Speaker: He is so excited.
• 39:49
  Speaker: It's it's in Orlando.
• 39:51
  Speaker: Yes, Disney is right, right, right there for him.
• 39:53
  Speaker: So we've already, we've already established the dinner too.
• 39:56
  Speaker: Awesome.
• 39:56
  Speaker: I'm a big we're a big Disney family too, so I'm I'm all about it.
• 40:01
  Speaker: My kids look too so.
• 40:01
  Speaker: Good, good.
• 40:04
  Speaker: Good.
• 40:04
  Speaker: So so you mentioned the hotline.
• 40:07
  Speaker: Tell, tell folks a little bit more about, you know, reporting on the hotline and and how they can learn more about Tia.
• 40:13
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:13
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 40:15
  Speaker: So you know, our hotline, just reach out to reach out to myself or any member of the TI team, We'll get you plugged in.
• 40:22
  Speaker: Wendy Emerson is our staff person who's kind of spearheading that.
• 40:23
  Speaker: So if you're, if you're dealing with a fraudulent case, obviously time is of the essence.
• 40:29
  Speaker: You know, I think they said within 2448 hours of, of a load getting stolen, you know, or, or your identity stolen, you know, things really go South from there.
• 40:39
  Speaker: So reach out as quickly as possible.
• 40:42
  Speaker: We are constantly sending emails to to our contacts at the FBI have been a huge resource for us, you know, so kudos to them for really stepping up and addressing this industry problem.
• 40:56
  Speaker: And you know, obviously our website, tinet.org, you can learn more about advocacy or education and what we're doing.
• 41:03
  Speaker: So Yep.
• 41:03
  Speaker: Chris, thanks very much for joining us again.
• 41:07
  Speaker: Appreciate it.
• 41:09
  Speaker: Yep, thank you both, always a pleasure.
• 41:14
  Speaker: We've had, we've had a, a few cargo theft conversations over the last several months.
• 41:16
  Speaker: I mean, it's, it's kind of hot topic number one.
• 41:20
  Speaker: Yes, it is.
• 41:22
  Speaker: And fraud.
• 41:22
  Speaker: I mean, it's interesting from from his perspective too, because, and I think as, as we've looked back over time and one thing that I brought up with him was that it does feel like there's actually some momentum.
• 41:37
  Speaker: I don't want to use the same word over and over again, but but it seems like there's momentum in a lot of different circles now to combat this a little bit more than even just last year, it seemed like there was a lot of this is a big issue.
• 41:51
  Speaker: Please somebody pay attention to us.
• 41:53
  Speaker: Well, I, I think, I mean it's obviously when we talk about market conditions that are affecting capacity and affecting kind of that those peaks and valleys in, in roller coaster of what we all live.
• 42:07
  Speaker: One of those things is the efforts that are being taking are, are creating market conditions in our industry.
• 42:13
  Speaker: So it's by far definitely something that's being noticed in in, in taking action and it's good that action is getting taken.
• 42:18
  Speaker: I think, I think to feel that and to really see it is we're we're seeing it create some, some additional market conditions that we're all having to work through.
• 42:26
  Speaker: Yeah, And I mean, the, the losses are getting bigger, the, the, the targets are getting broader.
• 42:36
  Speaker: I mean, we talked about the tequila, we talked about he mentioned lobster.
• 42:43
  Speaker: That was another big story Kit Kats.
• 42:45
  Speaker: But but there's also the the stuff that's always been targeted, the electronics, the anything that's expensive and sometimes that fluctuates based on inflation and scarcity and all that.
• 42:54
  Speaker: So, so really nobody is immune.
• 42:58
  Speaker: I mean, when, when you were last on, we talked about agriculture culture too.
• 43:00
  Speaker: I mean, everything is, is out there.
• 43:02
  Speaker: That's that's dealing with the implications of this, whether the the load is actually the target or whether they just happen to be caught in the crosshair.
• 43:10
  Speaker: Yeah, it's funny you brought that up because I was just about ready to say it.
• 43:14
  Speaker: I mean, something that's not even valuable, it could be completely ruined just because somebody thought there was going to be something in there, opened it up.
• 43:21
  Speaker: And now if it's, you know, a consumable or has anything to do with food, it just the fact that it got opened up and tampered with it it it's it's a problem, right?
• 43:30
  Speaker: So I mean that's a very important, it's not just the high value commodities that are at risk here.
• 43:34
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 43:34
  Speaker: So with capital ideas, another good conference it sounds like very good conference.
• 43:42
  Speaker: And yeah, always great to talk to Chris and hear what Tia is up to.
• 43:45
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 43:49
  Speaker: And so again, we do thank Chris Burroughs for joining us on this edition of the Intermodal Logistics Podcast.
• 43:55
  Speaker: And we thank you for joining us as well.
• 43:58
  Speaker: Please do subscribe, follow rate review, comment, and you can also drop us a line via e-mail if you'd like at podcast at intechlogistics.com.
• 44:07
  Speaker: You can visit our website, www.intechlogistics.com for more about InTek Logistics, the company and for Shelley Austin.
• 44:17
  Speaker: I'm Kevin Baxter.
• 44:19
  Speaker: Thanks again.
• 44:19
  Speaker: And we'll be back soon with another episode.