This Week in Logistics News (August 20-24, 2018)

By Adrian Gonzalez

As you read this, my wife and I will be on the road, driving our oldest daughter H to begin her freshman year in college. Per the advice of friends, I put two boxes of tissues in the car. I joke that they’re for my wife and daughter, but you never know, I might need a tissue or two on the drive back home.

I still remember the first time we drove with our daughter in the car. We drove her home from the hospital, and she was in the backseat of our white Honda Civic, wearing a hooded outfit, buckled tight in the infant car seat with my wife seated next to her: she looking at H and I looking at them through the rearview mirror. It was a short drive home, but none of us really knew where we were heading.

18 years and 3 more kids later, the road ahead is still unknown, and when we look in the rearview mirror, we can’t help but doubt ourselves sometimes: did we make a wrong turn somewhere?

I remember when my parents dropped me off at Cornell my freshman year. We unpacked my stuff at the dorm, had a quick lunch, and by 2:00 pm they were gone. I remember walking on campus by myself for a couple of hours, a city kid from Brooklyn, NY trying to figure out where everything was in this strange new place. When dinner time rolled around, I couldn’t find the dining hall, and being too embarrassed to ask someone and admit that I was lost, I went hungry that first night.

That was 30 years ago, and although I was lost and hungry that night, here I am.

If we did make a wrong turn somewhere as parents, my daughter found her way nonetheless, and as we look at her through the rearview mirror on our drive up this morning — this beautiful, smiling young woman — we realize how blessed we are as parents and how ready she is to leave her mark on this world.

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As I’m on the road, here’s the supply chain and logistics news that caught my attention this week, without commentary: