Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Vet Voices, a podcast produced by Warner Enterprises, where average is for other people.
Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard. Let your voice be heard on Warner's veteran podcast.
Now buckle up and get ready for the host of Vet Voices, Greg, Johnny, and Adam.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: All right, in the studio with us today, we have Mike Poole, director of Cybersecurity and Air Force veteran, and Andrew Taylor, director of Intermodal and Army veteran. All right, gentlemen, let's just start off. Do you guys want to quickly introduce yourselves? How long you've been at the company and then what you did in your respective military careers?
[00:00:49] Speaker C: Sure, I guess I can go first.
So, been a Warner for four months now. I was in the army for five years as a 19 Delta cavalry scout. MaC duty, I was in the 101st and first armored in El Paso.
One deployment to Afghanistan, and, yeah, now.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: I'm aware where at in Afghanistan, so.
[00:01:15] Speaker C: I was right south of the KG Pass.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Okay. It's the northeast fun times. How long were you there?
[00:01:21] Speaker C: Nine months.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: That's an army thing. Yeah. I was five ish months in Kandahar on my most recent one, Mike.
[00:01:33] Speaker D: Okay. Yeah. I'Mike Poole. I'm the cybersecurity director here at Warner. I was in the Air Force for a total of 22 years. Four years. Enlisted way back in 94 through 98, got out, worked for Mitel Networks for a while, and then my wife and I both went back in. I commissioned as a communications officer, later changed into a cyber operations officer. It's kind of an overnight flip, but nevertheless, we really did start moving towards that cybersecurity posture versus communications officer. Absolutely enjoyed my time in the Air Force. I did deploy a couple times Air Force style, although one of those was to Afghanistan, to Bagram. That was a seven monther.
That's about as harsh as one could be for the Air Force right now. The other one was in United Arab Emirates. That was for a year long.
That was a really cool assignment in the sense that we got to see local culture and see what they consider Westernized, a little bit different than what we consider westernized, but nevertheless, great experiences throughout my Air Force career. Absolutely loved it. And now, obviously, work at Warner. Started here back in June and loving my time.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: What did you do on the enlisted side?
[00:02:50] Speaker D: I was a maintainer.
[00:02:53] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:02:54] Speaker D: It was F 16s, but the first stint at Shaw was with a ten S. Okay. And so pay penny pod. It's on the front of the A ten to the target.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:03:03] Speaker D: Yeah. That was our baby. We brought it back. I did a lot of gimbal adjustments, polishing that dome to make sure laser signal get through. That's probably one of the coolest aircraft in the entire Air Force arsenal, built around a 30 millimeter Gatling gun for close air support. I'm not sure that there's anything better besides maybe the C 130 gunship.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, a ten is hard to beat just because it's custom built, right? The gunship for the 130 was an afterthought of, oh, hey, look, this is a cool thing we can do. I was a maintenance guy on the A ten as well, for four years down at Whiteman. That's a mission that is truly unique. Those are some serious birds that do some cool things. And then 16 experience.
I was on a trip with the A ten, and there was a knucklehead airman that drove a 16 into a hanger door. They didn't bother to put the hanger door all the way up, and it took all the sheet metal off of the tail, which was an awesome repair because we were not where we were based at. So I think that jet sat there for six months while they worked on getting that tail put back together. Fun times.
[00:04:04] Speaker D: Yep, indeed.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Andrew, you want to talk about your path a little bit to.
[00:04:10] Speaker C: Sure. So I did the army for five years. Enlisted. I'd gone to college before that. Really didn't know what I wanted to do. My life just kind of bounced around, kind of found the family and the discipline in the Army. Got out, went back to school, kind of whipped myself into shape, and graduated within nine months this semester and a half. So from there, just kind of fell into logistics. I did a supply chain, management sounded cool at the time, I heard. Made a lot of money, just kind of fell into it. Did the shipper side first, then got the trucking side. And this opportunity came along for Werner. And all I kept hearing about was the family, how long people have been here. Everyone I interviewed had been here 1520 years. And that's just kind of the environment I want to be in.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: We just had a celebration. Speaking of that point exactly, we just had a celebration for an associate that's on our team who's been here 25 years, and you walk into that room wanting to congratulate them for doing something that nobody else has done, and there was a guy that's been there for 36 years and another person that's been there for 37 years. It's like, okay, so this is not normal anywhere else in the world but here at Werner.
I don't want to say it's common, but it's commonplace for that to happen, which is pretty cool.
[00:05:24] Speaker E: Yeah, it's all over this building. It is longevity of career. As long as you demonstrate excellence and bring 100% of yourself every single day to work. This place is.
You can be here a lifetime.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Mike, what about you? How'd you land here?
[00:05:41] Speaker D: Yeah, I love it. It's challenging here. It's fast paced. That's what we're used to in the military. Always moving. Just keep going. Keep solving problems in high pressure situations. It's just fun.
Exhilarating.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Fun is certainly one word on certain days for it.
[00:06:01] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: So, director of Cybersecurity, you're the one that sends us all phishing, right?
[00:06:09] Speaker D: Yeah, actually, a guy on my team, Ted, he's our before contact. No, before. It's a fantastic organization, how they approach these things. They're doing things that I wish we could have done in the Air Force that we're always told, no, you can't do that because you might impact a mission, I'm thinking. But that is the best way to test send this stuff out. And people will click on it, and then they'll discover, oh, shouldn't have done that. And then pretty soon, they start learning it, because I'll have that impulse of, ooh, I don't know if I want to touch that. That's exactly what we're looking know we love.
[00:06:39] Speaker E: Totally. Totally. Got me. I will admit that I fell victim. So right after we rolled into workday, we just moved into workday, into AP, and I got a simulated fish attack around some type of invoice, some type of something. And I was totally. I mean, after I went back and reviewed it, like, seven times, I thought to myself, well, that was dumb. But in the heat of the moment, with all the crap going on with the changeover and all the stuff we were getting about moving AP stuff into workday, it totally got me, and I clicked on it, and then I got the mandatory two class punishment.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: So my entire team got an email from me offering to sell them Taylor Swift tickets for 500 for $500 from my personal Venmo account. It was fairly epic. And the moment it went out, I had two or three of them immediately text me. And then, yeah, it's just excellent work, I guess, is my point there. Yeah. So funny, funny, funny, funny, indeed.
[00:07:52] Speaker E: Guys, just a quick question here. What does it mean to be part of this organization? This organization likes to think of? We call ourselves military ready. So how does this military ready, how does that work out with your recruitment process coming to Werner? How does it work out with the onboarding and the employee support that you've felt thus far?
[00:08:15] Speaker C: I think the biggest thing for me is when I was interviewing, when I first got out, I was in combat arms. There's no job other than being a cop or, like, a SWAT officer that says what you did there, you can do here. You've got to kind of tailor that into the civilian world, and some employers are scared to hire you.
Just that big stigma overall.
So at Warner, I mean, there's such a large population here, so many groups, so many events. It just feels like a welcoming place, and it's nice to know that we're one of the largest in the country.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: Heck, yeah.
[00:08:49] Speaker E: Have you joined we vets yet?
[00:08:51] Speaker C: I have.
[00:08:52] Speaker E: All right, excellent.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: I think he was our first highlight. I had no idea he was a veteran until angel put that stuff Together. I think he was the first workplace highlight that we started doing six weeks ago or whatever that was.
First victim. Absolutely.
[00:09:10] Speaker D: I have to say, the military aspect of it, similar to yours, even though I'm in cybersecurity, and you would think that'd be very translatable into anything else.
It's not in the sense that we're used to calling certain things this way. We don't really hang our hat on. This is our ability to do this. A lot of times, we don't approach it the same way. And so trying to write a resume that says, hey, I can do these things based on this experience, it didn't necessarily come across, and that's really why I needed that networking piece. Say somebody else, hey, he knows what he's doing, and this is exactly what he's been doing the whole time. It just didn't come across that way in the resume. No matter how hard I tried to do that, that was tough. And once I got in the door here. Okay. Yeah, we can see that.
[00:09:50] Speaker E: Yeah, totally. Did you guys both go through the tap classes or equivalency thereof in Air Force when you were transitioning out? Did you go through that same process?
[00:10:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I got in 15. I think there was a week or two week process that kind of helped you, the resume, kind of talk about what you're going to do next.
[00:10:12] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:10:12] Speaker E: Did you have any exposure to Warner during that period? You did?
[00:10:16] Speaker D: I did, yeah.
[00:10:16] Speaker E: Can you talk a little bit about that? That's something that we are really kind know we pride ourselves on doing what we do today. I would like to see that get a little bit better as we continue to market towards veterans to come into this.
[00:10:28] Speaker D: Yeah, sure. So, yeah, the transition assistance program, it's now mandatory. Two years out from when you're potentially going to separate into retire. You have to say, yes, I'm either going to do it or no, I'm not ready to yet. And then they delay you until you get there. But bottom line, there's a whole lot of work to do in the meantime. Now, there's a way to get through some of those steps quick by saying, hey, I already have this. I already of thaT. I'm prepared for this. But it's that last chunk, and that's where the Werner rep came out, along with three other business folks. Come out to the base and say, hey, this is what we have out here in the market. Have you ever considered this kind of thing? And honestly, I remember thinking at the know, when I was a kid, I really wanted to drive a truck. I'm just not sure that that's in the cards anymore. For me, that was my first today.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: We can still do that.
[00:11:13] Speaker D: And I just told my wife this weekend, I said, I said, they'll give me a CDO license. I can go to class and learn how to drive a truck. She said, why? I said, look at all these grain trucks out in the country here. When I retire the third time, I said, I can go drive a grain truck in the summer or the fall. Whenever. I said, that'd be kind of cool. And then I get to live that dream, too. But, yeah, that was my first introduction. I wish I could remember the gentleman's name. I actually saw him in the cafeteria or the dining facility here. Whatever we want to call it, the cafe. Here we go. See the military thing. Dining facility. Anyway, I went up and talked to him. I said, hey, I remember seeing you at the tap class, and I remember talking to you initially. I said, hey, I'd love to get involved with that, and then go out and talk to some of these Air Force folks who haven't really considered that Werner is more than a trucking company. There's a whole lot of stuff outside of just driving the truck. Granted, that's a center point, but, man, in order to do that, you got to do a lot of other stuff. It's kind of like how the Air Force has to support everything the army does, right? Close air support.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:10] Speaker E: You got to take us everywhere.
[00:12:11] Speaker D: I know.
[00:12:13] Speaker E: Thank you so much.
[00:12:14] Speaker D: Here's your box meal.
[00:12:16] Speaker E: Thank you for kicking me out of the airplane mid flight. I really appreciate it.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: For the record, dining facility is a place where we get to go eat dinner and breakfast and lunch I don't know what you guys got when you were in.
[00:12:28] Speaker D: Know, I will say that little segue on that one. When I was in Aldafra, the best place to eat lunch was called Wendy's. And at the time when my sponsor said, hey, we got this, Wendy's, I thought he said Wendy's. And I'm thinking, gosh, we got a Wendy's on base. It was a Wendy's, and it was an army defect. And they had the very best lunches anywhere.
They still cooked all their food while the Air Force, we contracted it out, and it was just not as good.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: I second that. My favorite chow I've had was my Iraq trip was a Army flight kitchen. They had a whole bunch of special regs because it was a flight kitchen supporting helicopter pilots. So they got to do things that other dining facilities didn't get to do. So they had awesome chow. Twenty four seven. And we went and ate there because we were on the airfield. So I don't want to give the army any credit where it's not due. However, I will agree with that one sentiment.
So we sort of covered on some of this, Mike, as you were talking. But cybersecurity is a critical field in the military, and here at Warner, right. I don't think people realize how much, if you are connected to the Internet at all, how much we are under attack from any number of players. How have you leveraged your Air Force skills and training here at the company? You want to talk to us a little bit about both of those things, of how real the threat is. But then also, how did the military prepare you for this step?
[00:13:59] Speaker E: Definitely as much as you can share, tell the listeners, help them understand how often and how much we are under attack.
[00:14:07] Speaker D: Yeah, it's incredible. So take Warner. We're in the top five in the industry for trucking. That means we're a huge target for adversaries to look at. How can we impact the United States? And so if they take out any part of our logistics, they know it's not necessarily a crippling move right off the bat, but it's going to hurt. All you have to do is look at the pipeline hack that happened, what, two years ago ish. It shut down gasoline for the whole East Coast. That was a major impact. Our adversaries were looking at that. Now, granted, a lot of the actions that took place there weren't necessarily directly tributed to the hack, but it was a response to the hack. And so that's important to the element of the hack, but also our response to it and how we decide to take on the next challenge. Right? So that is something the adversaries looked at. You look at the Ukraine conflict, one of the things they targeted was logistics. If they can't move stuff into the country to help defend them, we know that we can stop some of this, right? And so the Russians were constantly going for after that. And so logistics is the heart blood, so to speak, or the vein artery system of the United States. And if you can stop something from happening, you affect the economy, which then ripple affects everything else. It's incredible. And so I don't have numbers of how many times people try to infiltrate, but I guarantee you it's a lot. And our defenses in place to try and stop that and mitigate it. You mentioned phishing earlier.
That's one of the avenues. Humans are the weakest link in any kind of cybersecurity architecture.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: Thanks, Craig.
[00:15:45] Speaker D: Humans, because we can't.
[00:15:47] Speaker E: How are you looking at me?
[00:15:49] Speaker D: Social engineering is a real thing, and they understand this is something that I can.
[00:15:53] Speaker E: Remedial training.
[00:15:54] Speaker D: This is something I can introduce to somebody, and they're going to be tempted to click on it because either it's natural or B, they have such a strong interest in it. Curiosity. Curiosity kills a cat. Does humans, too, right? You click it, you can't help it. It's one of those things. And so our adversaries are constantly looking for ways to get us to let them in. If they can't get in through our defenses, they look to us, say, hey, that's my avenue in, right? That's how serious it is. They're attacking the people part of that one because they know that's the weakest link. And so when I transition at the conversation here to how military perhaps prepared us for that, right, it doesn't really matter what aspect of the military we're always defending.
That's our Problem solving mantra, right? We got to defend, we got to figure out how to stop this from happening, right? And so through the cyber part of my Air Force career, we were initially worried about availability keeping this system online. 99.9959s. That was one of the things we always look for in a vendor. And then it transitioned because, okay, it's not just about the availability. We don't know if the adversary is inside of here. Well, we better start assuming the adversary is inside of here. And what do we really need to protect? It's the data. And then that moved into these mission defense teams concept in the Air Force that the army didn't like at first, but I think they're on board now. And so these mission defense teams were solely focused on keeping mission systems protected. An individual server with all that data, data at rest, data in transit, all that because we just assumed the adversaries in our networks, regardless of what security level that network is, it's better just assume they're in there and protect the data. And so that was the problem that they posed to the cyber community. How do you protect this? And the mission defense teams was how they did that. Well, then that's a great idea and concept, but how do you actually make that happen? And so my last assignment before I got here to strat common in Omaha was as a squadron commander out at Mountain Home Air Force Base. And on my change of command Day, the commander in the car on the way over to the officer's club, he said, what do you think about mission defense teams? And I just come out of San Antonio, where that's kind of like the center pulse area for cyber. Right? And that's all we heard about, was mission defense teams. I think I told him, I said, I drank the Kool Aid. I said, I'm ready. I said, let's put a mission defense team together. He said, that's what I want to hear. And so that was the initiative. We saw this problem. Let's get this team together. And so then you find the brightest airmen and say, are you interested in doing something like this? We'll send you to a bunch of training schools, whatever it happens to be. And we made mission defense warrior, so to speak. They had the skill set like you wouldn't believe. They could hack just as easily as they could defend. And that was the key. You had to find the people that wanted to hack for a hobby, and then they come in, they know how to defend now. And so we're presented with these problems. We like this problem solve. But more importantly, you got to learn how to lead people and encourage people, inspire people, go do this, because it's a different way to think about things. And there were a lot of folks were concerned that, wait a minute, my job doesn't align with cybersecurity. What is my job going to look like? Well, maybe your job doesn't align with it based on how you perceive your job. I said, but we can massage the job, and I can refocus you so that it looks like this. Right? And so then you learn how to lead people. I think that's probably one of the biggest things for the military. It's not necessarily teaching how to lead people. But it certainly gives you a lab in which you can practice leadership skills and learn your lessons, because you're always going to be learning how to lead. Just that never stops, right?
[00:19:22] Speaker B: Never stops. And it never gets easier, either. As soon as you figure one thing out, it's the next thing that pops up. So do you find that our focus here at Warner is equivalent to focus on cybersecurity? Obviously, completely different context. Right. National security versus for profit organization.
Same level focus, more focus, less focus. Thoughts on that?
[00:19:46] Speaker D: I think same level of focus in a lot of cases, though, more capability.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:19:51] Speaker D: So some of the folks I've got on my team, the skill set that they bring, it's quite impressive, and they're dedicated to doing that, and they've been doing it for a long time. We didn't necessarily have some of those exquisite skill sets in the Air Force. We had to kind of build that, because you think about it, a lot of the airmen Come in right out of high school, and so they do get some technology training in the Air Force, but their focused ability to operate certain tools, that takes a long time to develop. And so you're looking at NCO, senior NCO, before you get to that skill set. And a lot of times, unfortunately, Air Force, as soon as you get certified, boom, you're gone. You're a contractor, and you work for a company like know, because that's where the money know outside, but you still get to apply that same skill set. So that's what I find here, is a skill set that's on the team. Wow, these guys are so good at what they.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: That's awesome. Awesome.
All right, Andrew, let's shift over to you a little bit. So, Director and Intermodal, you want to talk about how your experience in the army really helps make you successful with intermodal here. I mean, intermodal is certainly a must in transportation these days. Right? Almost everything touches a truck at some point, but almost, well, a heck of a lot touches rail as well. There's just so many different ways of getting things to different places.
You want to talk about army experience and how that ties well with what you do today?
[00:21:20] Speaker C: Sure. So what I love most about my job is it's something new every day. We're always building new solution for the customer. We've always got a new issue. SoCal, today there's a hurricane. How do we react? Where are our drivers when the next driver is going to be there? How do we communicate to our customer? Everything stacks on top of each other, and the biggest thing I took from the military was, no, is not an option. There's no mission where you go out and you're like, no, this isn't going to work. Let's just turn around.
[00:21:47] Speaker E: I'm not doing that today.
[00:21:49] Speaker C: Right. So you've got to figure out, how do you stack your assets? Are you calling in the Air Force? And one mission, we had a ten S stacked on F 16s. We had drone up there, too.
[00:21:59] Speaker B: So you needed the Air Force's help again one time.
[00:22:03] Speaker E: We all need their help one time.
[00:22:06] Speaker C: But how do you align all that to make sure that you'rE successful in the mission? Here's the customer.
Everyone gets through alive. It's the same kind of intensity, but it has to be there, otherwise we're not going to stay in business.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: Good stuff.
[00:22:20] Speaker E: Yeah, good stuff, guys.
The popular thinking is that veterans bring unique skills and experiences individually. What do you think are some of the unique skills and experiences that you're bringing? You're both very new here to Werner, and we're very appreciative that you're know, talk to us a little bit about what those unique skills are. Know what ultimately, you maybe like to accomplish here at Warner.
[00:22:47] Speaker D: I'll start on that one. Strategic thinking. That's probably the number one thing the military will allow you to grow in, force you to grow in, because you have to start thinking bigger than what your little pipe piece of the pie is. You got to think how that interacts with everything else you're doing. So the tactical, strategic level operations, obviously in between, and we always do that, but it's those that can actually strategically plan. Those are the ones that can make a difference in how the company rolls. So I'd say that's the biggest benefit coming out of the military, is strategic thinking, critical thought, that kind of stuff.
[00:23:20] Speaker E: Excellent.
[00:23:21] Speaker C: I say it's definitely stress management, right? You make a plan, throw away the plan. It's thinking on your feet. Always been in a stressful environment. How do you pivot that into a win?
[00:23:30] Speaker E: Every chance you get, land goes out the door. The first shot fired combat arms guy, every time.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: All right, you're both new here. Like Greg mentioned, what has stood out about our military efforts since you've been here, right? You've had a couple, Andrew, you've had a couple years. Mike, you've had a couple months since you exited the service.
What stands out about what we do with the military or with our veterans that make us unique in this space? In your opinions?
[00:24:05] Speaker D: We just had a barbecue not too long ago for the we veterans group. Right. And it was so fun to get around the table with different generations of military and talk stories, and that only been about a month and a half after I'd left, but I was surprised by how much I had missed sharing that common ground with somebody. And it's that family organization that, hey, we're all part of a bigger group here, but we have that family feel. And then there's military members who we can share a camaraderie poke at the other forces.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: I mean, you're talking about even just at this table today.
I've met you, Mike, once or twice. Andrew, I met you 15 minutes ago before we started recording this podcast, and we've been poking fun each other the entire time. And that sense of community, I think, is important.
[00:24:54] Speaker D: Absolutely.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: Sometimes it's really fun to see how far it goes, but it's just fun. I echo that.
[00:25:00] Speaker E: Sometimes you cross the line, sometimes you don't.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: I was a little worried on that barbecue we shoot. I think we bought meat for 75 people, and I think we had 150 plus show up. So by the end, I was planning air, sweating it.
[00:25:15] Speaker E: At least I was in town.
The army guys could have told you that you're going to need more than that, but.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: Too funny.
[00:25:24] Speaker E: Hey, I just want to share that the very first. You'll get a kick out of this. The very first radio system that I trained on was the PRC 77.
[00:25:38] Speaker D: I don't remember the net number.
I think I remember the 172.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: I was about to say the number I'm sticking out my head is 170.
[00:25:48] Speaker D: Something, and I don't think we ever said PRC, but that's okay.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: Did they have internal combustion engines engines back then, or was it like horse and buggy? Horse and buggy. Okay. All right.
[00:26:01] Speaker D: That must have the crank on it, too.
[00:26:04] Speaker E: You just hope you look this good when you get to be this old.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: Andrew, what about you? Anything stick out with our efforts?
[00:26:13] Speaker C: I really think it's the visibility, right? There's tractors that have Operation Freedom on it. Between the groups, I think there was a TV show. Was it Bravo?
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Yeah, Bravo network or whatever. The Jaffe's video. What was that company again?
[00:26:31] Speaker E: Military makeover.
[00:26:32] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:26:33] Speaker C: In just the four months I've been here, that's a ton of visibility that I really don't see in other companies.
[00:26:38] Speaker E: Can you just briefly share? What are your ultimate goals here at Warner? What do you want to do here at know? This is your second period working before you go on your third retirement?
Ultimately, what do you want to do? What do you want to do here? What's your end goal look like? And then, Andrew, the same.
[00:26:58] Speaker D: Yeah. So let's see.
I can see myself 1012 years here before I want to do that final retirement drive truck.
[00:27:10] Speaker E: We will have your CDL before that.
[00:27:11] Speaker D: That's right. Drive a green truck for the neighborhood farmers. I like that idea quite a bit, actually.
Yeah. The fact that we have a staple company that treats its employees really well, these organizations that are within it to make us feel part of this family and the commonality that we can share.
I can't see myself going anywhere else. So the goal would be, as a cybersecurity director here, do all those things that we never got to see come to fruition in the military with cybersecurity. Right. And to be able to look back on that and said, yeah, that program is better because I was there and I had a great team around me that did this stuff. That's my goal.
[00:27:56] Speaker E: That's awesome.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: I've had more of those moments in my eight years here than I had in my 17 years in the Air Force. More of those moments where you get to reflect back on. I was a part of that and I'm really proud to have been a part of that. There's a lot of that from my military time as well. But seeing stuff from start to finish, good ideas win here. There's not 15 reasons why good ideas can't happen, whether it's taxpayer dollars or whether it requires a vote of Congress or whatever the excuse is. Right. Pick your excuse and you can hear it with those good ideas in the DOD here. The good idea wins if it makes business sense. The good idea wins every time.
[00:28:33] Speaker E: I love the speed at which it happens as well. I mean, a good idea is great. It gets brought forward. We take action on that good idea eight out of ten times. And then to get it, to see it from infancy to the end stage is so gratifying here versus time in the DOD.
[00:28:55] Speaker C: Yeah. Especially like the 18 wheels I was in one two weeks ago. I mean, just great ideas coming forward and, yeah, it's really exciting.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: It's always fun to see those presentations, how much people sweat them.
It's a fun thing to see ideas. And some of those ideas, a lot of those ideas get rolled out after those presentations happen.
[00:29:16] Speaker E: So, Andrew, maybe just quickly to pivot off the question just a little bit, tell us, what are the short term goals for yourself or for the group, the group that you're leading? And then ultimately, what are the long term objectives that you're trying to hit.
[00:29:31] Speaker C: Sure. So Werners got a very diverse portfolio, right? Dedicated is fantastic. Truckload is fantastic. Final mile power only. Intermodal wise, we've got a fairly small share of the market.
I'm excited that we're actually growing and expanding. As this market turns, fuel prices look like they're going to start going up. Maybe when that happens, train becomes a lot more attractive. So we can give our customers this whole portfolio and start moving them together. Right? They move intermodal to a DC, and then from the DC, we're doing final mile, start bundling that kind of concept, and moving over to the new TMS is going to help with stuff like that, not only from a planning side, but just a portfolio side. So it's a really exciting time at Warner.
And so, short term, definitely grow that book of business for us long term, and it's the same goal.
We compete against these other companies at a very high level, and I think we're just going to continue to grow.
[00:30:31] Speaker E: Well, again, both of you, as being new associates to Werner, I want to welcome you both. You're part of a proud and historic company. Thank you for joining our team. We are glad to have you here. We look forward to the skill sets that you both bring, and we look forward to the outcomes that you're both trying to achieve. So, welcome to the team.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:30:51] Speaker D: Thank you. Appreciate it.
[00:30:54] Speaker A: So that should wrap up our vet voices podcast here for Werner Enterprises Team, thanks so much for listening today, the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces and our allies all over the world, we salute you. Make sure to buckle up and drive safe out there.
