Some New News from Atlanta

Would you like to hear from me…every day?! About Atlanta news? Yes you do!

And you’re in luck. I went straight from Germany into a new job.

Sign up here for the Axios Atlanta newsletter my stellar colleagues and I put together every day.

For those who don’t know the name, Axios was founded in 2017 to “offer an antidote to the madness” of the news industry. The writing style is sharp and concise. The website and newsletters are designed to be readable and efficient.

More recently the company has made a major investment in 14 local markets across the country, including Atlanta.

I’ve just wrapped up week 2 of this new job. It’s been challenging, a big medium change and a lot of fun.

My first scoop about Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger made it into Axios’s national AM newsletter. And I filed some audio (yes audio!) for Axios Today, the company’s daily podcast.

More, I hope, to come.

A Final Germany Dispatch: From Election Fraud To “Dog Heaven”

I should clarify this dispatch is technically from North America…as I’ve already crossed back over the Atlantic. (Very bittersweet, but exciting Atlanta things are to come.)

Here’s a round-up of some final stories from an incredible 2 months in Germany.

Echoes of the American Election Fraud Narrative in Germany: As a “survivor” of the 2020 presidential and 2021 Senate runoff elections in Georgia, I was quickly drawn to the story of how election fraud claims and distrust of vote-by-mail have spread in Germany ahead of its 2021 election. The scale is not comparable to the U.S., but there is a movement there, and that movement, as it turns out, has been influenced by the American claims of the last election. Even to the point of accusations of “rigged Dominion voting machines,” even though Germany doesn’t use voting machines at all.

I reported on this topic for PRI’s The World, here: https://www.pri.org/stories/2021-09-20/dubious-voting-fraud-claims-germany-spread-online-ahead-elections

The scene at a rally in Berlin for die Basis, a new right-wing party in Germany whose leaders have, among other things, repeated unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud and sown distrust in vote-by-mail. This rally was later broken up by police because attendees didn’t comply with the city’s mask regulations.

The scene at a rally in Berlin for die Basis, a new right-wing party in Germany whose leaders have, among other things, repeated unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud and sown distrust in vote-by-mail. This rally was later broken up by police because attendees didn’t comply with the city’s mask regulations.

An American Perspective on the German Election: In my first byline in German for my host newspaper, I wrote a comparative column about the differences that struck me about the German election.

In short…for many reasons, the German elections are much cheaper and simply calmer. I tried to understand why. https://taz.de/US-Amerikanerin-blickt-auf-die-BTW/!5798242/

(And no…I didn’t write it in German. A kind colleague translated it. 😊)

Finally…some hard-hitting journalism on why Germany could very well be “dog heaven.”

This is Mickey, one of the dogs I “interviewed” for a story for NPR about dog ownership and dog regulation in Germany. He was at a dog obedience class in Munich’s English Garden. The expectations for dog training in Germany are much higher than the U.S.

This is Mickey, one of the dogs I “interviewed” for a story for NPR about dog ownership and dog regulation in Germany. He was at a dog obedience class in Munich’s English Garden. The expectations for dog training in Germany are much higher than the U.S.

This story came about after anecdotal observations I couldn’t ignore about how much different dog life is in Germany than in the U.S. German dogs seem to be able to go almost everywhere: inside restaurants, the metro, most shops, even pharmacies. And they also rarely seem to misbehave. Rarely are pulling on leashes. Often, in Berlin especially, you see them walking calmly off leash down the sidewalk.

As it turns out, there are many reasons why, some of which are regulatory, and some of which are societal pressure.

Listen in to learn more: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043276625/life-is-good-if-youre-a-dog-in-germany

A Car/Not Car Show in Munich

Part of why I visited Bavaria recently was to cover IAA, one of the world’s oldest car shows. It’s the German auto industry’s preeminent showcase, which normally features the latest, fastest luxury cars…burning gas.

But this year the conference rebranded as “IAA Mobility,” and invited the cycling industry to come along. There was hardly a gasoline car to be found.

Porshe was one of the car companies showing off its…e-bikes! At the car show!

Porshe was one of the car companies showing off its…e-bikes! At the car show!

I broke down this slightly awkward scene and what it says about where both the car and the e-bike industries are right now in an episode of the Indicator from Planet Money. (Hint: one has a branding problem and the other does not.)

As a longtime admirer of Planet Money it was an honor to get to work with the very talented team.

Find the episode here: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/16/1038008948/gas-power-to-electric-power-to-foot-power

Oh and who else was at the conference? Chancellor Angela Merkel, making one of her last public appearances before the parliamentary elections that will determine her replacement. She came to formally open the car show and tour the booths.

(Because yes! Germany’s national elections are on September 26th! Who will succeed Merkel after 16 years in office? More on that to come.)

A 'Rona Post

As I’m following the coverage of COVID numbers in the U.S.—of Georgia breaking its hospitalization record earlier this month—I feel like I’m living in an alternate universe.

While the number of infections per 100,000 people over the last 7 days in the U.S. is 324, in Germany it’s 77. 65% of Germany’s total population has had two shots, compared to 54% in the U.S.

But beyond those differences, I wanted to take a moment to dive into how daily life differs living in a pandemic in Germany has felt, compared to the U.S. I’ve gotten many questions about it from friends and family, so here go my non-epidemiologist observations.

First of all…masks.

In short: they are still very much a thing when you’re indoors, except while sitting at a table eating or drinking. And, people wear them. In fact, it’s common to see them on people’s wrists as they walk down the street, so they’re easy to take on and off.

My German language classmates and I (mostly) in our masks. At school we were required to mask up whenever we did partner work or were not at our desks. And those who weren’t vaccinated had to be tested twice weekly.

My German language classmates and I (mostly) in our masks. At school we were required to mask up whenever we did partner work or were not at our desks. And those who weren’t vaccinated had to be tested twice weekly.

What isn’t a thing in Germany? Reusable cloth masks. That’s because on public transport in many places and on all German trains “medical masks,” or surgical masks and KN95s (or FFP2s as they’re called) are required. Bavaria was the first to set the most stringent mask requirement, of only KN95s for many settings at the beginning of the year.

As the COVID rates have fallen, surgical masks are now allowed as well in some places. But many people play it safe and just stick with the KN95s. It also means that there’s KN95 masks everywhere for sale, often for under 1 €. Even in vending machines. And there are many color options!

A “Hygiene Automat” featuring all the soap, sanitizer and masks your heart could desire.

A “Hygiene Automat” featuring all the soap, sanitizer and masks your heart could desire.

(My former WABE editor Susanna Capelouto, who is German, was in Munich at the same time as me and made an interesting observation about Bavaria’s KN95 mask requirement, considering that it’s Germany’s conservative state.)

Another major difference in daily life has been the high use of my proof of vaccination app with a QR code. Because yes, you can get your American vaccine card uploaded into an app here if you go to a pharmacy.

And I have to pull it up all the time. You are expected to show proof of vaccination, proof of recovery from COVID or a recent negative COVID test to be allowed to sit inside at a dining establishment, go to any indoor gym, movie theater, and more.

Which brings me to this 3G/2G debate in Germany—an especially foreign concept to the U.S. because the Gs are German words: geimpft (vaccinated), genesen (recovered) and getestet (tested). The debate lies in whether this should change to 2G, to remove the negative test as an allowed way into indoor spaces, in an effort to encourage vaccination.

After some discussion, the 3G model largely reigns nationwide now, but some states have pushed forward with allowing businesses to use the 2G model. The federal government did announce that after October, they will no longer subsidize rapid antigen tests (because yes, they are free right now!), again to encourage vaccination.

(By the way, compared to Georgia at least, tests are very, very easy to get here. I’ve even seen testing tables set up on the sidewalk outside of pharmacies.)

It’s worth noting that there is also an anti-vaccination movement here too, among adults and for children. This group is often loosely called the “Querdenken” or “Lateral Thinkers.”

I’ve encountered several protests, including one by a brand new political party grown out of anti lockdown/mandate sentiment.

A scene from a protest by a new anti-lockdown/anti-mandate political party in Berlin. “Help! The Corona Mutant is coming! Save yourselves, those who can!”

A scene from a protest by a new anti-lockdown/anti-mandate political party in Berlin.

“Help! The Corona Mutant is coming! Save yourselves, those who can!”




From a Rediscovered Thesis to a Convertible on the Autobahn

This week, for the first time in six years, I took the time to reread my senior history thesis.

I spent a year researching and writing that 100+ page document in college, immersing myself in the role of art and aesthetics in Adolf Hitler’s political agenda and the looting of Paris. But I’m embarrassed to admit that since that immersion, I haven’t since found the time to read it through again. Until last weekend.

IMG_7188.JPG

It began at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin, which coincidentally has two fascinating exhibits that almost pick up where my thesis left off. One is all about documenta, a contemporary art exhibition in Kassell that was created in part to try to reclaim contemporary art in Germany after Hitler had labeled it “degenerate.”

The other is focused on the artists and architects labeled the “Divinely Gifted” by the Nazis: the ‘good’ ones, subjectively chosen to epitomize the National Socialist aesthetic.

(As opposed to the “degenerate” Jewish, Slavic and modernist/abstract artists and architects who were persecuted, forced to flee the country and in some cases sent to their deaths in concentration camps.)

The exhibit follows some of these “favored” artists and architects’ post-war careers. As it turns out, many continued earning their livelihood from commissions, despite scattered protests of their work. And the exhibit powerfully documents the 300+ public works of those “divinely gifted” artists commissioned during and after the Nazi era which remain standing in Germany and Austria.

In my thesis, I cited Hitler’s belief that “No people lives longer than the evidences of its civilization (Kultur)." It was a driver of his fixation on curating and manipulating the art and architecture of his Third Reich. He saw them as the longest legacy of his empire. And in a strange way, he was right.

Very active questions about the Nazis’ effects on culture lingers to this day. Take that exhibit, implicitly asking about the role of these men and their work in today’s world? And take the state’s Limbach Kommission, which still grapples with ongoing cases of dispute over allegedly looted art.

Anyways. This tangent I’m on is emblematic of the gift of this fellowship. Creating the space for me to take a moment to reread my own thesis.

But back to Munich. Where I am for 10 days, and where this fellowship has also created space for to explore Bavaria.

At the Augustiner am Dom in Munich. Mit einem hellen Bier…of course!

At the Augustiner am Dom in Munich. Mit einem hellen Bier…of course!

Yes there has been Bavarian beer. And what seems to be Bavarian pimento cheese (Obazda).

But also, there was a visit to the State of Georgia’s Economic Development office in Munich, which is full of Georgia touches…peanut butter, a UGA football helmet and a Georgia Tech football. I was there working on a story about the economic development relationship between the two. Interestingly…it’s extraordinarily strong.

And to tell that story I made two other stops this week, to Nuremberg and Regensberg. The conversations were great and the cities were beautiful, but the undeniable highlight was driving in a convertible with the top down on the autobahn.

I wonder what next week will bring!

Two Weeks In Berlin

These first weeks of my two months in Berlin as an Arthur F. Burns Fellow have been in a word: surreal.

Surreal to be traveling as the pandemic continues, surreal to be taking a break from the nonstop Georgia politics world.

In fact, I am literally barred from reading many American newspapers with my German IP address because the papers don’t comply with EU privacy regulations, apparently. But there’s much to read and learn about here without all that American news.

The elections are just ahead on September 26 and campaign posters recently went up in Berlin. The major question is who will succeed Angela Merkel, the country’s leader of 16 years. Right now, her party is polling ahead, but not by much. And given Germany’s political structure, a coalition government is extremely likely.

There’s Germany’s vaccination rate, which is at 57%, now outpacing the U.S.’s about 50%. And the government just announced starting in October that rapid COVID tests will cost money—an effort to encourage even more shots. In many indoor places here, you’re required to show either a vaccination card or a recent negative test to enter.

And then there’s just this language. I’ve been taking daily German classes with my colleagues on the fellowship, which have been both humbling and fun. As someone described it to me, this is a “Tetris language,” which means often if you learn smaller words, you can decipher bigger ones.

Exhibit A: the word for dictionary? “Words book” / das Wörterbuch

And finally, in these first weeks, I’ve managed to file my first hard-hitting Berlin dateline…about the nightclubs.

Unlike many American cities, Berlin’s world-renowned clubs have been closed to indoor dancing since last March. In an effort to change that, the Berlin government spent €40,000 on a “Clubculture Reboot” Pilot Project. Basically, it was a state-sponsored club crawl in which 2,000 participants had to get PCR tested before and after, with the goal of gathering data to prove clubs can reopen with this model safely.

So to hear more of my reporting straight from the clubs, listen below and read more here.

Bis bald!

From One Election, To Another Election ... To Sports

Covering Georgia’s midterm elections this year was not for the faint of heart. They went on for a long …. long time.

I was up until 3am covering the first election night, and then up again two hours later to be interviewed live on NPR nationally at 6am.

The Governor’s race went on for about 10 days after that. One candidate declared himself the victor and proceeded with his transition while the other refused to formally concede, organized lawsuits and highlighted the many issues people had while voting.

There were recounts. There were (and are) many lawsuits. There were two runoffs just last week. One state house race had to be completely re-done, and is currently only separated by 2 votes (!).

Days after those runoffs, I made my sports coverage debut, writing about Atlanta’s new championship soccer team, Atlanta United. Check out that story here.

I wrote that story in advance of the team’s championship game Saturday, and then covered the game myself. It was quite the adventure, including time in the supporters’ section, getting whacked on the head by a fan flagpole, getting crushed in a sea of people in the locker room celebration after the game, and failing to keep the champagne sprays off my recorder. It was all worth it to see Atlantans ecstatic over the “broken curse.” Atlanta hadn’t seen a national sports championship since 1995.

I had a lot of fun putting together a “sound postcard” with the audio I gathered on that game night here.

Here’s a scene from inside the team’s tarped up locker room, featuring champagne and ski goggles.

And then yesterday, I wrote about the state high school football championship. A team from a hurricane-battered town in Southwest Georgia has been on a surprise winning streak since the storm.

But never fear. I’m going to be back on politics in the new year, covering Georgia’s General Assembly session from January.

In the meantime, a reminder that this is the best place to follow along! https://www.wabe.org/people/emma-hurt/

Here are some other stories I’ve been doing, too:

For Ga. Farmers Impacted By Hurricane Michael, The Road To Recovery Looms Large

Voter ID Laws May Disproportionately Affect Transgender Community

Lake Lanier Hosts Dragon Boat World Championships



Chick-fil-A, Politics and a Spaceport

My apologies for the long delay, but this summer has been busy. I'm still learning how to juggle it all. 

It feels like I've been reporting all over Georgia, from Dalton, Macon, Augusta to Kingsland, from breweries and a baseball stadium to the State Capitol and City Hall (many...many times).

I've recently been assigned to cover the elections here in Georgia, so that will probably consume my near future. However, I've managed to squeeze in a few non-political longer features, too.

Here's one, that I filed for NPR nationally, about Chick-fil-A's new test foray into the mealkit market in Atlanta. I think it's a fascinating business story about companies' attempts to figure out how to give us customers exactly what food we want, how we want it, in a way they (and we) can afford.

And here's another feature about a proposed spaceport in Camden County, Ga., right next to the Florida border. I went down to do some reporting on the mainland and on Little Cumberland Island and ended up with tons of information on this story about a county taking a big bet on an economic development idea. I got it into about 4 minutes on the radio, but fair warning, my digital version went beyond 2,000 words....

Anyway, if you need me over the next few months, I'd recommend locating one of the candidates for Georgia governor. I seem to be basically following them around. (You could also tune into 90.1 WABE!)

In the meantime, here are a random mix of reporting scenes from my first summer in radio:

Scenes from an Audio Life

The time is flying, and I can't believe I'm more than two months into life on the radio. There's still much to learn, but I like to hope I'm having to ask fewer basic questions each day. 

I filed my first "short feature" yesterday, a longer story about incentives for Amazon's second headquarters. Click here to check it out!

As a reminder, you can find all my stories here.

In case you still don't really believe me, below are some photos of me interviewing Senator Johnny Isakson in Atlanta a few weeks ago.

By the way, Georgians, if you have story ideas, please feel free to send them. I've got to write one per day!

Plot Twist: I'm on the Radio Now!

I've always loved consuming audio journalism. Now, I'm learning how to make it.  

An NPR station in Atlanta, 90.1 WABE has taken me on as a daily newscast reporter. It's been fun (and challenging) to learn a completely new way of putting together stories. Sentences are shorter. Storylines must be crisper.

Over the past few weeks I've covered a broad gambit, including Atlanta's ransomware attack, the pollen count and a spaceport in Coastal Georgia. (On that note, if you have any Georgia story ideas, please send them over to ehurt@wabe.org!)

Here are some of my stories. You can find them all at this link. 

FAA To Hold Local Hearings on Coastal Georgia Spaceport

Artificial Reefs Near Jekyll Island Get A Concrete Boost

Unprecedented Gwinnett Transit Plan Includes Heavy Rail

Atlanta Water Bills Go Out For The First Time Since Ransomware Attack

Smart Trailers

What are they? They could very well be the future of trucking. 

Trailers have historically been the lesser of the tractor-trailer pair. They get lost a lot. You may have seen one abandoned in a field somewhere.

They have been a box on wheels, serving no other purpose than holding the cargo. The tractor has the expensive gadgets, the powertrain, the driver and most of the technological investment. Until now. 

Check out my latest Trucks.com story about it below. 

Trucks.com

No Longer Afterthoughts, Trailers are Getting Smart

March 14, 2018

As the use of telematics, sensors and computerization in tractors has skyrocketed, comparable technologies in the trailers hooked behind them have not kept pace. That is changing.

More telematics options for trailers and trailing equipment are available than ever before, giving fleets unprecedented tools to capture untapped value.

“Up to this point, trailers have been pretty dumb,” said Dennis Skaradzinski, chief engineer at Great Dane Trailers. “Today, trailers are becoming smart.”

This means big opportunities for carriers, “and we literally have just begun to scratch the surface of what’s possible,” said Sue Rutherford, vice president of marketing at Orbcomm, a machine-to-machine communications company.

Find the rest here. 

 

Truffles in Kentucky

Eleven months ago I met Margaret Townsend in Arkansas, and she mentioned her truffle orchard. I knew then that I wanted to write a story about her and the American truffle industry. (Yes, it exists. Sort of.) 

It has taken this long, a mountain of phone calls and emails and one frigid trip to rural Kentucky, but I am so excited to share the final product. I'll let it speak for itself.

(It will also be in the print edition on February 12.)

Wall Street Journal

The Elusive American Black Truffle

Three decades after farmers first cultivated Périgord truffles in the U.S., no one has succeeded commercially. These intrepid growers are still pursuing the prize.

Feb. 10, 2018 7:01 a.m. ET

On a frigid winter day in southern Kentucky, Margaret Townsend crisscrossed her family’s farm, following Monza, a truffle-sniffing dog hired for the day.

They were hoping to find black Périgord truffles growing in the roots of the 4,800 hazelnut and oak seedlings Ms. Townsend planted in 2011, after her father read an article about cultivating the fungi. Ms. Townsend, an industrial engineer and a former executive at Microsoft Corp. and General Electric Co. , hasn’t had a harvest yet from the trees, inoculated with truffle spores before planting. But she’s undeterred as truffles take on average five to seven years to come to fruition.

“There have only been two times I sat down in the field and cried,” she says. “Only two in six years is not bad. It has been more fun than not.”

Three decades after farmers first cultivated truffles in the U.S., no one has had long-term success growing them commercially. Those in the business estimate that only around 25 orchards in the U.S. are producing any volume of Périgord truffles today, most bringing in just a few pounds per season. The venture is expensive. It costs $12,000 to $14,000 per acre to establish an orchard, plus $2,000-$3,000 per acre annually to maintain, says Charles Lefevre, a mycologist and founder of the seedling nursery New World Truffieres in Eugene, Ore.

Finding the formula for successful truffle farming is a tantalizing goal for would-be growers in the U.S., who range from fungi scientists to vineyard owners to former tech executives. Among the hundreds of species of these underground fungi, only a handful have true culinary value. Two, with earthy aromas, are prized above all: the French black Périgord, or tuber melanosporum, which sells for $800-$900 per wholesale pound and the Italian white Alba, or tuber magnatum pico, which runs $3,000-$4,000 per pound.

Traditionally these delicacies were only found in the wild. Today, the white truffle continues to elude cultivation. However, outside of the black Périgord’s native France, producers in Spain and Australia have succeeded in growing large volumes of the truffles also known as black diamonds.

American demand is growing. About 426 tons of fresh, canned and dried truffles were brought into the U.S. in 2017 according to the Department of Agriculture, up 75% from 2010. Fresh imported truffles usually take at least four days to get to the U.S., giving chefs a short window to use the highly perishable commodity.

Aspiring U.S. truffle farmers have faced steep hurdles. Getting a foothold in this risky venture requires big money up front and the ability to wait years for a crop that may never materialize. Many blame the lack of large American volume on the challenges presented by indigenous pests, natural fungi competitors and diseases. Reliable scientific information on basics like soil chemistry needed for truffles is hard to come by, and there is little funding for U.S. research on this exotic crop.

Ms. Townsend says she has struggled to find a consensus on basic techniques among successful growers around the world. Even in Manjimup, Australia, a hotbed of truffle production, opinions vary. Al Blakers, owner of Manjimup Truffles, has had a commercial Périgord truffle harvest for 12 years, producing just under 2 tons last year. Even though he and a nearby grower do things quite differently, he says they are both getting good results. “The actual truffle growing is not that difficult,” he says. “It’s all the other aspects that come into it, like weed and pest control that will affect how your truffle comes out.”

Back in 2007, it seemed that Tom Michaels, an expert in button mushrooms, had cracked the code for producing American truffles. He planted his truffle orchard in Tennessee where he believed the soil and climate echoed that of the Périgord region of France. His bet paid off, for a time. The Chuckey, Tenn., operation produced about 200 pounds per season at peak and seemed to prove the possibility of commercial viability.

He also showed Tennessee truffles could hold their own against the international incumbents. Gabriel Kreuther, the French chef and owner of his eponymous New York restaurant known for his truffle dishes, says he was “beautifully, pleasantly surprised” by the quality of the Tennessee Périgords.

Then a hazelnut blight hit the East Coast, and by 2016 nearly all of Mr. Michaels’s truffle-producing trees had died. He is disappointed in the state of the industry. “There are so many unknowns. You’re dealing with such a paucity of knowledge,” he says. Basic soil chemistry that traditional farmers normally know off the tops of their heads like proper nitrogen and phosphorous levels are still up for debate when it comes to truffle cultivation, he says.

Does Mr. Michaels really understand how to grow truffles, for all his experience? “Kind of,” he says.

“We’re sort of writing our own book right now,” says Brian Malone, truffle orchard and vineyard manager at Jackson Family Wines in Santa Rosa, Calif. The farm harvested its first truffles last February after six years.

Robert Chang, who founded the American Truffle Company in 2007 after leaving his director post at Yahoo Inc., touts a scientific approach. “I think we still have a ways to go, but we are definitely well past the first adoption,” he says. The company offers a partnership model to its clients.

Tom Michaels’s success continues to spur hope. In Kentucky, Ms. Townsend hired him in December to consult on her first truffle hunt, along with the dog Monza and her trainer from Truffle Dog Company. Monza is a curly-haired Lagotto Romagnolo, an Italian breed that has been truffle-hunting for centuries. Trained dogs can determine truffle ripeness in a way humans haven’t replicated.

Ms. Townsend, a senior vice president at J.B. Hunt Transport in Arkansas, leased 48 acres of land from her parents and planted the seedlings on 24 acres to allow for a buffer from the native woods nearby. Her late father shared her enthusiasm for the venture she named NewTown Truffiere, building a noise-making device to scare off deer nibbling the fledgling trees.

On this debut outing, Monza didn’t find any Périgords, though she did sniff out one native truffle without much value. She’s scheduled for a return visit later this month.

Ms. Townsend says she set aside $250,000 for her truffle-growing venture and has spent twice that. “I’m still happy with the investment and having fun with it,” she says. “Like anything, you’ve got to be sure you’ve got wiggle room because whatever you think it’s going to be, you’ve got to figure it’s going to be more.”

Another Look at Tesla's Semi Trucks

The recent reveal of Tesla's semi truck models has gotten a lot of press, if you haven't noticed. However, that company is far from the only one working on a zero emission semi, and according to some of the people in my story below, Tesla might even be at a disadvantage in comparison. 

This piece spun out of something the CEO of Navistar, a legacy truck manufacturer told me when I interviewed him upon their recent year-end earning's release. It was fun to dig into the topic a little bit deeper.  

Photo: Tesla

Photo: Tesla

Navistar International Corp. Chief Executive Troy Clarke has a message for tech entrepreneur Elon Musk: There will be more electric trucks on the road by 2025 from Navistar than semi-tractors from Musk’s Tesla Inc.

It’s all about familiarity, comfort and established customer base. Navistar’s International brand already holds 11 percent of the market for trucks in the heaviest Class 8 weight segment, according to research firm Statista.

Tesla, which introduced its semi in November, has collected hundreds of reservations. But it has yet to build a truck for a customer. It plans to launch production in 2019.

“Customers know us, and they know that when we give them a truck it gives them a guarantee that this truck is going to serve their needs, because we understand how our customers make money,” Clarke said in an interview with Trucks.com.

Read the rest on Trucks.com at this link. 

Worlds Collide in Munich

I spent most of November in Germany, thanks to a fellowship from the Fulbright Commission. The Berlin Capital Program was designed to bring American journalists to Berlin, educate us about Germany, its history and contemporary issues and hopefully generate more informed coverage in the American media. I chose to apply because in my business reporting the strong German/American economic development relationship has been impossible to ignore. 

The program entailed meetings and panels with experts on topics like the Stasi archive, the country's publicly-funded media outlets, Berlin's startup scene and the recent elections. I learned a ton and loved getting to know my American colleagues on the trip, too. There was a wide range of media represented, and I left inspired by them all and excited to follow their careers. 

Unrelated to the program, I found out that a trade mission from coastal Georgia was also in Germany at the same time. I managed to take a train to Munich for a night and shadow their meetings with businesses and industry associations. It was remarkable to see the worlds collide. I wrote the below story about it for the Savannah Morning News' business publication. 

If you're interested, I also wrote this sidebar about the German/Georgia economic development relationship in general. 

Business in Savannah

For the first time, Coastal Georgia group talks business in Germany

MUNICH — Representatives from nine coastal development authorities traveled across Germany on an unprecedented trade mission last month. The group of 11 together pitched the attributes of coastal Georgia in Bremen, Halle and Munich, forging relationships with businesses and officials in one of the state’s largest trade partners.

“This trip is taking our collective efforts as a region, as a coast to the next level,” said Trip Tollison, president and CEO of the Savannah Economic Development Authority and World Trade Center Savannah. “We can’t market and sell our organizations, our areas and our communities while sitting in our communities. It’s just not going to happen.”

After targeting Germany as one of the best potential opportunities for investment and trade, the Savannah Economic Development Authority and its international arm, World Trade Center Savannah, has been working to expand these prospects for coastal Georgia by getting the whole region involved.

Coastal Georgian trade mission speaks to members of the Bavarian Industry Association in Munich, Photos by Emma Hurt

“One of the things that we know is regional representation is far more powerful than individual representation,” said Craig Lesser, a former commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development who is now consulting for the World Trade Center Savannah with the Pendleton Group.

Antje Abshoff, managing director of the state of Georgia’s European office in Munich said she rarely sees communities as a group making trips like this. “That they’re making a concerted effort to be here, cooperating with each other is remarkable,” she said.

Lesser said investors appreciate seeing this early teamwork, because collaboration will likely be necessary again later in a development project. Regardless, as he put it, “the end result is that if an investor were to come to one of the counties and invest, it is going to have an effect on the entire region.”

Tollison pointed out the most important factors for prospective investors in the region are infrastructure and workforce, neither of which are not restricted by county or city lines. He cited that a typical commute in the Savannah area spans 60 miles.

“We’re all selling the same assets, really,” said Anna Chafin, chief executive director of the Development Authority of Bryan County.

Participants agreed that the joint trip coordinated by World Trade Center Savannah enabled smaller counties to participate. Providing this service to its economic development partners is “definitely part of the World Trade Center Savannah master plan,” said Jesse Dillon, the organization’s business development project manager. “They are now active participants in the process,” she said.

Other counties/development authorities represented on the trip included Liberty, Screven, Valdosta-Lowndes, McIntosh, Glynn, Charlton and Bulloch.

In a more local example of this collaborative strategy within the regional trip, Dawn Malin, executive director of the Charlton County Development Authority together with Wally Orrel of the McIntosh County Industrial Development Authority and Mel Baxter of the Brunswick and Glynn County Development Authority came on the trip representing the six counties of the Southeast Georgia Alliance.

She explained that these counties realized they would be more successful working together. “Some of our communities are quite small and don’t have as many assets,” she said. “But together, six counties are very strong.”

Between meetings with specific companies, the group gave many joint presentations telling the story of coastal Georgia, of the ports and infrastructure, of oak trees and tourism, of Georgia Southern and Valdosta State.

They concluded each meeting with an invitation to the Germans in the room: to attend a program coinciding with the Savannah Music Festival in April, designed to show off Savannah in turn. Some signed up before the Georgians had even left.

Peter Schwarz, managing director of bavAIRia, a group representing aerospace companies in the German state of Bavaria attended an event with the Georgia mission in Munich. To him, it was impressive and important that the group made the long trip. “Setting up business contacts is personal contacts. Anything else you can forget, in my point of view,” he said.

“Therefore, I can only appreciate that people take the time to come to get to know Germany and Bavaria. How else will you get a feeling for a country or businessmen without getting in contact with them?”

Tollison also underlined the importance of these meetings in the often-lengthy economic development process. He hopes to continue to bring various groups back to Germany at least once a year going forward.

“These things take years and years to cultivate and you know, ten years from now if we have a great project from Bavaria that wants to do something in coastal Georgia, we can all say it started from this process,” he said.

Trucks Again!

Through a friend, I recently connected to the team at Trucks.com, a startup trucking publication looking to be "a step above the trade press." It's been interesting to take on stories more in depth than those for a general-audience publication. To compensate though, I've included extra background here.

In this latest piece, I looked into a last-ditch effort by some truck drivers to delay/end the looming deadline of the electronic-logging device (ELD) mandate. Truck driver hours have long been regulated by the government, in terms of the time they can legally be "on duty" before having to take breaks or sleep. Traditionally they recorded this in paper logbooks, but more and more companies have turned to the electronic logging devices, which drivers do not control and have zero wiggle room. Starting Dec. 18, almost all trucks manufactured before 2000 will no longer have the paper option. 

Companies I've spoken with admit that the switch between methods cost them some money/efficiency as their drivers had to trip plan differently and adjust to a less forgiving system. On the other hand, many drivers I've spoken to have said that after trying ELDs, they would refuse to switch back to paper logbooks. 

Regardless, it's a hot-button issue right now. The industry has been talking about it for years, and an end is in sight. At this point, those against it have turned to social media to voice their concerns, especially in the hope of getting President Trump's attention. If you're still curious, go check out the #ELDorMe thread on Twitter. 

Trucks.com

Truckers Take to Social Media to Get Trump’s Attention on ELD Mandate

Independent truckers are trying to get President Trump’s attention in the hopes that he will halt or delay the pending electronic logging device mandate before its Dec. 18 implementation deadline.

The regulation requires truckers to install devices on trucks manufactured after 2000 that digitally track driving time to make sure they stick to federal driving limits. Some truckers say the issue has made them reconsider their previous support of the president.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has challenged the regulation’s constitutionality but has lost repeated rulings. The U.S. Supreme Court refused in June to hear the association’s appeal of a lower court decision upholding the mandate. That has sparked alternative protest strategies in the hopes of Hail Mary legislative or executive action.

H.R. 3282, a bill authored by GOP Rep. Brian Babin of Texas, that would delay the regulation for two years, is stalled in a House subcommittee. Some drivers want Trump to intervene.

Those against the mandate have made themselves increasingly vocal on social media and in coordinated protests in Washington last month. The ELD or Me Facebook group has about 20,000 members, and a change.org petition to do away with the mandate has more than 30,000 signatures. There’s also an active #ELDorMe on Twitter to gather support from opponents of the regulation.

Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, leads truckers protesting the pending electronic logging device regulation in Washington. (Photo: Brian Babin)

Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, leads truckers protesting the pending electronic logging device regulation in Washington. (Photo: Brian Babin)

Drivers want the regulation delayed so that more research involving more interest groups can be done on the potential economic and safety effects of the mandate, said Tony Justice, a driver for Everhart Transportation, who created the ELD or Me group.

“We would just like to be able to have a voice,” he said. “If we’re going to do a mandate, let’s get all ideas together and work together.”

“People say, why didn’t we try to do something seven years ago? I tell people it’s like a hurricane warning,” Justice said. “You don’t really get prepared until it’s about to hit you.”

Twitter is the best way to reach Trump, said Les Willis, who owns two trucking companies in Texas and Arkansas.

“I figure since the president uses Twitter to relay his message to the public, we should use Twitter in the same manner,” he said. “Why shouldn't he listen to us, since we hear him loud and clear?”

Protesters have been using the #ELDorMe Twitter hashtag daily since mid-October “in hopes of keeping our message alive,” Justice said.

But truckers have yet to hear the president’s position on the issue.

Contacted by Trucks.com, a White House communications representative forwarded a request for comment about Trump’s ELD position to the Department of Transportation, which did not respond.

Raymond Martinez, Trump’s nominee for administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said in recent Senate testimony that he would not delay implementation of the ELD regulation.

Drivers who have spoken to several members of Congress worry that conversations are “one-sided” on Capitol Hill.

“The ones we’ve talked to have only been educated on it as a safety issue,” Justice said. “We don’t think the [American Trucking Associations] is showing all the research.”

Chris Spear, the ATA’s chief executive, addressed the issue at the trade group’s annual conference in late October, saying the technology has been adequately vetted.

“This issue has been legislated, promulgated and litigated. It is now time to move forward,” Spear said. “ELD technology removes one’s ability to exceed the legal hours of services, ushering in a safe, efficient and fair playing field for the nation’s trucking industry.”

The group has supported electronic logs since 1999.

Those against the mandate or its timeline have put hopes in Babin’s bill. He previously brought forward an amendment to delay the mandate for a year, which failed in September.

Babin said support for his bill is growing as other representatives hear from their constituents. It has about 60 cosponsors.

“Let me tell you, these truck drivers are letting my colleagues know exactly what this is all about,” he said.

Babin said he is trying to protect small businesses from burdensome regulation. “This is just another thing that is going to hurt the small guy,” he said.

However, industry experts are skeptical of the viability of any legislative delay. The failure of the earlier Babin amendment signaled the “end what is left of the debate on whether or not there is the possibly to delay the mandate,” transport analysts at Stephens Inc. in Little Rock, Ark. said in an industry report.

Analysts Brad Delco and Scott Schoenhaus said the amendment “was likely Congress’s best shot at delaying the mandate given that it was in the form of a rider and could have slid past bipartisan opposition.” A separate bill like H.R. 3282 “would likely not have support in the House as well.”

Spear also dismissed any hopes of delay in his speech.

“Back in Washington, anti-truck and amateur hour advocacy groups believe they know what’s best for our industry,” he said. “This wave of special interests has built a cottage industry fueled by ideology, emotion and misguided narratives … all intended to divide our industry and this association.”

Willis and Justice both expressed frustration that Trump’s public acknowledgement of the industry has only come in the context of events coordinated with the ATA, which they do not believe represents all truck drivers. Notably, they pointed to a March ATA event when Trump met with drivers and executives at the White House and climbed into a semi-truck on the White House lawn, as well as the president’s October speech pitching his tax reform plan to truckers.

Babin said that though it is a “great group,” the ATA “represents the major trucking companies. These are companies that can afford in a much better way to go into this ELD business than somebody with five trucks or less,” he said.

Douglas Hasner, an owner-operator with Landstar Trucking, said he will be forced to stop driving if the mandate goes through.

“I came off the road for five days to make sure I voted for Trump”, he said. But if the mandate goes ahead, it will “absolutely” affect his opinion of the politician. “A man has got to keep his campaign promises.”

And so the Atlanta Bylines Begin.

I've been in Atlanta for a few months now focused on listening and learning. I've gone to workshops, panels and conferences and am actually in the middle of the Wharton School's Seminars for Business Journalists in Philadelphia. As I work to improve both my journalism and my understanding of the layered, fascinating city of Atlanta, I have slowly ramped up freelance assignments, too. 

I've included one here, my first in the Atlanta Business Chronicle. It's about a growing hospital network in West Georgia that's making some "nontraditional" investments in its community's health. While there isn't much of a clear short-term payout for these initiatives, Tanner Health has decided it's still a priority.

Atlanta Business Chronicle

Nontraditional health programs give community a boost

Carroll County hopes to see long-term benefits from initiatives that take preventative health care outside of the walls of hospitals and doctors’ offices and into the community.

The initiatives range from the completion of the Carrollton GreenBelt to Tanner Health System partnering with churches and schools to foster healthy lifestyles for the long-term.

Improving community health is a good economic development strategy, said Tanner Health System President and CEO Loy Howard.

“We think if we can actually distinguish ourselves as a community where health is important, that’s where future employers are going to want to land,” he said.

Since 1949, the nonprofit health system has grown across west Georgia and east Alabama, now with over 300 physicians across four facilities. They have expansions underway in Villa Rica, Bremen, Carrollton’s Dixie Street and a new hospital opening soon in Wedowee, Ala.

Tanner has also been investing in its community’s health in innovative ways, Howard explained.

“We spend a lot of time and effort to understand our community,” said Howard. “Several years ago, Tanner struggled with patients that were chronically ill and the realization that our community could be healthier.”

Tanner’s leadership noted that the future of healthcare was in preventative medicine. It saw an opportunity to “complement” the health system’s mission and services with “some nontraditional things for the Southeast and smaller communities, centered around helping people learn how to be healthier,” Howard said.

The network used to organize health fairs to reach the broader community, but it found they were ineffective. “Without programs or ways for people to get into something that’s proactive, there’s a good chance when we do that health fair again in a year, people haven’t addressed anything,” he said.

That’s why the board created Tanner’s first community health division in 2011. After a $1.2 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it created the “Get Healthy, Live Well” coalition.

“This is about getting active, learning how to eat right, and getting that out to everyone, not just a patient that has insurance,” Howard said.

The initiative now has more than 500 volunteers and 22 subcommittees and task forces working in Carroll, Haralson and Heard counties to improve nutrition, physical activity, chronic disease and tobacco use.

One fast-growing part of the initiative involves faith-based organizations. The coalition has worked with 16 churches so far, according to Denise Taylor, Tanner’s chief community health and brand officer who heads “Get Healthy, Live Well.”

Photo by Joann Vitelli: The 18-mile multi-use Greenbelt trail opened this spring

Photo by Joann Vitelli: The 18-mile multi-use Greenbelt trail opened this spring

Stephen Allen, lead pastor at Tabernacle Baptist Church, plans to expand his church’s involvement in “Get Healthy, Live Well.” Tabernacle has offered classes like diabetes management, weight loss and suicide prevention and it has joined other churches for “health challenges” and events through Tanner.

“We’re trying to change the way our folks think about health, physically and even spiritually,” Allen explained.

Tanner has also supported programs at City of Carrollton schools to train teachers and provide resources to incorporate gardening, healthy cooking and physical activity into the curricula.

“It’s broader than just feeding healthy school meals. We’re really trying to take it to that next level,” Director of School Nutrition Linette Dodson said.

She hopes their work will create a healthier generation of adults: “I don’t think my generation was prepared as well, so hopefully we’re doing a better job of preparing our students,” Dodson said.

“It’s all very interrelated, and there are a lot of exciting things happening in west Georgia right now,” Taylor said.

“Like any community initiative, it’s all about partnerships,” said Howard. “No one organization can lead it alone.”

The same year Tanner created its community health division, Laura Richards founded Friends of the Carrollton GreenBelt to make the city’s long-lasting dream of a multiuse trail a reality. The 18-mile loop opened last spring.

Richards, who also serves on the Carroll County Department of Health board, said she, too, had been concerned about her community’s health. She has watched Carroll County rise in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s health rankings of Georgia counties.

“Specifically, the 2016-2017 jump was the largest from 58th to 49th, so that shows there have been changes in the right direction,” she said, noting the ranking includes access to exercise opportunities.

“Before the GreenBelt you could just walk on your subdivision streets and dodge traffic,” said David Mecklin, a partner at Tisinger Vance who credits the trail for encouraging him to walk. The exercise actually triggered a need for a stress test that detected a blocked artery.

Like the “Get Healthy, Live Well” initiative, the crux of the GreenBelt was collaboration, Richards said. “It was the initial launch when the city and county worked together so effectively that allowed other partnerships and for the GreenBelt to succeed.”

She cited the new bike share program as one such successful partnership between Tanner Health, manufacturer Southwire and the University of West Georgia. Today, Tanner is working with the city to extend a spur off the GreenBelt into downtown.

A healthier population is expected to benefit the community, including improving economic development. But it won’t come quickly.

“This is not something you do for a year,” Howard said. “It takes years, if not decades, to truly impact the health of the community. The good news is, we’re in it for the long haul.”

Name the health issue that most people die from in the community*

  • Heart disease - 51.1 percent
  • Cancer - 37.7 percent
  • Diabetes - 4.7 percent
  • Stroke - 4.2 percent
  • Asthma/lung disease - 2.7 percent

*Tanner Health System primary service area In Carroll, Coweta, Douglas, Haralson, Heard, Paulding and Polk counties

Source: Survey of 1,500 people for Tanner Health System’s Community Health Needs Assessment 2013

Finding Answers in Tears

Another of my final Arkansan stories was a feature of a small startup doing some big, revolutionary work. A team of four at Ascendant Dx in Springdale, AR is working to completely change the way breast cancer screenings happen. They've developed a test that detects breast cancer biomarkers in human tears in under 30 minutes. It will cost $99. 

Right now, mammograms are all we've got. They're only about 50% accurate, they're expensive and annoying. Plus, most of the world doesn't even have access to them. Without mammograms, those women generally only find out they have breast cancer once it's advanced enough for them to have symptoms. As Omid Moghadam, the CEO of Ascendant pointed out to me, this is exactly the same way the first documented case of breast cancer was discovered 2,000 years ago in ancient Persia.

Ascendant Dx has been in the works in Arkansas for over 10 years now, and the team is now working towards full clinical trials and looking for funding. It's slow going as no one uses tears for any diagnostic testing, and the group is having to collect all their own samples manually. However, since blood is condensed to make tears in our systems, they claim this is a powerful substance with big potential to diagnose even more diseases in the future.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Arkansas firm uses tears to diagnose breast cancer

A company in Springdale is working to revolutionize the detection of breast cancer with an unusual substance -- tears.

The team at Ascendant Dx has developed a test analyzing tears that could complement -- or even replace -- mammograms as the first step in looking for breast cancer.

Omid Moghadam, CEO and chairman, said that in middle- to lower-income countries without the funding or expertise to operate mammography on a large scale, Ascendant's Melody test would be a game changer.

"We think that biological tests like Melody would be perfect for that environment," he said of the company's product, which detects biomarkers found in tears to test for the disease within 30 minutes.

"It's inexpensive, accurate and someone with minimal training can run it." From there, he explained, patients who test positive can travel to larger medical centers for further testing and treatment.

Today, physicians are reimbursed through medical insurance between $250 and $350 per mammogram, while Ascendant's target retail price for Melody is $99.

In places like the U.S., which has $5 trillion worth of mammography equipment, there is also a lot of room for improvement, he said.

"In the U.S. we are still brute forcing breast cancer detection with mammography, because we had nothing until 30 years ago," he said.

"When you go from not having anything to something that is 50 percent accurate, that's what takes hold. And that's what we still have today: a not-so-good imaging technique that has 50 percent false positive, 50 percent false negative."

Dr. Suzanne Klimberg is a breast surgeon at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' Rockefeller Cancer Institute who pioneered Ascendant's research. She remains the company's medical director and said early detection of breast cancer is the best thing until a prevention or cure is found.

"Access to care has been the biggest stumbling block," Klimberg said. "My dream has always been to have this on the market and, similar to the use of a pregnancy test, be able to screen yourself."

Moghadam referred to a study by Mei-Sing Ong and Kenneth Mandl in Health Affairs journal that found that of the $8 billion a year spent on mammography, $4 billion is wasted on false-positive diagnoses.

Among American women, breast cancer remains the second-most-diagnosed cancer and the second-most-common cause of cancer death.

The Ascendant story starts in 2006 with Klimberg at UAMS. She was inspired to work with human tears after seeing research on detecting the cancer in breast milk, realizing that the tissues that concentrate blood to produce both fluids are similar.

"It's an unusual fluid, but it has benefits," Moghadam said of tears.

"It's sterile, and it's a lot less complicated than blood," he said. "Blood has so many bits and pieces of cells and DNA that anytime you want to look for something, you have to filter lots of things out in order to find them. That becomes expensive."

The TRG Foundation in Little Rock funded Klimberg's initial research, and then it caught the attention of VIC Technology Venture Development, a Fayetteville venture creation company. That's where, Moghadam became involved, and in 2013, when it spun out of VIC, he became its CEO.

Dr. Steven Harms, a breast radiologist at the Breast Center in Fayetteville, said he was originally skeptical of the idea.

"At first I thought, 'This is very interesting, but I don't think it is going to work.' I was very skeptical, because it's almost too good to be true."

In the end, the results won him over. He now serves on the company's board, and the Breast Center has participated in the company's studies.

He recalled that two of his patients' traditional biopsies came back negative but their Ascendant's Melody tests came back positive. At first they dubbed those false positives, until the patients returned a few months later with cancerous biopsies.

He said someday, a test like Melody has the potential to replace mammograms as the first step in the process, though there will always need to be an imaging method like mammography to locate where the cancer is.

"Wouldn't it be nice if we could have people come in with a high probability of having cancer in the beginning and concentrate our resources on finding that cancer instead of just screening everybody?" he said.

Plus, he pointed out, only half of American women above 40 actually get mammograms for reasons like cost, discomfort and geographic access -- things that Melody could overcome.

Ascendant has collected around 700 samples from three validation studies so far. The next step is a clinical trial with 1,000 more subjects to gain regulatory approval in the U.S. and abroad.

One challenge researchers face is because no large-scale banks of tear samples exist, they have had to manually gather all their own samples, unlike blood samples, which can be purchased on large scales.

"Blood is already optimized," said Lindsay Rutherford, Ascendant's senior scientist. "Everything has been determined already: how to take it, how to process it."

Ascendant's scientists have been optimizing their own tear processes as they go.

They use Schirmer's test strips to collect samples, which entails placing a small piece of filter paper under an eyelid for about two minutes. It irritates the eye enough to produce tears though has no lasting effects. They were originally developed by an ophthalmologist to measure tear production.

"It makes perfect sense," said Kevin Clark, CEO of NOW Diagnostics, a Springdale company that leases lab and office space to Ascendant.

"I had not personally thought about it before, but tears are part of the lymph system. Metastasizing tumors and everything show up in the lymph system, which is part of the immune system."

NOW produces tests that use a pinprick of blood to generate fast diagnostic results for a growing list of things, including pregnancy and infectious diseases. Ascendant is using NOW's cartridges to house its Melody test.

Clark said he has high hopes for other things that could be detected by Ascendant's technology. "Especially if we can put it in our platform, then you get a point of care device that gives patients real-time results," he said.

In the meantime, Ascendant has patent applications pending in the U.S. and abroad, and is in the process of raising a second round of funding, beyond the $2 million raised in 2013.

While tens of millions of dollars have been poured into the breast cancer cause, Moghadam said, "It just goes to research. You get nice papers, but where is the result? Where is the new drug? Where's the new diagnostic? Where's the new method? Where's the new medical device?"

He called this a "fundamental" problem in the industry, not just for breast cancer. Researchers are incentivized to publish papers, but there is a gap between those papers and translating them into products.

"This is research with a purpose for us," said Anna Daily, Ascendant's chief scientist, pointing out that in academia there is little quality control or verification of results.

By contrast, she explained, "When you're in a business or a company, you have to prove to your investors, the FDA and other regulatory organizations that we did what we said we did and it shows what we said it showed."

"They build buildings but in reality, nobody needs another $50 million building on a campus," Moghadam said.

"What you need is $50 million going into 10 companies, and if one of them is successful it can actually materially affect people with breast cancer."

Ultimately, he said, "If people really, truly want to cure cancer, there needs to be a balance between research and translating research into real products."

SundayMonday on 07/09/2017

A Rare Opportunity

I recently made the bittersweet decision to quit my job at the Democrat-Gazette and move to Atlanta. Bitter, because I loved my time in Arkansas, I learned a ton from my colleagues, and I met many lovely people. Sweet, because I already can tell this was the right decision for me, to be closer to friends and family. 

However, I still have a few Arkansas stories up my sleeve. One of them, which published this week, was particularly special. I was able to interview John Roberts, the CEO of J.B. Hunt. It was the first sit-down interview he has given in the six years he has been CEO. Plus, as the company has long been media-shy, any face time with a J.B. Hunt executive is a rare opportunity. 

We covered a lot during our conversation, from autonomous truck tech to the fact that J.B. Hunt is definitely not a trucking company anymore. Hope you learn as much as I did. 

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Change ahead for J.B. Hunt; logo's not one

Modern challenges evoke firm’s first ones, CEO says

Many people have asked John Roberts why he hasn't changed J.B. Hunt's signature yellow and black scroll logo. His answer is always the same.

"I would say it is here for the long run," said the company's president and CEO of over six years in a recent interview.

Despite that same logo, the actual business Roberts runs out of Lowell looks little like the trucking company J.B. and Johnelle Hunt started back in 1969. These days J.B. Hunt is working through things such as autonomous trucking and e-commerce, while maintaining a connection to its past.

John Roberts, president and CEO of J.B. Hunt

John Roberts, president and CEO of J.B. Hunt

Even though the company still owns many trucks, Roberts said J.B. Hunt stopped being "just a trucking company" long ago.

The J.B. Hunt of today, he said, needs "to be able to think like a supply chain company, and not just a trucking company, and even not just transportation."

With that in mind, the company recently merged its brokerage division, Integrated Capacity Solutions, and its truckload division under one "Highway Services" sales and operational banner.

He said they made that decision because, "In my mind, it isn't as important today whether a J.B. Hunt asset or contracted asset handles the load. We're just here to answer your question: Mr. Customer, what do you need? Mrs. Customer, how can we serve that lane for you? If you want drop trailers, OK, we have an answer there in Highway Services."

He compared the "mode-agnostic" approach to the average consumer's indifference about which company fulfills an order they place online.

John Kent, director of the supply chain management research center at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, said the approach is evidence of J.B. Hunt being a "leader."

"They're saying, 'Hey its 2017, it's a modern industry that we're working in. We feel with the technology that we have developed we can integrate these units together operationally and market it that way to provide more value to our customer in ways that competitors can't,'" he said of the company.

Roberts said keeping the same logo symbolizes a retention of the original ethos of the company amidst a changing 21st century supply chain.

"Any time a company is named for a person, you find a different element flows through the business than if it's called 'Dynamic Insights' or something referencing the services provided," he said. "It has a different flavor to it."

For Roberts, the innovative spirit of its co-founder and namesake still lies at the center of J.B. Hunt.

"It's OK to hold onto your core value, especially if your core value system is disruptive by nature," he said, asserting that disruption has been a part of the company's history for decades.

When Hunt decided to partner with the railroad to share freight in the late 1980s, he was taking a big risk on intermodal transport. Railroads and trucking companies had been fierce competitors, and Hunt made a daunting investment in all new containers and equipment.

One nontraditional idea facing the J.B. Hunt of today and its industry peers is autonomous trucking technology.

"Autonomous trucking is very real," Roberts said. "We will be very active in testing, as we are any new idea -- like natural gas and other alternative power systems, or import changes involving the Panama Canal."

"We are not going to be caught looking over our shoulders saying, 'Why didn't we pay more attention to that?'" he said.

When asked what J.B. Hunt would have thought about this new development, his widow and co-founder Johnelle Hunt said he would be all for exploring it. "He was always looking for something new and better. That's why everything came about the way it did, like intermodal."

Roberts said the company began investing in autonomous technology about five years ago, when they installed automatic braking systems in all their trucks, which reduced rear-end collisions by 60 percent.

But at 52, Roberts said he doesn't see the regulatory environment and the general population adapting to the idea of totally self-driving tractor-trailers in his lifetime.

In regards to platooning, in which one truck can wirelessly control the speed and braking of others to save fuel, he said there remain "unanswered challenges" before a clear safety record and a good return on investment.

"Switching lanes, navigating exits, merging, and regulations are some of the roadblocks we're finding as operations explore platooning," he said.

Craig Harper, chief operating officer and the executive in charge of exploring autonomous technology and platooning, said new semi-autonomous technologies, including lane assistance and evasive maneuver assistance will be rolled out "as they are commercially viable."

Harper said he expects the company to be involved in platooning sometime in 2018, referring to forecast statistics that show "a lead truck could use 4 to 5 percent less fuel, and the subsequent truck could consume approximately 10 percent less fuel."

Ultimately, he said, "there is still a long way to go before we see major implementation of autonomous vehicles, platooning, and other such technologies," highlighting that the driver will remain an important component of any new developments.

Another dimension of the company's evolution with today's supply chain entails hefty investments in new technology and a revamping of its over 20-year-old core operating systems. It has pledged $500 million towards technology over five years to rebuild the old, develop a new cloud infrastructure and continue working on its supply chain management platform, J.B. Hunt 360.

After spending time with customer groups, Roberts said he realized J.B. Hunt could help its customers of all sizes as they adapt to the disruption of e-commerce.

"They need to be able to see what's going on in their supply chains," he said. "They need to be able to alter what's happening, and now more than ever because of e-commerce."

To provide that transparency and predictive analytics, Roberts said the company is working toward "a portal of aggregation" for all important parts of a supply chain.

"The customers really, more than anything, want crisp, real-time data that they can use, that they can act upon," he said.

Much has changed in the company as a result, down to the very language the J.B. Hunt team uses.

"We used to use terms like induction, distribution, aggregation, retail replenishment, and now we're having to think about that differently," Roberts said.

These days, he explained, the terms are "the first mile, the middle mile and the final mile."

In 2015 the company brought in Stuart Scott as chief information officer to lead these efforts. He is the first executive to not have spent at least 20 years in the company. Roberts has been at J.B. Hunt for about 27 years.

As Roberts recalled, "I told him, you're going to need to disrupt this company, and we're probably not going to like it very much. So, use my card when you need to and stay out of trouble."

Roberts said that in a conversation with a division team, he impressed on them that one of the 360 applications has the ability to show a customer his optimal transport option.

"If that means that your division is not the best answer," he said to the team, "you better figure out how to improve your value proposition, because we are going to give them the best answer."

Roberts said the company needs to find and present the best value for its customers because, "if we don't do that, somebody else is going to. We can't be too overly committed to forcing business into our segments only for the sake of growing the segment," he said.

"The right answer for the customer needs to win out over everything else," he explained.

"That path will take us where we need to go."

SundayMonday Business on 07/23/2017

The View from the Driver's Seat

At the beginning of the year, I knew I wanted to spend some time at a CDL (commercial driver's license) school to learn about what kinds of people were signing up to be drivers and why.

I didn't really know what story I would end up with. In the end, it took me about six months of going to classes and hours in truck cabs, plus talking, Facebook messaging and texting with drivers to figure that out.

I just knew I wanted to stick it out with the guys until they made it into employment. (Yes, just guys in these classes--only about 7 percent of drivers are female.) I was trying to get a sense of what it really means to enter the truck driving market today. 

Like all stories, there are many sides to this one. However, my priority here was to let the narrative be driven by the lives directly impacted by the larger economic and industry forces at work. Hopefully that shows. 

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Goals, reality often clash for truck drivers

Recruiters, advertising don’t give true picture

When Corey Marler had to close his sheet metal construction company after an injury, the Rogers resident applied to a temp agency to pay his bills. It took months to get through their processes to start making money. Once he did, he could only find a job working nights at a signage factory in 95-degree heat for $11 an hour.

Then he heard from a friend that trucking companies need drivers and enrolled to get his commercial driver's license, or CDL. Within days of submitting one application to a trucking company, he had dozens of emails and voice mails from trucking recruiters. He began work in a week.

"It represents a new life," Marler said. "It puts the ball back in your court instead of somebody else's."

The ease of entry stems from a driver shortage the long-haul trucking industry has been complaining about for decades. The average driver turnover rate falls around 90 percent, and companies work hard to attract people across the country with hopeful promises of better benefits and pay, autonomy and the open road.

It's no accident that many trailers have permanent "drivers wanted" signs, though it all begs the question: Why has this problem persisted for so long?

Bob Costello, chief economist for the American Trucking Associations, pegged the national shortage around 50,000 in 2015 and said there are several reasons for it.

First of all, being away from home for weeks at a time wears on people, he said. Second, there is a "demographics issue" as a result of the minimum age being 21.

"That means we lose out on all of those people coming out of high school," he said. The median age of a truck driver is 49, versus 42 for all professions, according to a report by Costello and U.S. Department of Labor statistics.

The trucking industry also has trouble recruiting women, who make up about half of the labor force, he said.

"You add all of this stuff up together, and we've got a labor shortage," Costello said. "I guess that's good news for current and would-be drivers. I don't care what you're short. You're short bottled water and the price goes up. You're short truck drivers and the pay goes up."

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the median heavy-duty tractor trailer driver salary at about $41,000, compared with that of a textile or furnishing worker at $30,000. Trucking company advertisements commonly tout the longer-term possibility to earn closer to $80,000.

As Doug Carter, founder of the Mid-America Truck Driving School in Malvern put it, "I firmly believe, and I've said it to my students many times, as long as you have this CDL in your pocket, it's like an asset."

He said after leaving a career as an accountant in corporate America in 1982, it "represented a way for me to provide for myself and my family."

The shortage, Carter said, "is a blessing for the drivers, but a curse for the carriers, shippers and consignees."

Steve Viscelli has focused his sociology career on the trucking industry and even went out on the road as a driver himself at one point.

He said many new drivers are "pushed" into trucking as a second or third career. For various reasons, like a shrinking industry or an injury, he explained, they have been "pushed out of a job" and are looking to maintain that income level.

"They've had a decent or skilled job, and they lose it or want to move away from it," he said. "Trucking at least promises the ability to maintain that same income level. Even if it requires 50 or 100 percent more hours, they can still keep that income longer term."

Then there are those "pulled in," he said, "looking for higher wages than they had earned previously."

Diego Nava said he now makes about twice the money driving for Maverick Transportation than he had been making at a Wal-Mart distribution center.

"I don't have to put up with another person supervising me," he added. "As long as I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, no one bothers me."

"I'm still trying to get used to staying away from home for long periods of time," the father of two admitted. He said he makes it home most weekends.

Viscelli agreed that drivers can make good money on the road, but that statistic often doesn't take into account that they can work twice as many hours to do it.

"The initial money is very attractive to workers who want to go up in pay and can sustain those 70-80 hour weeks," he admitted. "A lot of workers who are maybe coming from lower-paying jobs are happy with that, except for the time that it requires away from home."

Shortage self-inflicted

Viscelli said the driver shortage could be self-inflicted by the industry. "A driver a few years ago described it to me as, 'It's a shortage of drivers the same way there's a shortage of Cadillacs. If I walk into a Cadillac dealership and tell them I want to pay $10,000, and they tell me there are no Cadillacs, there must be a shortage of Cadillacs.'

"When you look at it, you've got 10 million CDL holders in the U.S. right now," Viscelli said. "But, only 3 million are using them. There is no shortage at all of CDL drivers. We've got 7 million sitting on the sideline, but for an industry that supposedly has a shortage, they can't attract the 7 million who have already trained for the job."

One problem Viscelli highlighted is a misconception of immediate high pay, given that the estimates in recruiting and advertisements are calculated at top productivity potential. Most drivers, he said, become disillusioned because it takes time to reach that top productivity, so they earn less at first, especially taking into account the lower pay rates of mandatory training time.

The statistics of unemployment offices can be skewed because it assumes a 40-hour workweek, Viscelli added.

"They estimate that drivers make around $25 per hour whereas most drivers end up working for $10 per hour. Their calculations are off because they just don't know how much truck drivers actually work," Viscelli said, referring to nondriving work time, like waiting and loading time.

"Really new drivers are very hopeful, and it's hard for them to negotiate the conflicting messages that they get," he said.

Faulty math

After deciding between more than 20 companies, Marler completed his training with Crete Carrier Corp. and is driving on his own. However, he said, "I'm finding out some stuff that the recruiter neglected to tell me."

He said the recruiter had promised 44 cents a mile. "I did all the math at 44 cents a mile," he said. After starting, he was told he has to work for six months at 36 cents per mile before the pay ramps up to 48 cents.

"All my math figuring went down the drain," he said.

Crete advertises its "experienced truck driver pay rate" of 46-49 cents per mile on its website.

Marler also said he was not expecting to have to pay hundreds of dollars for a refrigerator, a converter, broom and cleaning supplies for the truck and trailer. Plus, the truck he was first assigned was filthy and had a melted dashboard.

He has been home for a total of just over a week for the past nine weeks and said his work days have ranged from 10-17 hours with all the extra paperwork and trip planning.

But he can't leave the company yet. "I've got so much time invested in it. If I go to another company, I'm going to repeat the entire process again. I would lose the months of training to start all over again, whereas come October I'll get the 44 cents."

Steven Covington said he got behind on some bills because the training pay at USA Truck was not as much as he had expected. He was gone for two months before returning home unexpectedly for a few days for a funeral.

Despite his original plans to stay out and travel long term, Covington said he has decided he will only stick with it for a few years until he gets his finances in order. He said he's seen the health issues facing drivers and has realized, "the road is not my life. I have other things to do."

For now it's still better than his previous job managing a Whataburger at nights. "I miss the people, but I don't miss the work," he said. "It was killing me."

After about five months of school, training and early stumbling blocks, Marler said, "I'm doing everything I can to stay here right now. When I devote myself to something I try to stick it out no matter how tough. Apparently for the next few months it's going to be nothing but tough," he said.

"I've looked into it, and there's nothing else I can really go do right now and make $1,000 a week," Marler added. "That will at least keep the bills paid."

SundayMonday Business on 06/25/2017