Viewpoint: Building on Bill Augello’s legacy
Michael A. Levans, Group Editorial Director -- Logistics Management, 2/1/2008
Come on, admit it: Admit that you don’t fully understand even the bare-bone basics of transportation law. When a legal issue pops up, you scramble to make a few calls to find out just how much you’re going to get burnt; and then you rush to cover your oversight and drum up a few excuses for the CFO or your in-house attorney.
Well, maybe I’m being a little tough. But let’s be honest: Transportation law—and how it directly relates to your day-to-day operations—is probably the single most important issue you know the least about. Lack of knowledge of your negotiated contracts or how to file a loss and damage claim may be costing your company money and putting your logistics operation at great risk.
Bill Augello fully understood how important it is for shippers to grasp the fundamentals of transportation law. In fact, Bill was so passionate about the subject that he devoted 50 years of his career to helping shippers better understand the legal aspects of logistics—and, in turn, helped savvy shippers grow their careers based on his teachings.
If you haven’t already, I would highly suggest you familiarize yourself with his landmark text Transportation, Logistics and the Law. While its size might be daunting, Bill’s book puts complicated ideas into layman’s terms with relative ease—and could literally save you a container load of cash.
When we lost Bill in 2006, shippers lost a great champion, a true gentleman, and a fabulous personality. However, Bill’s passion for transportation law lives on in the form of Brent Primus, a transportation attorney based in Minneapolis. Bill was Brent’s mentor and good friend, and in Bill’s final days Brent pledged that he would carry on the educational tradition Bill began nearly a half century ago—and we pledged to help.
In the article “5 challenges you can’t ignore,” Brent magnifies the legal fundamentals shippers need to fully understand in order to be successful day-to-day, and then neatly summarizes the most relevant legal cases over the past year and what those decisions could mean to your operations—surely required reading.
But our pledge goes beyond just a few features and a couple columns. For years Bill conducted a live seminar that walked shippers through the most critical details of his text. Brent has continued the seminar series, however, he was anxious to take it to a larger audience. With that in mind, LM has partnered with Brent to develop Logistics and the Law, a new online educational series that will be made available on our site in May.
While we’re working out the final details of delivery, we can assure you that it will be very much in the Augello tradition of no-nonsense, practical education that you can put to use immediately.
Comments? E-mail me at michael.levans@reedbusiness.com
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Brent WM Primus,JD,As an old Bill Augello student It Pleases me to see your group continue with Bills valued work.At 82 Im still enjoying logistics but find keeping up With current law a tough subject to convey to shipping public.Wishing you success.please add our E mail address in order to keep up with future releases.Best Regards.
Joseph S.Arena - 2008-29-2 10:43:00 EST
You can’t afford to stop learning
01/31/2009
