In an age when shippers and carriers must work together to increase security on transportation movements, the National Industrial Transportation League (NITL) has chosen a man with a reputation for fostering partnerships between those two groups as its executive of the year. Later this month, the group will present its outgoing chairman, Van L. Hayes Jr., with the McCullough Logistics Executive of the Year Award.

The annual award, which is sponsored by the league and Logistics Management magazine, recognizes an individual who has a demonstrated track record of achievement, devotion and leadership in the transportation industry. The award is named after John T. McCullough, a former chief editor of Distribution magazine, one of the predecessors of Logistics Management.

In his role as chairman of the NITL, Hayes has been instrumental in championing the league's "Vision 2020" policy, a shift in the league's philosophy and membership rules. When the group was founded in 1907, NITL's goal was to promote the interests of shippers on Capitol Hill. Earlier this year the league decided to open up its ranks to include carriers, third-party logistics companies, freight forwarders and customs brokers. Hayes was a leading voice for making that change.

"Because of his future-oriented approach to the league, he [Hayes] was the one who promoted this vision of a more cooperative arrangement of allowing carriers to be full voting members of the league," says NITL President Ed Emmett. "The old confrontational regulatory days are gone. He has been a leading voice in the industry for years, and he's the guy who's had the biggest impact in the past year."

Under Hayes' chairmanship, the NITL also acquired the American Society of Transportation and Logistics (AST&L) this past May. Formed in 1946, AST&L provides education for transportation and logistics professionals and seeks to foster high standards of professional excellence. The group offers a well-known industry certification program. AST&L now operates as a separate organization under NITL's umbrella.

Hayes was cited for his efforts to broaden the organization by the incoming NITL chairman, Thomas F. Pellington, a senior director of transportation for the David J. Joseph Co. in Cincinnati. "I can't think of anyone who would be more deserving of that award this year," says Pellington. "Van, through his leadership, certainly got NITL to broaden its value to its membership and to everyone in the supply chain."

Hayes has worked in the transportation and distribution industry for almost four decades. He's currently the manager of transportation and support services for Vulcan Materials Co.'s Construction Materials Group. Based in Birmingham, Ala., Vulcan is the nation's foremost producer of construction aggregates such as crushed stone, sand and gravel.

Hayes recently spoke with Logistics Management executive editor James Cooke from his office in Alabama.

Q You've been involved in logistics and transportation for more than three decades. What's the biggest change you've seen in the field during your long career?

A Communications.

Q What do you mean by that?

A Because of communications, we're now much more able to manage our inventories. We're better able to manage our private car fleets. Therefore, we can communicate with our customers better. And help the manufacturing end of the business forecast better.

Taking inventory out of the pipeline has been a dollar saver for all of us. That's totally enabled by communications.

Q You championed the idea of bringing carriers into NITL's fold as full members. Why was that?

A You've heard about transportation partnerships. In reality, we were fighting and battling each other.

What I have found over my career and in talking with a lot of other people is that the best way to get anything done with the carriers is to sit down and try and work things out. We explain to them what our needs and capabilities are. And they explain to us what their needs and capabilities are.

If carriers are full members of NITL, they can sit in on our committee meetings and general meetings. And we can learn first-hand from each other what our capabilities and needs are. And we can work together before real problems develop.

Q You also advocated bringing the American Society of Transportation and Logistics into NITL. Why?

A Being a member of AST&L, I knew they provided a valuable service in the area of education and testing of people in our industry. AST&L had a bad experience with another organization and was looking for a home. NITL was looking for a way to enhance its education efforts so it seemed to be a natural.

For AST&L, the stability of the NITL offered a way for it to continue its educational efforts. For NITL, [the addition of AST&L meant that] we could offer more and better educational programs to our members. Also through AST&L's efforts at the college level, NITL will be known to more new people as they enter our industry.

Q What are the biggest challenges facing NITL as an organization in the coming years?

A Right now, the biggest problem we have is security.

Q What do you mean by that?

A Since 9/11, everyone has security on their mind because of the terrorist attacks. How are we going to make our commerce secure and yet allow it to move in a timely fashion at a cost we can afford?

We can look at and inspect every shipment. But that would be cost prohibitive and would delay things so much, it's not practical.

Q How will shippers and carriers ease the government's concerns over security and still expedite the movement of freight?

A "Profiling" is not a good word. Some way or other, we have got to come up with a list of known entities, companies that have been shipping materials for years and run good, clean operations. They're going to have to be exempt from some of these detailed regulations. It's just not practical to open every single container, whether it's an international shipment or domestic shipment.

Whether you call it "profiling" or "sampling," we're going to have to come up with a system like that.

Q So you would favor the government's establishing some kind of database of known shippers who should be exempt from these regulations?

A Exempt from the majority of them. Certainly, they will have to meet criteria. But yes, you're going to have to do that because we cannot delay shipments for days and days and days just to have them looked at and inspected. The government doesn't have enough people to do that and we don't have enough money to pay for that.

Q What will transportation and industry professionals need to master to stay on top of the industry in the next five years?

A That's easy. It's the computer.

Q Specifically what, though? Will they need to know how to work with specific software tools? Or just develop a general understanding of computers?

A I think there will be a lot of advances made in software, so it's the general tools. Keep in mind that it wasn't that long ago the transportation guy was just that. He was a traffic manager. He had a calculator and a bunch of tariffs. Now it's all gone to computers and the guy who cannot utilize the computer and the Internet and software programs will be out in left field.

Q Aside from computer literacy, is there any other area that managers will have to master to ensure their success?

A One thing they'll have to master is financials. You know the traffic guy is going away and the logistics guy is taking his place. This logistics guy just has to be better educated all around in business.

Finance is one of the things driving stuff right now. Inventory and ROI, for example. He'll have to be very astute in the financial aspects.

Q Would you recommend transportation and logistics as a career to young people?

A Yes, I would. It's a very exciting field. If you go back just 10 years, you'll see that a staggering amount of change has taken place. As I said, the traffic manager is now extinct and has been replaced by the logistics guy. So it's a very exciting field.