Role:
Service Center Manager of Sales & Service
Company:
Old Dominion Freight Line
Location:
Wilmington, NC
Why did you choose an online format?
I've moved four times in the last six years so it was very beneficial that I was able to still do my classwork online. Before I took my current position, I was a part of the In-Depth Interview Team for Old Dominion Freight Line and I used to visit every one of our service centers around the country to interview the employees and see what the company could do better. An online program gave me the versatility to login wherever I was.
How are you applying what you learn in class immediately to your work?
Day in and day out, actually. I just completed the Business Analytics course, and that helped me dig into the numbers that I see daily and how to see, work and play with the data that we as a company have currently and what we will have in the future. In Global Managerial Economics, the curriculum played a key role in what I do because our economy and the trucking industry are basically tied together. If the economy is slow then the trucking industry is going to be slow. For instance, the trade wars and the North American Free Trade Agreement not being ratified puts a lot of constrictions on the economy and on the trucking industry because it restricts our ability to deliver freight.
What is your wicked problem?
You can make $100,000 driving a truck with just a high school diploma. It’s really tough because we are probably down to about 70,000 drivers in the country, which is going to affect the nation’s economy. If there’s a shortage of drivers, it means that companies like mine have to charge more to move shipments across the nation, and that increases the prices for the consumer at the final sale.