George Arterberry - Using GIS to Transform Global Supply Chains

In this episode of NorthStar GAZE, George Arterberry, Director of Global Supply Chain Operations at Bridgeport Group, shares his journey from military officer to geospatial logistics leader. We explore how mapping pharmacy deserts improves healthcare access and how Bridgeport’s partnership with NorthStar GIS is advancing racial equity and innovation in supply chain operations. George also offers insights into the future of logistics, including drone deliveries and workforce development. Tune in for a dynamic discussion on the power of GIS in shaping a more equitable and efficient supply chain industry.

Transcript

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Be Black, Be Bold, Be Innovative, Show the World Equitable Geo. We're coming together as a collective to celebrate people of African descent, the diaspora, and talking about geospatial equity and justice. You're listening to The North Star Gaze, a podcast with intimate stories from geoluminaries. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of NorthStar Gaze. On this conversation, we're going to feature a seasoned supply chain professional. We're going to have a conversation with George Atterbury, the director of global supply chain operations for Bridgeport Group, and we're excited to have him. One of the biggest things that really struck a chord with me with George's bio was one of the research he did on. Mapping pharmacy deserts and understanding healthcare gaps in black and brown communities. And so we're also going to get into that within this conversation. But before we get into that, hi, George, and have George briefly introduce yourself and tell us what it means to be a director of global supply chain operations. Thank you for having me. I guess being out of Bureau, I am a. Director of global supply chain operations for Bridgeport Group, a veteran and minority owned business entity headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. I've been with the company about 8 years. Before then, I was a military officer in the United States Army. Retired at the rank of colonel. My background is mostly logistics and supply chain. We dovetail into this. But, um, supply chain and logistics in the military is a lot different from the private sector. I guess being a director of global supply chain is you oversee the company. Anything that deals with supply chain falls under myself. That means import or export. Let's say we want to bring in. Materials from say, uh, just random country, Brazil, my team will plot the who, what, where and how. So, if a company wants to bring in steel, we would put it on a ship, have it go to Norfolk, Virginia. Then we have what's called transloaded from there to ship to trucks via containers and be shipped to any destination in the United States. It's basically just the movement of products. From point A to point B, everything's different. Every, uh, organization is different. Everybody have different needs. Everybody have basic fiscal levels, which they want to deal with. So if you want to fly something in, that's a lot more expensive than everything ships with the world geopolitical situation, what it is. There are some routes that are, you got the avoidable or you want to avoid some countries when you call actors, there are consequences in dealing with them. So you have to maneuver around that as well. Thank you. One of the things you've mentioned that's really interesting is your background in military. And I'm interested in how did you get into GIS and how did your background influence? Because we know. I know my head is just thinking about the military was one of the key implementers. You are the first users, right? And so how did you get into GIS? And how did you experience in the military ship? What you're currently doing with supply chains? Basically, we had a relationship with AIM. Went to the users conference in San Diego a few years ago. Began there. We met the founders of Northstar and saw what they were doing. Their mission statement aligned with our company's mission statement and goals. And we pursued it ever since. And I'm just looking at NorthStar and what they want to do. At the end of the day, people of color are underrepresented in GIS. I'm liking a lot of things. NorthStar is walking the walk, and we want to be a part of that. We pursued each other for a period of time, and we have a signed partnership to move forward. I've seen GIS in military applications, especially in logistics. And when you have to see terrain dealing with combatants, when you're dealing with wartime scenarios, you're giving positions. If you have to transport cargo, you have to look at the terrain. So GIS came to hand. I was using GIS before I knew what it was doing my military career. Now I have more of a. Fleshed out understanding of what it is and its importance. And it just makes me doubly impressed in the work of people like Northstar and others. But I just want to be a part of that. Hi, I'm Erica Phillips. I'm here also as a co host with Yariwo. Yariwo, thank you so much for asking George about his military background, because that was something I was curious about also. But George, what you just said is so true for so many people. We've got thousands of people who leverage GIS without being GIS. Quote unquote professionals, they are using geography and location in their everyday lives and in their professional world. So it sounds like that was true for you as well, coming out of supply chain and logistics for Department of Defense. I was within different parts within Department of Defense, but yes, I spent a lot of my time in what's called Army Material Command was basically the logistics arm of the Army and enlisted in DLA, which is Defense Logistics for the entire Department of Defense. So we were using GIS, we just wasn't called GIS. I've touched bases with not knowing. We're bringing it to the space now. And I knew that Bridgeport was a partner of Northstar GIS. Thank you so much for being an active and engaged partner. We love what you bring to the organization. This is the first time I'm hearing the story of how that partnership was born. So it was literally at an Esri UC conference. Yeah, it can be an 80s romance novel where you see somebody, you presume, you keep presuming, but no, you know, we met at a conference and I was very impressed with Clinton and the message he gave. And in all seriousness, from what I saw when I went to the user's conference, I didn't see a whole lot of people who look like me. It was thousands of people. I saw some, but I didn't see enough. A lot of people don't know about GIS. That's the thing I'm perplexed on is this is almost a wide open frontier and not a lot of people know about it. So That has to change, you know, I want to be a part of that chain. I think one of the other things you mentioned that is also pretty interesting, and I want us to get into that briefly. You've talked about the underrepresentation of Black people in GEO, and we're talking about Peterball GEO. One of the key things that strikes me when you're talking about supply chain. Is we miss conversations around the inequalities and the inequities. We are always talking about maximizing profit, minimizing costs, and it's always a cost conversation. So I'm curious when it comes to the equity side of it, when it comes to racial equity, gender equity, and how you're looking at that from a supply chain perspective. Can you help us flesh that out on what that looks like in terms of even the projects you're doing? I know we have only a few minutes, so I'm not going to take too long. You gotta realize that Bridgeport is a for-profit business. You can't go into a business sort of, okay, we're going to deal with this group or this group. But I think what we've done is to find ways to help people come into the business. We have a robust internship program where we bring in young professionals. When you look at the supply chain, a lot of people see Amazon delivery workers in the warehouse, but there's a huge management track in between. We created a certification program that will teach supply chain, reduce the recidivism. To give, um, people in certain points of their life, a credential to go into that business and create ability to take care of themselves and their family because turnover at the warehouse level is very high, even with robotics and automation is still hard work. We're pursuing other things with other organizations to change the dynamics at the mid manager level to bring in more mid managers that look like. Us into organizations. We do a lot of mentorship. We've done things with the Howard university supply chain. I've done a lot with USC. I went to Howard undergrad and I went to USC grads. USC has a supplies chain summit every year. Last year, we had a case competition within the business analytics group, and that was made up of a lot of people of color, international students. So I'm a part of that. I do what I can to touch who I can. To bring them into the profession. What we have interns. We're part of organizations to make change, but there's a business entity. You can't select who becomes your customer. If not, you're not going to survive as a business, but as a business professional, there are things that I do to bring in people within the profession. That will right some of the historic wrongs within the profession, as I see it. Now, Yariwa, you may not be as familiar with the HBCU as we are here in the United States. So we have historically Black colleges and universities, and I know George is a proud graduate of Howard University. George was one of the presenters when we hosted the 2024 Homecoming event on the campus of Howard University. I know that Bridgeport has An HBCU initiative, right? Was that one of your programs, George? How did that come about? Myself and Tasha Hudson, the director of partnerships, uh, wanted partner work basis, improve, bring in students for internships, mentor students who want to go into business supply chain or logistics, and we've been doing that for the last four years. Well, our initial, I don't want to say test case, but initial was Howard because I went to Howard, the management partner went to Howard. And Miss, uh, Hudson is a graduate of Hampton University, but we just concluded a election here in the United States, and the person who lost was in school with me. It's like, literally, a who's who of people in the United States. I'm very proud of that. And for those of the international audiences, I could go into the history of HBCU. I'll just stop there. But, no, we look at, we're trying to Bring in more people at every level within our profession, because a lot of people come in at the worker level. It's a high level of turnover, but we don't see anything at the midman or the C suite level. So we want to help turn some of that around. Great. Oh yeah, my head is shifting to the mapping of, um, pharmacies. That was one of the projects that really struck me and I think it was really interesting. And so curious on the inspiration behind that and some of the patterns you uncover when looking at this data and the findings you get from this. You just tie it again to equitable geo. And where GIS sits, when it comes to understanding some of these dynamics within society and within our communities, we are in the process of creating a warehouse in Cleveland, Ohio. It will be a state of the art, multi thousand square foot warehouse. And in the heart of the urban core of Cleveland, one of the reasons to mention part of what a pursuit is, is we all know that COVID exposing inadequacies of health. Disparities within this country and probably worldwide, but I'll just focus on the United States and Cleveland, Ohio. In particular, we use that use GIS to use data within various neighborhoods and zip codes within the Cleveland, Ohio area that kind of shows disparity of health. One of the things we saw in Cleveland is within 10 or 15 blocks or less, some people live 15 years longer. Because of where they live, one of the things I was discussing, it was pharmacy deserts in a lot of areas from red lining to white flight, you've had neighborhoods with basic services. We're not equitable, so we think, okay, we need to correct that. So the correction of that is we put a warehouse that we can do research, be closer to the people that need medicines. One of the things that came out of it is the delivery of medicines. But a lot of people, A, don't have smartphones, so they fell through the cracks. So we, we've done research on, okay, how do we close that divide within the, within the community to access vaccines and medicines in an equitable way? It's not solved, but we want to present alternatives, not to go too far off on a tangent, but drone delivery of medicines. That's the next thing. And we're trying to be in the room. I think too many new technologies are dropped on our people's head without prior warning. And we want to be in the room. Sometimes I think there's like a canary in a coal mine, but we still want to be part of the solution. We just don't want to screen inequities. We want to be part of the solution. What you're saying is perfect because you're dovetailing what Yariwo is talking about, about equity, access to healthcare, access to pharmacies, pharmacy deserts, those are. Issues where you see inequities more than any other place, right? I love this answer and linking it to COVID. If nothing else, it was a geospatial challenge from how the disease spread to access to personal protective equipment, right? PPEs or delivery of, of. Gloves, understanding the things that were not being produced in the United States. But then I also love where you're taking this into the future, right? Where are we headed? And as being one of the presenters for North stars homecoming event in 2024, our theme was art, Afro tourism, and geography. And you have actually. Just literally tied all of those things together, right? There's an art and a science to logistics. So talk to me a little bit more. Talk to us about where are you seeing this technology take your business? In the future, I'm a big science fiction fan, Star Trek, Star Wars, comic book head, all of that. So a lot of things we read about 10, 15, 20, 30 years ago are coming to fruition now, one form or another. And I think one of the things which I kind of stress when we have meetings is we, as a company, we have to not look at the next trend. We have to look over the next mountain. And I think one of those things is. The use of mobile technology, most parts of the world, people use mobile phones for everything. Not only just communicating, that's how they do commerce. That's how bank transactions are done. And I think we have to follow the next mountain when it comes to trends. And I think what you're seeing now is other parts of the world catching up while there's so much political instability around the world, a lot of people don't realize, which is sad. But it is what it is that people all around the planet look at to look at Instagram or whatever their country's equivalent is. And that on the ground, that's what the innovations are being made. The innovations may be being made in Kenya, Rwanda, UAE, Nigeria. I think we'd step out of our comfort zone and we need to go to these places. So in 2000, we're going to be going overseas for several conferences to see several innovations. I spoke earlier about medical delivery, drone delivery. I think that's the next frontier in development, how goods are transferred to countries from the city center to like refugee camps or that sort of thing. Drones is going to be a part of that. So drones are going to be part of delivery in the United States. Who thought they would see self driving cars? We are here now. The technology is here, but will it get to the wider public? I don't want us to be left behind. We have to be in the room with that. We want to be part of the next wave. Not just the next trend. Thanks, George. I really like the fact that you mentioned that we want to be in the room and be part of these conversations. Before we wrap up, I'm curious, are you able to point us to the right direction, especially for young people and flesh it out in terms of we're talking about being in the room that these opportunities, what are these roles we need to start looking out for, especially in supply chain? Because I'm now thinking, okay, then that means you also need to be In the policy side as well to just ensure that these enforcement as well on the ground. So I think I want to be your brain on us being in the room, especially from a young people's perspective and a global perspective. I think the easy answer is pursuing education and that doesn't mean college. I think right now we're in the age of certifications, where you see a lot of people rethinking the value of a four year degree. One thing I noticed about young people nowadays, there's a great entrepreneurial spirit out there. So that should continue good old fashioned investigation never hurts being part of a supply chain professional associations is always a requirement for networking purposes. Go to these events. It's possible. A lot of them have student discounts. A lot of them have. There's no signs that say, excuse my French, no Blacks allowed. You can go where you want to go. But I think a lot of things, a turn off a lot of these things that's costing with a lot of these conferences aren't free. So we have to find a way around that. Partnering with organizations. I think seeing if, can you volunteer? Can you be an intern or what have you? Some way to get into the room. Do your research. Young people do research. They Google, Bing or whatever to research a particular person or organization. Do the same thing here. Supply chain is one of those fields where at least once upon a time, you almost had to start at the working warehouse floor. That's no longer the case. Now you can come in with a business analytics or something else, research and find out what your niche is and go for it. If you go to work for Amazon, they want you to learn every aspect of the business. So you're going to be. On the floor, working in a warehouse, but that's not what you want to do. Find what you want to do because you can do anything within a supply chain. You can be whatever your field is. You don't have to necessarily supply chain major or supply chain person. You can bring you whatever your skillset is into supply chain. George, you talked about the case competition at USC, and I'm pretty sure our listeners would be curious to hear more about that. Can you tell us a little bit about the case competition? Yes. It was through the Marshall school of business, which I'm a graduate of. It was in a business analytics department. I was part, I was part of the supply chain institute, but basically. It was a one day event and it had over 240, that was almost vast majority of the students within that program. The USC probably has more international students than most schools. So, um, it was mostly made up of students from the Pacific Rim, Korea, China, Japan, Africa, et cetera. You have, we had a problem statement. We had maybe 30 or more teams of three or more people. We presented them a problem that involved Bridgeport Group. We wanted them to use data analytics to find the best place to set an iSpace warehouse within the United States. I was a judge, too, and they did some strong and very impressive presentations. They would work as a team to come up with a presentation of how cities X, Y, iSpace warehousing within the United States. And that was a problem statement, and we whittled it down to the final three. everybody. We had a time where we introduced if they had any questions, we would answer that and then they created PowerPoint presentations and they presented those to us on the final day. That's basically it. That sounds very cool. I can't wait to do a little bit more research on that myself. And I think that you and Northstar Bridgeport are working on some sort of. element related to the case competition? Yes, we are in the early stages of bringing that to Howard University or some local college. Sometime in 2025. I think what I've noticed me being a dinosaur, but a lot of the young people look at case competitions more favorably than internships because one is a cash reward and two, it's something you can put on your resume. You were the winner of. The case competition because of X, Y, and Z, that might be case competitions. I really love the practicality of that. I think one more thing I'm curious about now that you're here about all these impactful projects. What would you say had been the biggest breakthrough for you through this journey? What is that one thing that you think you really nailed and you're proud of in your journey? My journey was a little different from a lot of people. When I was in the military, that was a very satisfying part of my life. This, it was camaraderie. There was a lot of accomplishment of things, but at the end of the day, it's relationships. The thing I'm most proud of is helping young people, younger people find a voice in their niche because the next generation is not going to be. Like us, they're not going to be like my parents. And I think as we see within the last few months worldwide of what's going on, we're not as advanced as we thought we would be in a lot of areas in life, in American life, in life in general. I think young people aren't going to settle for a lot of things. My generation settled for the thing I'm most proud of is not just. Projects per se is helping interns, people like Northstar, the both of you telling about the journey and hoping that inspires someone else because. The work is the work. Someone told me a long time ago when I was in the military that this person devoted so much time and they had a hard time and he died. This was a Pentagon thing. And the next day, somebody was at the desk. So the job goes on. They can always replace you at the job, but the relationships don't go away. Who you help and who you help find their voice to me has been more important than the actual project itself. What a lovely message, especially at this time of year, it is the holiday season here in the U S and around the world. So what a lovely message to think about the connections between people. Now I have a non GIS, it is a GIS related question for you, but it's totally irreverent. And has nothing to do with your extraordinary experience and background. Let me ask you this, which superpower could best leverage GIS? If you could choose one, would it be x ray vision, time travel, flight, invisibility, or something else? Which superpower would you choose? You've activated the inner nerd in me. One day, one day I can show you the 10, 000 comic books I've collected over my life. It's crazy. You've asked that I'm going to answer that. The easiest question is probably x ray vision and strength. Because GIS, if you're able to just forgive me, I'm really going nerd right now, really nerd. So it's okay. The latest new Superman trailer came out. Yes. One of the characters is named Mr. Terrific. He's like the smartest man in the world. He's African American. He's a guy with the Afro thing painted on his face. He's one of the characters I've always liked. GIS level with him because it's intelligence. GIS gives you the ability to do everything about your adversaries, your mission, everything. That's what GIS does. I'd rather have, I'd rather have the super intelligence. Nah, I don't think about it. I'd rather have, I'd rather be Dr. Doom. I'd rather be, I hate to say it, most intelligence are villains. In that world. So it's Dr. Doom, next blue door, that sort of thing. That's what GIS is. So I hate to break it to you. Oh, you got Tony Stark. So I'm going to convince us that you're a bad guy, George. I'm not, but that's the GIS. I hate to say it, but GIS kind of lines up with the super villains. Cause most of the super villains, super smart people who develop bad weapons, but GIS is for good. It's not for bad. We're going to try and make sure it's used for good. Right. Yeah. All right. Well. I want to thank both of you, what you do and what you are doing, and you talked about the medium. Look at what we're doing now. We are speaking. We're on two continents. We have three very different divergent lifestyles and what's our commonality is GIS. So I think that's what the power of GIS is. I think it's going to bring people together. I don't know what's the end game of all of this. I think it's gonna bring a lot of people from different cultures closer together. I think groups like North Star and what you two are doing are going to bring our younger people closer via GIS, and I just hope to be a part of that. I'm proud to be associated with this podcast and what you two are doing to make that possible. So again, thank you both for what you're doing and what my grandmother used to say. Like I said, at the homecoming event. You ladies are doing the Lord's works. You go ahead. Thank you. It was beyond, we couldn't get this out of Google. Thank you so much for giving this nuggets and sharing so much of your work. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about Northstar of GIS, check us out on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at GIS Northstar. We want to thank our sponsors of the 2024 Homecoming event, our institutional partner ReGrid, and our sponsors New Light Technology, Afrotech, and Black at Work. We'd like to thank our keynotes, Tara Roberts, Linda Harris, Dr. Paulette Hines Brown, and Vernice Miller Travis. We'd like to thank Howard University and the staff at the Interdisciplinary Building and Photography by Imagery by Chioma. We also want to thank our guests for trusting us with their stories. Tara, Linda, Paulette, Christian, Abraham, Jason, Vernice, Stella, Beye, Karen. Nikki, George, Frank, Labdi, Toussaint, Victoria, and the HBCU Environmental Justice Technical Team. And finally, thank you to the North Star team and our wonderful volunteers. We are your hosts of the Season 2 of the North Staggers Podcast, which is based on the 2024 Homecoming Conference event. Thanks for listening to the North Star Gaze, intimate stories from geoluminaries. If you're inspired to advance racial justice in geofields, please share this podcast with other listeners in your community. The intro and outro are produced by Organized Sound Productions with original music created by Kid Bodega. The North Star Gaze is produced in large part by donations and sponsorship. To learn more about North Star GIS, Check us out at north star of gis.org and on Facebook or Instagram at GIS North Star. If you'd like to support this podcast and North Star of gis, consider donating at North star of gis.org/donate or to sponsor this podcast, email podcast at north star of gis.org. You've been listening to the North Star Gaze.