I provide peace of mind for pallet buyers with guaranteed time, cost savings, and enhanced visibility.

With 14+ years in the supply chain industry, I have secured multi-million dollar, multi-year enterprise and mid-market contracts. I help manufacturers, distributors, and 3PLs reduce pallet spend, eliminate waste, and gain visibility across their operations.

If your business is battling pallet issues like paying above market, excess pallets onsite, fines or rejections at DCs, too many pallet vendors, or blind spots across locations, this is when I can help. Through PalletTrader, my team and I identify leakage, consolidate supply, and provide real-time tools that bridge procurement and operations. 

Want to know where you stand? DM 'Pallet Audit' 

Personally, I value connecting with people who strive to grow physically, nutritionally, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually. I am a husband, father of two daughters, proud owner of two dogs and two cats, and a man of faith who believes integrity and service come first.

Relationships over transactions. Results over noise.

“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” 
– Zig Ziglar

I had a strange dream last night. Brad Jacobs was asking me how I like to make avocado toast. No idea where that came from, but I apparently felt the need to explain the entire process before I woke up.

When I opened my eyes, the song "Ripple" by the Grateful Dead popped into my head. It got me thinking about the ripple effect of decisions we rarely see while they’re happening.

Years ago Brad invested a few hundred million dollars into Express-1 and built what eventually became XPO. At the time it just felt like another freight brokerage office to show up to every day in Charlotte. Phones ringing, loads moving, a room full of people trying to keep up with the chaos.

What I didn’t realize then was how much of my life would come out of that chapter.

My wife was hired there as a logistics coordinator. Later that year, she went into labor at her desk with our daughter. Some of my closest friendships also started in that office, the kind that last long after the job changes.

That freight brokerage grind somehow turned into beach trips, softball teams, fishing trips, Michigan and Auburn games, Braves and Panthers games, weddings, bachelor parties, and friendships that carried through some of the hardest seasons of life.

When people talk about billion dollar companies, the conversation usually centers around money. Brad has written books that explain how to build businesses at that scale, and there’s plenty to learn from them.

The real wealth I gained from that chapter had nothing to do with the balance sheet. It was the friendships, the experiences, and the moments that came from being part of something early while it was still figuring itself out.

When I hear people complain about the wealthy or say people like Brad should be limited in what they can earn, I understand where some of that frustration comes from. There are plenty of bad actors in the world.
What I think about instead are the thousands of lives that get shaped when someone decides to build something real. Careers start. Friendships form. Families begin.

When I woke up this morning with Ripple in my head, that’s what I was thinking about.

The ripple from one decision to build a company ended up shaping a lot more lives than people will ever see. I’m grateful my life crossed that current when it did.

Pictured is an early photo of some of our Charlotte team along with a few visiting executives (now the RXO, Inc. HQ). I couldn’t tag everyone, so if you recognize someone in the photo, feel free to add them.

Stephen Bartalini

I help logistics and supply chain leaders find ways to improve their transportation process and reduce spend through freight-tech solutions backed by a team of outstanding people who care. 

I also serve impoverished families in Atlanta and am on the board of directors of Fully Furnished Ministries 

If I'm not finding problems to solve in the domestic freight market, I'm finding ways to improve my sales acumen, become a better husband, father and servant to my community. For fun, I play disc golf, love being outdoors, hiking and fishing, and help coach my daughters youth lacrosse team, 

I am happy to connect with anyone, share my perspective and make introductions to others in my network.

Chairman and CEO, QXO, Inc.

RXO, Inc.

Multi-Site Pallet Management | Cost Control | Central Oversight | Supplier Accountability

A lot of pallet programs weren’t really designed. They just sort of happened.

A supplier got approved years ago and pricing gets revisited occasionally. The program keeps running because no one has a reason to stop it.

Over time the details get fuzzy.

Operations works around pallets that slow things down or create extra handling. Procurement focuses on the unit cost because that’s the number they’re responsible for.

Meanwhile the same pallet might be purchased ten different ways across a network and no one ever steps back to look at the whole picture.

It isn’t unusual. It’s how most internal systems evolve.

Every once in a while someone pauses long enough to ask whether the setup still makes sense. Those are usually the conversations where things start to change.

We were laughing because during our vows I pretended to answer my phone like I was taking a work call. Everyone knew it wasn’t far from the truth.

I used to believe the best ability is availability.
What I learned is if you don’t protect your time, no one else will.

Setting boundaries is hard when you’re wired to say yes to everything.
People respect your time when you respect it first.

Success means nothing if the people you love only get what’s left of you.

What an incredible tournament it was for both the men’s and women’s teams at USA Hockey!

 🇺🇸🥇🥇🇺🇸

Ricardo Barrientos celebrates his birthday today.

If you know Ricardo, you know he’s uplifting, honest, and sincere. He isn’t afraid to hold you accountable or disagree, and he does it with a level of respect that makes you think rather than react.

Over the past three years I’ve had the chance to travel with him to conferences and visit clients together. Some of the best parts of those trips happen after the meetings when we sit down for dinner and debrief the day. Those conversations have taught me a lot.

Ricardo spent decades on the corporate procurement side, and he has helped me better understand how procurement leaders think, what they care about, and how to approach those conversations with preparation and respect.

On a personal note, he’s also the person I text when I need a wine recommendation. If my wife and I are out to dinner, I’ll send him the wine list and let him pick. He hasn’t missed yet.

He’s also an outstanding husband to his wonderful wife Tessa, who has joined us for many of those meals, and a proud father and grandfather who clearly cares deeply about his family.

Happy Birthday, RB. I’m grateful for the friendship and everything you’ve shared with me over the years.

If you know Ricardo, take a moment to wish him a happy birthday today.

If you’re at Expo West in Anaheim this week, you’ll likely see him moving around the floor or on his phone checking in with clients, suppliers, and our team. If you catch him or stop by the PalletTrader booth #5382, wish him a happy birthday.

Vice President Of Business Development at BETT-A-WAY SUPPLY CHAIN SOLUTIONS

PalletTrader

Most pallet conversations start with price. 
That’s usually where the meeting goes sideways.

Procurement is focused on locking in cost, contracts, and supplier accountability across locations. Operations is focused on uptime, quality, and keeping freight moving. Both are right. They’re just measured differently.

Inside a real pallet program, you’re not satisfying one group. You’re satisfying procurement, operations, warehouse teams, finance, sustainability, and leadership. Each one has a different definition of success. When they’re not aligned, pallets turn into noise, reactive buying, and inconsistent reporting.

That’s the gap most companies feel but can’t quite define. It’s the space we operate in. We connect procurement and operations with centralized oversight and reporting that makes sense to everyone at the table.

Pictured below L-R myself, Caleb, Anthony, Ricardo, Trey enjoyed dinner aboard the ship Moshulu docked at the Philadelphia Riverfront after a full day at Pack Expo East.

If you haven’t been, zoom in on the third image and read her history. It’s hard to believe a ship built in the early 1900s is still standing after everything she’s been through.

Director of Revenue Operations & GTM Strategy | Driving Scalable Growth Through Data, Enablement, & Execution

Business Development Manager for PalletTrader/Bettaway Pallet Systems

Multi‑Site Pallet Management | Reduce Costs | Streamline Operations | Central Oversight | Supplier Accountability | Full Supply Chain Visibility | Sustainability | Results That Matter

Some of the most important work in this business happens around a dinner table.

Kelly and I enjoyed dinner last night with Carrie and Nick.

I share a lot about the challenges we look for, analysis behind whether we are a fit for a client, and the preparation that goes into executing a plan at PalletTrader.

All of that matters.

None of it works without the right partners in place on the supply side.

I grew up believing you should break bread with the people you trust with your livelihood. Conversations like this go beyond data and KPIs. You get a better sense for how someone thinks, how they approach responsibility, and what they do when things do not go according to plan.

That matters in this business.

The right suppliers understand expectations, don’t overextend themselves, and take pride in delivering the level of service required to support the customer.
Those are the partnerships that make everything else possible.

Customer Success Representative at PalletTrader

--CEO | Circular Pallet Systems | Leading Pallet Lifecycle & Recycling Innovation

PECO Pallet, Inc. is red
CHEP is blue
We’re pallet-agnostic
Whatever works for you

Did you know PalletTrader can help you take control of your rental pallet program without blowing your budget? 

Be my Pal-entine? 🤑

Let’s reduce NPD, dwell, and lost pallet fees together.

I’ll be at Pack Expo East next week
or DM me to set up time.

PECO Pallet, Inc.

CHEP

Two things I try to make clear to every client:

1. I don’t win unless you win.
2. If I make you look bad, I look worse.

My reputation is everything in business.

I haven’t always gotten it right. There have been times where my intentions were good but I missed the mark. Owning the mistake helps but my intentions don't matter. What matters is how it impacted their business. 

People don’t forget who made their life harder.
They also don’t always remember every time you made it easier. 
That part takes repetition, consistency and humility.

Todd & Margo ignore me all day, but the second the suitcase comes out they’re suddenly very interested. 

That’s how it feels when pallet price increases hit. 

Months of silence, then my phone lights up with prospects who were perfectly content yesterday and now want options today. 

I’m glad to help, that’s the job. 

It just proves most companies don’t look at their pallet strategy until cost forces the conversation. By then, you’re reacting rather than leading. 

At PalletTrader we stay on top of the market so you don’t have to. By the time you hear about an increase, we’ve already been working our network to keep you at or below market. 

See you in Philly at Pack Expo East this week.

If you had paid for first-class seats and the airline moved you to row 18 so that the pilots could have yours, how would you react?

If you’ve got the green “Open to Work” banner on your profile right now, I know that season.

In the last five years I’ve been out of work twice. 
Eleven months total without income.

Aside from a little contract work early on, there were long stretches where nothing was coming in. I was fortunate to have savings to lean on, but that wasn’t exactly the plan.

Life piled on at the same time.

Six months after buying a new house the septic system collapsed. A tree fell on the house. A tornado passed within a mile and ripped the power line and meter off the side of the house. Lightning hit a tree in the yard and another one snapped and took out about thirty feet of fencing. Two major appliances quit on me as well.

It felt like every time I turned around something else broke.

I share this because when you’re out of work the hardest part isn’t always the money. It’s losing your routine and wondering what you’re supposed to be doing with your time.

One thing I figured out pretty quickly was sitting on my laptop all day blasting out job applications was going to drive me nuts.

So I created structure.
My wife had just started teaching, which meant I was also a stay at home dad. I leaned into that and treated it like my primary responsibility.

Every morning started at 5:00.
I stretched, prayed, got outside, worked out, ate clean and cut alcohol completely. Then I spent about four hours each day staying sharp on sales skills and researching companies I actually wanted to work for.

I also spent time reflecting. I took a DiSC assessment and compared it to results from earlier in my career. It helped me understand who I was at that point and what kind of environment I perform best in.

I posted on LinkedIn almost every day about experiences from my career. I stayed in contact with people I respect. I commented when I had something to add. The goal was to stay visible and keep relationships active.

I also created a grading system for the next company I wanted to join. Culture. Leadership. Opportunity. Values. If a company didn’t check the boxes, I didn’t pursue it.

When I did apply, it was intentional. Sometimes I applied to roles that weren’t even a perfect fit just to start a conversation.

The second time around I didn’t have the same flexibility, so I reached out to one of the top recruiters in supply chain and told him exactly what I was looking for.

If you’re in that position right now, a few things helped me get through it.

Structure your days. Sitting around waiting for emails will eat at you.

Take care of your body and your mind. Sunlight, workouts, good food and staying off alcohol made a bigger difference than I expected.

Stay connected. 
Conversations open doors that applications never will.

Be intentional about where you want to land instead of chasing everything.

Losing a job can shake your confidence for a while. 

If I can help with an introduction to recruiters I trust or someone in my network, I’m happy to help. Just reach out.

After my last post, someone commented about the discovery process that should happen before changing pallet suppliers.

They're right.

Looking at automation, pallet design, storage conditions, delivery capability, and seasonal volume swings should all be part of the conversation.

In practice, most pallet programs never go through that kind of evaluation.
A supplier gets approved years ago and the system keeps running. Pricing might get renegotiated along the way, but the underlying setup rarely gets revisited.

When companies take the time to step back and study the network, a few things usually become clear pretty quickly.

Some facilities are already set up well and should be left alone.
Others are working around problems that no one ever connected back to the pallet program.
The goal isn’t to replace everything. It’s to understand what is actually happening across the network before making changes.

Perfect example of where short pilot cycles tend to help.

A few delivery and recovery cycles will usually expose things that never show up in a spreadsheet.

God of peace and mercy,

We come to You with heavy hearts as violence spreads and fear touches so many lives.

We pray for peace. Real peace that protects life, restores dignity, and ends cycles of retaliation.

We lift up all world leaders. Give them wisdom beyond pride, courage beyond pressure, and clarity beyond fear. Help them choose restraint over force, dialogue over destruction, and solutions that value human life above power or politics.

We pray for the innocent on every side. For children who are afraid. For families who have lost loved ones. For civilians caught in places they never chose to be. Comfort the grieving, protect the vulnerable, and surround them with hope when hope feels far away.

We pray for those in uniform who carry orders that weigh heavily on their souls. Guard their hearts and lives, and bring them home safely.

Soften hardened hearts. Calm rising anger. Interrupt plans that lead to more suffering.

May justice be guided by compassion. May strength be shown through restraint. May peace take root where fear now lives.

We trust You to move where humans fail, to heal what feels beyond repair, and to remind us that every life matters.

Amen.

In the past on International Women’s Day I've acknowledged the women who have made an impact on my career.

Rather than shout them out again this year, I want to talk about something that still deserves attention.

The gender pay gap.

We often hear that the gap between men and women is significant. I have spent time looking into this and when you compare similar roles, experience, and responsibility, the gap is much smaller than many people think but it still exists.

Women do earn less than men in some cases for the same roles and responsibilities.

I have seen it firsthand. One of my female peers was paid less than a male teammate with similar experience and qualifications.

Was it discrimination?

Or did he simply negotiate better terms when the promotion happened?
I honestly don't know.

What I do know is that the only way this changes over time is if individuals know their value and are willing to advocate for it.

This is something I think about a lot as the father of two daughters.

Someday they will enter the workforce and start building lives and careers of their own. My responsibility now is to raise them to know their worth, build real skills, and have the confidence to advocate for themselves.

I can't control every workplace they enter.

I can make sure they grow up believing they should be respected, taken seriously, and paid fairly for the value they create.

If you have daughters, sons, or people you mentor, what are you teaching them about knowing their worth and advocating for it?

Delivering pallets is a transaction. 

Managing what happens after they hit the floor is the real work.

"Show up and give a sh!t" are words we live by at PalletTrader 

See you soon Chicago

This weekend our church had the opportunity to hear from Kathleen Edelman, and it left a bigger impression on me and my family than I expected.

One of the verses she centered everything around was Ephesians 4:29.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

I’ve always been fascinated by personality differences and trying to understand why people think, react, and communicate the way they do. What I hadn’t really considered until now is that temperament is something we’re born with. Personality is how that wiring develops over time through our experiences, choices, and environment.

The way Kathleen explained it made a lot of things click for me, especially inside our own home. 

Some people are wired to bring energy and optimism into a room.

Some are wired to drive results and move things forward.

Some naturally analyze and anticipate problems before they happen.

Others are steady, calm, and able to bring peace when things feel chaotic.

None of those are better than the others. 

They are simply different ways God wired people to move through the world.

The part that challenged me most had to do with words.

She said "every word you use is a word you choose." "What you put in your heart eventually comes out of your mouth."

It sounds simple until you start replaying conversations in your mind and asking yourself a harder question.

Was what I said actually helpful for building that person up according to their needs?

Most miscommunication is not intentional. It usually comes from speaking through our own temperament instead of learning how the other person receives it.

That realization led to some really good conversations with my wife this weekend. We started recognizing pieces of ourselves and each other in what she was teaching. 

Kathleen warned "Your temperament should never be used as a weapon or an excuse."

The real goal is acceptance and awareness. Accept the way God wired you, and learn to recognize that everyone around you is wired differently.

When that happens, conversations change.
Listening changes. Even the way you talk to yourself changes. 

I’m grateful for the time we got to spend learning from Kathleen this weekend. It gave our family a lot to think about and a lot to work on together. 

Kathleen’s assessment and her books are linked to the QR codes in the picture. If you download her new app, you can take the assessment for free.

What’s the most memorable travel delay you’ve had trying to get to a client meeting?

Storms grounded flights into Chicago last night. Kelly Peters sat on the plane for four hours reading before they finally deplaned everyone and rebooked her for this morning.

Patience of a saint. If all goes well, she’ll still make our meeting today.

Photo captured by the talented Nick Ulivieri. 

https://lnkd.in/ezVt5kUW

TSA Pre Check and Global Entry Security Programs SUSPENDED

Back to General Boarding we go! 

Do we get a refund? 

What happens to Clear? 

What happens to all the TSA employees? 

https://lnkd.in/e8HstyST?

yahoo.com

Homeland Security suspends TSA PreCheck and Global Entry airport security programs

Instructions Before Visiting Earth
By James McCrae

Before you visit Earth,
here are a few instructions:
You will be given a body.
It is temporary.
When you are done with it,
it will be returned to the soil. 
You will learn lessons.
You are enrolled in a full-time,
informal school called LIFE.
Each day in this class,
you will have the opportunity to learn lessons.
You may like the lessons,
or think them irrelevant or foolish. 
A lesson is repeated until learned.
A lesson is presented to you
in various forms until you learn it.
When you have learned it,
you can go on to the next lesson. 
Learning lessons does not end.
There is no part of life
that does not contain its lessons.
If you are alive,
there are lessons to be learned.
"There" is no better than "here."
When your "there" has become a "here,"
you will simply obtain another "there"
that will again look better than "here."
Others are merely mirrors of you.
You cannot love or hate something
about another person
unless it reflects to you
something you love or hate
about yourself.
What you make of your life is up to you.
You have all the tools and resources you need.
What you do with them is up to you.
The answer lies inside you.
You will forget all of this.
But you can remember it whenever you want.

taplio

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