David Bartine '10
First Day on the Job: Again
As my last blog indicated I received a full-time job offer from AIT a week ago from last Friday, and I obviously accepted the opportunity. Although my internship is not officially completed yet, I have been working half of my days with the IC Ocean Pricing team (same group I have worked with the last 3 months), and I spend the afternoons in the Perishables building training for my new job responsibilities. This is a very exciting time for me as I enter my first "real" job with real responsibilities. At first I was a little nervous about the situation, but after spending a few days observing my new colleagues it just increases my excitement of attacking a new phase in my life. My new job title is a customer service agent in the perishables department of AIT, which, although different, some of the responsibilities from the ocean department will carry over. The most significant difference, however, is the strict overnight deadlines for any projects to be completed. Since we will be handling perishable goods (commodities that must remain frozen), the margin for error is high which holds each member of the close niche group accountable for their actions. The senior director in the perishables department is the highest grossing sales man in AIT history, so I will be working under the best in the industry, and if sales is a direction I want to pursue then I am in a position to learn valuable skills. However, being the top grossing salesman in any company requires an aggressive style, and if anyone makes a mistake, my director will be quick and firm to address these mistakes. He can be very hard edged, but that is what makes him so successful. I can really see myself fitting in well with the perishables group, and can see myself working there for years to come.
Job Offer
After two and a half months of working hard and proving my value to the company, AIT reached out and decided to offer me the full-time position in the perishables department I interviewed for on Thursday. I was quite anxious to hear back from Steve Taylor (my new manager) following our sit down, but after a full day of waiting I did not think the offer was going to come. Finally, at 4:58 PM late Friday before I left for the weekend, the most important sheet of paper of my working life to this day showed up at my desk. I told the lady from Human Resources that I was going to sleep on a decision over the weekend, but knew the entire time that this is where I wanted to start my career. I am excited for a new opportunity in a new department, but with this opportunity will come increased responsibility and accountability. I have developed a working mentality that I will do everything within and above my limits to complete each assigned task to the fullest of my ability in order to not disappoint those above me. I feel quite blessed and lucky to receive this job offer; especially when the economy is still lagging from the most recent recession. I want to thank all members of AIT who worked extremely hard in finding me a full time job. I am a little disappointed the job offer did not come from the IC Ocean Pricing team I have been working with all summer, but I will embrace the new opportunities and find a way to make it all work out. I have a week and a half remaining on my internship, so I will complete everything I must to ensure the Ocean team will not be behind when I leave the first of September. I forecast much longer work days in the near future as I balance my current daily responsibilities and training for my new job simultaneously. This has been a wonderful opportunity and I have cherished every second of it. I truly am grateful to all parties who have assisted in getting me to the place I am today. It has been an adventure.
Internal Job Interview
After two and a half months, and my internship at AIT Worldwide Logistics winding down, I have been hoping to get a a job offer for a more permanent position in the ocean pricing department. I spoke briefly with my supervisor about the issue as he previously hinted at the idea, and felt the opportunity may no longer be available. However, after all of the interns exit interviews a few people from Human Resources pulled me aside to discuss finding other possibilities for jobs within other departments of AIT. Although I did not get much of a notice I came in this morning to interview with Steve Taylor who is the manager at the AIT Perishable building. We met for nearly an hour going over the daily responsibilities of an open position they are trying to fill quickly. Working in the perishables department would be an exciting opportunity as there are stricter deadlines and high pressure projects that would need to be completed regularly. Steve was quite knowledgeable regarding his department and informed me that the pace is way more intense then I have experienced the last two months. I should find out in the next week if I will receive an offer or not, but the opportunity for staying on the ocean pricing team is still very much alive. Besides the interview this morning, I have been working with my team in populating rates for a multi-lane export RFQ for the Boart Longyear 2010 bid. This time around compiling these rates should be much easier then it was for LSA because there are substantially less lanes to track down, and I have experience working on these RFQs. Boart Longyear is a Salt Lake City based mining company that needs people to ship drilling and mining equipment for them. Hopefully our hard work this time around does not go unnoticed and we can secure the business. I am getting the feeling that this upcoming week marks the most important time in my young professional career.
Visitor Congressman Peter Roskam
Congressman Peter Roskam:
Today marks a special occasion for AIT as we play host to Congressman Peter Roskam, who is a Republican Illinois member of the House of Representatives. Congressman Roskam came in today to speak with high level management about a possible business opportunity for AIT involving the shipment of governmental freight. AIT has customers all over the world, and we now have our targets set for the U.S. government. AIT welcomed the congressman in order to give him their best sales pitch as to why the government should choose AIT to handle their sensitive cargo. If Congressman Roskam likes what we have to offer, then he will take his efforts to Washington where he will lobby on AIT’s behalf. Although I did not get to sit in on the meeting, I had the chance to introduce myself to the senator and give him a brief rundown on what it is I do at for AIT. Being an intern I am sure he could have cared less for my responsibilities, but he seemed very engaged I feel good at our chances of gaining this wonderful business opportunity. Today’s events is further evidence to how strong AIT has been not only after the recession, but through it as well. We offer a premium service in the freight forwarding industry, and it is a huge compliment to all AIT employees to have a U.S. senator appreciate the work of a mid-level company. I will follow up with the results of today’s meet and greet when I find out more, but as mentioned earlier, I like our chances.
Hands on Experience
As we approach August I realized this may have been the fastest summer of my life, but that is also a good thing because it symbolized how busy I have been. I am nearly two-thirds the way done with my internship, and I do not know where the time has gone. My hopes and goals through completing this internship is to gain as much experience and knowledge about the workforce to put myself in a solid position to find a more full-time job soon after my time at AIT is over. I had unexpected but pleasant sit down meeting with two of my bosses yesterday to discuss how they have felt about my work, and how I have felt about my opportunity. The meeting was very promising as it made me cautiously optimistic that I may receive a job offer upon completion of my 12 weeks at AIT, and I could not be more excited for the opportunity.
My workload has picked up significantly as business is rapidly growing by the day. We are reaching out to more customer and customers are contacting AIT for our services because of our solid reputation in the logistics industry. Although the work can be burdensome at time, it is a positive indication that the industry is starting to boom again. I had dinner with one of my supervisors the other night, and he was telling me how I do not even know what busy means yet, and how if I am still here in the fall I will find out how much business we are going to take on. Since AIT is a freight forwarder, the most important aspect of our business is the actual shipment of cargo from one destination to another, and our main means for transporting the goods is via truck. My supervisor informed me how he wants me to take on a more hands on experience some day by riding along with one of our truckers on Chicago deliveries and observing first-hand the core of our business. I am excited for the opportunity as it will expose me to how the system actually works instead of sitting in a cubicle all day crunching numbers that feel “imaginary.” What I mean by this is I set up all of these shipments and give people their costs, but never see anything after that, so it will be interesting to sit in on a delivery that I personally arranged. Times are becoming quite exciting in the Chicago area, and I can only pray that my days at AIT are not coming to an end.
AIT VS Shipco Price Analysis
Aramex LCL Pricing Analysis:
My supervisor assigned for me to do a price analysis of our ocean rates compared to one of our main competitors for Less than Container Load (LCL) shipments routing from all locations around the U.S. onto the Middle East. Aramex is a large, international logistics company and an overseas agent for us at AIT, and we need to see if the rates they are providing us for Middle Eastern destinations are competitive enough to to be a player in the market. After observing the data we noticed that our rates were consistently higher compared to Shipco, so we will have to negotiate rate reduction with Aramex in order to compete with other logistics and transportation companies. One of our sales representatives would try to get Aramex to match the rates of our competitors, and after lots of negotiation and compromise a deal should be reached.
After laboring for nearly two weeks on the LSA 2010 RFQ bid with a few of my colleagues assistance, one of our other stations give the news that we were no longer participating in the bid held annually in Portland, OR. Although it was disappointing putting so much hard work into nothing it was still a great learning tool for me. I was relieved a little when I heard the news because our work was not fully completed and it was coming down to our due date on the project. Taking on such a large project such as LSA help show how important organization is when dealing with numerous trading lanes. It was hard to keep everything in line, because the project details would consistently change and the communication with international agents could be very frustrating at time. At the end of the day it was a positive experience even though our desired outcome was not reached.
LSA 2010 Request for Quote (RFQ): Week 6: LSA 2010
For the last week I have been assisting in putting together a Request for Quote (RFQ) for the LSA 2010 bidding held in Portland, OR. Logistics Service Alliance (LSA) is a conglomeration of logistics companies that bid on business for multiple lane shipments from all over the world. It is our mission to provide the most competitive shipping rates to in order to obtain a business opportunity of this magnitude. The weeklong process has been tedious and complicated as we have tracked down rates from numerous sources: contacting over-seas agents, researching old rates, and using AIT personalized computer programs to generate ocean contracts. Although this project has been challenging, the experience of bidding and compiling appropriate information has allowed me to indulge further into the transportation/logistics industry. LSA has not held this specific bid since 2008, so we had to compare our sell rates (rates including profit margins) from 2008 to the ones we have populated for the upcoming event in order to calculate the general rate increases (GRI) over the years. After minor touch ups and in depth review, we will hand-submit our bid in Portland and wait to see if we win the business or not. It has been an enjoyable (although stressful) process in which we hope our hard work is rewarded in the long run. Other than LSA I have to maintain my daily responsibilities in the IC Ocean Pricing team. My internship is officially half-way over and time has flown by. It will be August 31st before I know it, and I am personally hoping my hard work for the summer is rewarded with an offer to fulfill a more permanent role at AIT.
AIT Worldwide Logistics Internship: Week 5
Week 4: Making a Splash in India
My first month at AIT has come and gone, and I already feel like a seasoned veteran in the logistics industry. Times are very exciting right now for the transportation and logistics industry as business has picked up heavily. Everyone around the office is extremely busy, which means my workload has increased with everyday I come to the office. One of my on-site supervisors had a scheduled trip along with one of our sales representatives to Mumbai, India to talk about the future with one of our over-seas partners. Wilson Sandhu is the largest logistics company in all of India and this trip ensured the solid foundation of a promising present and future business partner. Even my limited role in the company made an impact on the company’s international voyage to India. I single handedly put together an excel file with some in depth rate analysis and comparison for my supervisor to demonstrate how competitive our rates are in one of the most competitive markets in the world. It is a rewarding feeling to know that even how miniscule my job is for the company that I can be a contributor. I had the privilege of eating dinner with one of the owners of AIT and it was a great learning opportunity to speak with the person who started a company of over 750 employees and $300 million in revenues annually from the ground up. I tried to be as engaging as possible by asking questions about his entrepreneurial opportunity when he was younger and his forecasts for the future of AIT. It has been a wonderful experience for this first month, and am excited for the continuous growth and learning opportunities.
AIT Worldwide Logistics Week 3:
6/14/2010:
After completing two full weeks as the Ocean Product Intern at AITI am starting to feel comfortable performing my daily tasks and completing my assigned projects independently and successfully. My first impression of the logistics and transportation industry is that there was not a lot of relevance with my economics and business degree, but fully participating in the daily operations I have observed how the fundamental theory of supply and demand is applicable to this industry. Following one of the worst recessions in U.S. economic history, the demand of cargo/freight space is at a premium. Customers have been complaining daily about what they feel are unreasonable prices, but they do not realize the economic intuition behind these markets. Although it has only been two full weeks, I still anticipate showing up to work every morning with desire to learn and apply as much knowledge as I can in my short time at AIT.
Week 2
June 8th, 2010
June 8th:
After only one week at AIT Worldwide Logistics I am starting to feel like I am grasping the logistics industry much more. I can feel my supervisors’ trust growing in me every day on the job, and it shows by the amount of projects they are letting me take on. I have learned a lot of the industry-specific lingo and the unique company softwares to help me be successful for the duration of my internship. The main task I have been responsible for in the first week is using an AIT specific software/website called CargoSphere, where I receive requests from customers/agents and I come up with the best quoted rate available given the type and dimensions of freight they are trying to ship. At first I felt a little on the outside here on the IC Oceans Systems Dept., but now my relationships are growing with my coworkers and I am feeling more a part of the team each day.
AIT Worldwide Logistics Internship: First Day on the Job
June 1st, 2010
6/1/2010:
Today is the start of my first encounter with what all college students fear the most, “the real world.” I have finally arrived at AIT Worldwide Logistics to begin my 3 month exploration into the logistics and transportation industry working under Kevin Krause and Susan Schweers. The day began with a 45 minute drive through untraveled territory (Chicago interstate traffic), when I arrive at 7:30 a half hour too early and relieved I survived the other maniacs behind the wheel. After completing all of the formal paperwork and identification card picture taking, I found myself sitting at what will be my office (a standard cubicle) staring at two blank computer monitors. After a few minutes I was saved by one of my on site supervisors Susan (a fellow Iowan by birth) who with her fun attitude help ease my nerves as I enter the most important stage of my young professional career. We discussed what AIT had in mind for me the next 3 months, and I never realized how much economic and business theory went into transportation and logistics. I was informed I would not only be a retriever of coffee for my superiors, but that I would actually be performing relevant projects to assist the Oceanic Systems team in analyzing shipping rates and price quotes for the services AIT provides. Susan was responsible for performing weekly webinars for other AIT locations who were unfamiliar with Oceanic operations, and she let me sit in and watch one of these educational opportunities. However, she frequently spoke in acronyms I did not understand the slightest, it was still exciting to be immersed in an alien industry. Eventually, I received a dictionary of International trade, which my main supervisor referred to as, “the international business bible.” Before I knew it the day was over as I was left excited to soak in as much information the next 3 months as I possibly could so that I could put myself in a position where I can gain a possible job opportunity at AIT Worldwide Logistics. We will see how the summer unfolds, but I know living and working in the Chicago market that I will learn a lot about not only logistics, but also the culture of one of the best cities in the nation.