Our annual 'Fabulous Fifty Plus One' (named in honor of the number on the original list) recognizes the people, companies, facilities and trends that are leading the way in world trade. The list is purely subjective, an informal polling of global supply chain 'watchers' like industry figures, service providers, and journalists. They tell us who or what's caught their eye in the continuing evolution of the global supply chain. This year's roll call is particularly heavy with technology, acknowledging the critical significance real-time'visibility' is playing in integrating world-wide traders.

This year's 'Fabulous Fifty' take their place in a sector characterized by dynamic change. For each nominee, there are others equally distinguished and primed for inclusion in future rosters. Like world trade itself, leadership is expanding on all fronts. - Neil Shister, Editorial Director

Senator Charles Grassley

Free trade advocates see their case as clear-goods should be produced wherever in the world they can be produced most efficiently, then everyone swaps and all come out ahead. When that case reaches the U.S. Congress, however, wrinkles set in. Whatever the general argument, Senators and Representatives have a particular fondness for the well-being of their constituents, whose products and services they are inclined to believe deserve protection.

Currently in Congress, one continuing strong voice for free trade is that of Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley, who has represented the Hawkeye state since 1981. Senator Grassley, as chairman of the Senate's powerful Finance Committee, has been in a position to make that voice effective.

Free trade advocates see trade as more than an economic issue. Senator Grassley has voiced strong support for the proposed Middle East Free Trade Area, which, he says, would not only promote economic growth but lead to needed political reforms. He has supported such free trade agreements as the Andean Trade Preference Act, the U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement and the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Implementation Act, all of which were voted into law. On occasion, he has taken the case for free trade to places in which the Republican White House would rather he did not tread-notably, in his advocacy that Americans should be free to purchase lower cost pharmaceutical products from Canada.

Senator Grassley has also been one of the Senate's strongest advocates of CAFTA-the Central American Free Trade Agreement-which would bring lower tariffs between this country and a number of Central American nations and the Dominican Republic. The agreement, Grassley acknowledges, may bring an incidental market share loss to American sugar interests, but would lead in balance to a $1.5 billion annual increase in U.S. exports to that region, while assisting in its economic and political development.

Green Marine

Nothing beats a win-win story, especially when it involves such sizeable competing interests as commerce and the environment. Foss Maritime is one such success story. The Seattle-based company got its start in 1889 when a Norwegian immigrant named Thea Foss and her carpenter husband Andrew fixed up a newly acquired rowboat and sold it for profit. Over a century later, Foss Maritime operates the largest, most modern fleet of tugs on the West Coast and provides a full range of marine transportation services, including harbor services, regional towing, environmental services, shipyard and terminal services.

In the port complex of Los Angeles-Long Beach, one of the 'greenest' tugs in the San Pedro Harbor is Foss Maritime's Marshall Foss. The vessel, christened in 2002, is powered by a Detroit Diesel engine that exceeds California's air quality standard for lower emissions.

Up in the Pacific Northwest, Foss Shipyard was the first shipyard in the Puget Sound area to design and install a storm water system that eliminates the discharge of storm water to the ship canal. The company has received the " Gold Award " from The King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks Industrial Waste Program every year since the system was installed. (www.foss.com)

Nick Cullen
Executive Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer, Gap Inc.

When he moved into Gap Inc.'s San Francisco headquarters two years ago, Nick Cullen brought with him a quarter century of global product sourcing, quality assurance, and distribution experience, including key stints abroad for Mars and H.J. Heinz in the United Kingdom. In his last position, as president for North America supply at global alcohol giant Diageo, Cullen led a complete supply chain redesign that lowered costs and boosted service. Still, the step from spirits to sweaters was a big one. In all, the Gap supply chain domain snakes six continents-from 700 plus vendors with factories in over 50 countries to fourteen distribution centers in 4 countries international distribution centers and more than 3,000 Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy stores.

Gap Inc. believes in having a diverse sourcing base. With the removal of quota, Cullen has the opportunity to pursue strategic long-term partnerships with a smaller group of vendors. Deepening ties to top partners, allows for consistent larger volume orders and brings greater efficiency and productivity. "We have already begun to work with fewer but more capable vendors. We're bringing those vendors in close and are sharing more information about our capabilities, so we can align our priorities and approach," Cullen said in April. "This new way of working allows us to reduce costs, drive innovation in our product and improve speed to market."

Cullen's expertise, CEO Paul Pressler recently noted, helps Gap create "more robust, flexible and cost-effective ways to serve our customers" and "innovative supply chain solutions to support our business strategies." He calls the company's global sourcing base and logistics network "a strong point of competitive advantage."

Paul Charron
Chairman, Liz Claiborne

Paul R. Charron, chairman of the board of Liz Claiborne Inc. for nearly a decade, demonstrates the range of roles a corporate leader can undertake. In his core task, he has led Liz Claiborne Inc. from the doldrums it experienced after its founder's 1989 retirement, to better than $4 billion in current sales. In an industry heavily tied to world trade, he's been a leader in keeping a close eye on the phasing out of import quotas. He has been instrumental in helping the industry, the financial community and government to better understand all the ramifications, positive and negative, of apparel sourcing in a quota-free environment. (www.lizclairborneinc.com)

Doris Hall
Chief Information Officer, BAX Global

In a world dominated by men, Doris Hall stands out as a logistics technology manager with vision. Now CIO at BAX Global, the freight forwarder with a presence in 133 countries (including a recently opened logistics center in Hong Kong, which has increased its warehouse capacity there to nearly a million square feet), Hall was recently VP of Global Operations where she led the charge in creating global operating system networks for clients like Microsoft. (Hall and her team made it possible for Microsoft systems in Asia to talk the same language as their systems in Europe or the United States). Throughout her career, Hall has specialized in the delivery of complex integrated systems that provide measurable value to clients and their customers. The trick: translate business requirements into strategies that can be supported by technical infrastructure. Prior to coming to BAX, Hall was a senior IT manager for systems development at Emery Worldwide, supporting 600 business units worldwide. (www.baxglobal.com)

James Knott
Riverdale Mills

On May 1, 1979, the boards came off the windows of an abandoned mill building in Northbridge, Massachusetts. This building would come alive with newly built machinery to produce a different material for making lobster traps for New England lobstermen. Invented by Jim Knott, President and CEO of Riverdale Mills, this new material was called Aquamesh. Welded, galvanized, and PVC coated, today Aquamesh is used in making nearly 80 percent of the lobster traps in New England.

Jim took his revolutionary Aquamesh trap material to Canada, (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and NewFoundland), then came up with a variation of coated mesh to be used for trapping crabs and shrimp, and for use in aquaculture for growing oysters, mussels and clams. Today, this is the standard in British Columbia, Mexico, the Caribbean, and to a limited degree, even the United Kingdom.

In the late 1980's, ever the entrepreneur, Jim responded successfully to a request to weld something very difficult to manufacture-anti-climb, anti-cut high security fence for a new prison. This style of fence had been developed by the Prison Service in England as a superior barrier compared to common chain-link fence. Riverdale succeeded in making the sturdy, good-looking fence, called "WireWall_,"and this led to many successful installations for prisons, nuclear power plants, and bridges. In a reversal of sorts, Riverdale began selling this Euro-Style welded fence to the international market, and today has done projects in Canada for IBM, in Kuwait and Nigeria for oil and gas operations, and in the energy rich southern Caribbean.

International Projects currently proposed include literally hundreds of miles of Jim Knott's WireWall security fence in the Middle East, South America, Africa, and at U.S. Military installations, including detainment camps for terrorists.

'The Big Three': UPS, FedEx and DHL

As international sourcing changes the whole game of land transport, UPS (www.ups.com), FedEx (www.fedex.com) and DHL (www.dhl.com) are re-writing the rules. With the trucking sector going through huge changes and consolidations, these power-houses have been deftly re-structuring their portfolios to offer ever more integrated supply chain services. FedEx's strategy for diversifying operations through acquisitions has placed it firmly in LTL, ground parcel and contract logistics. Right in step, UPS bought Overnite this spring to offer customers added LTL, especially valuable in adding a domestic piece to its expanding global Supply Chains Solutions division (industry watchers await more such buys). DHL, meanwhile, continues aggressively marketing its profile with products like Import Express, which deploys the company's broad international network to offer all-inclusive door-to-door service to the U.S. from foreign sources.

Nike

When demand-planning errors in Nike's new supply-chain software cost the company $100 million in lost sales and a 20 percent stock price plummet, CIOs everywhere woke up with cold sweats. Nike nimbly shifted central planning functions for its 120,000 products to a well-tested SAP system and hit the ground hard to increase efficiency in its Asian factories. Inventory levels dropped, led by a push to cut "pre-building" from 30 to 3 percent of shoes. At the same time, global product lead-time shrank from nine months to nearly six. The results: record revenues of $12 billion for fiscal 2004, with sales outside the United States for the first time supplying more than half of Nike's profits. (www.nike.com)

Vikram "Vic" Verma
President and CEO, Savi Technology, Inc.

In today's world where terrorism is always a specter, global trade would be seriously hampered without the efforts of people like Vikram Verma, President and Chief Executive Officer of Savi Technology, Inc.-manufacturer of components for electronic seals used to protect cargo.

Combining a distinguished career in both academia and business (he personally holds 8 patents), Verma led a management buyout from Raytheon in 1999 to transform Savi into a leading provider of real-time solutions for the visibility, management and security of supply chain assets. Since then, Savi has expanded its network software platform and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) product solutions on sales to a growing diversity of government and commercial customers worldwide.

Early in his career, Verma's DF/Tag product was recognized as the "Most Innovative Technology Developed by a Small Business" by the White House Office of Science and Technology. He has won numerous industry accolades, including being named as one of 40 "Technology Innovators" by the World Economic Forum. (www.savi.com)

Yellow Roadway

The Overland Park, Kansas-based transportation and logistics giant is also making its mark in China, having just announced the formation of a China-based joint venture with Jin Jiang Investment. This gives Yellow Roadway a major stake in China's second-largest freight forwarding company, which has a strong domestic network of 22 locations, including 5 customs warehouses adjacent to the Shanghai Pudong International Airport. Yellow Roadway has grown quickly in recent years due to a number of major mergers and acquisitions, including Roadway in 2003 and USF earlier this year. (www.yellowroadway.com)

Port of Virginia

Beginning with historic Jamestown, Virginia's ports have grown today into the largest complex in the United States with facilities in Norfolk, Newport News, Portsmouth and an inland intermodal transfer facility. The complex features over 1000 acres of foreign trade zone with Consular representation of 15 major international trading partners nearby. Long known for progressive administration, the Port is collaborating with terminal companies and shipping lines to significantly expand deepwater berth space. As the largest intermodal facility on the East Coast, it ranks among global leaders in efficiency and uncongested intermodal service. (www.vaports.com)

Automotive vehicles, parts, and motors

It may be 'old' economy, but it still ranks number one in the annual World Trade 100 list of top U.S. exports, accounting for $80 billion last year (exceeding semi-conductors, number two, by some 40 percent). If America's trade deficit is ever going to shrink, automotive will have to play a big part in leading the way. Sure enough, when there was relative progress in Q2 (monthly deficits went down from an average of $60 billion to $55 billion), analysts kept their fingers crossed that the falling dollar would continue to have positive impact on exports from the automotive sector. (http://www.autoconsulting.com/autotrade.htm)

Lt. General (Ret.) Daniel W. Christman
Senior Vice President for International Affairs, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

This ex-career military officer (and former Superintendent of West Point) represents U.S. business interests with foreign leaders and government officials. He and his staff of policy analysts and program officers coordinate strategic international trade leadership in behalf of the members of the Chamber. Their mission: foster free trade and pro-growth business policies throughout the world. (www.uschamber.com/press/experts/christman.htm)

Euler Hermes

This century-old international firm, headquartered in Paris and operating as Euler Hermes ACI in North America, has long been a leader in the area of accounts receivable insurance and global risk management services. Its Global Business Failure Index, a publicly accessible measure of business stability in individual countries, is considered particularly accurate. What's it showing these days? The acceleration of world growth drove the index down 5 percent last year (good news) but current economic doldrums suggest the downward trend in business failures since 2003 is going to be interrupted. (www.eulerhermes.com)

Evergreen Marine

This Taiwanese company, operating more than 150 container vessels in routes that cover six continents, is one of the world's leading ocean carriers. Visible globally through its signature green containers and constantly upgraded ocean-going fleet, the carrier and its sister companies, Italian Lloyd Triestino and British-flag Hatsu Marine, recently made a big splash with its new terminal at the Port of Tacoma. With importers and exporters looking more closely at Pacific Northwest ports as gateways for freight to and from Asia, Evergreen's move is particularly timely (first-quarter income was up 52 percent over the same period in 2004). Marking 30 years this year in the container business, the green giant was born of a small carrier founded in 1968 with a single chartered bulker and is the realized vision of Evergreen Group Chairman Dr. Yung-fa Chang, whose philosophy is a customer-centric, customer-driven endeavor. (www.evergreen-america.com)

Jim Preuninger
CEO, Management Dynamics, Inc.

Jim Preuninger, CEO of Management Dynamics, an on-demand international transportation software provider, has reacted to changing marketplace needs by expanding his company's toolset to include the supply chain visibility and analytical tools needed to create a "demand-driven supply chain."

Management Dynamics' BridgePoint Supply Chain Solutions is a web-enabled software suite encompassing supplier order management, inbound inventory management, outbound delivery management, and supplier performance management. Shippers, including Apple Computer, Inc., Levi Strauss & Co. and GlaxoSmithKline, currently use it. BridgePoint even matches international orders with supplier ship notices and links with ocean carrier, consolidator, broker, and forwarder status messages. (www.mgmtdynamics.com)

Max Kantzer
CEO, Transmodal Associates

Max Kantzer is CEO of Transmodal Associates, which has created a solution to give any size company the ability to streamline its international supply chains quickly and easily. Transmodal products and services enable companies to automate their global sourcing efforts, least-cost route goods to a number of international gateways, and deliver goods directly to their store or customer door without touching a distribution center. It is an idea that has been around for years, yet rarely implemented. With the advent of new third-party logistics services and Internet-based supply chain management technologies, it has become a viable option. (www.tfsusa.net)

NCR Teradata

RFID and Sarbanes-Oxley mean companies are collecting vast amounts of information about their operations. Where will they put it? How will they use it? The answer is a data warehouse. Dayton, Ohio-based Teradata, a $1.2 billion-dollar division of NCR Corp., provides data warehousing and analytic applications to help companies gain business insight from such data hoards. Wal-Mart expanded its Teradata warehouse last year to create the largest retail data warehouse in the world (Wal-Mart tracks 680 million line items weekly through its Teradata warehouse). Federal Express uses Teradata to track packages going to 50 million locations worldwide. Teradata supplies a platform, and applications that sit on top of the platform, such as forecasting, customer relationship management, supply chain and financial analysis. The solution is geared for companies with revenues over $500 million. (www.teradata.com)

JP Morgan Chase
Vastera

Synchronizing the flow of goods with the flow of money is the next horizon for efficiency. JP Morgan Chase Bank, National Associates is doing just that with its recent acquisition of global trade software and services provider Vastera. Vastera, based in Dulles, Virginia, provides software and services to manage import-export. Its merger into the Logistics and Trade Services businesses of JPMorgan Chase's Treasury Services unit earlier this year promises to help companies dynamically adjust their global procure-to-pay and order-to-cash processes to meet working capital and cash flow objectives and mitigate business risk. "We view international trade as working capital in motion," says Bernie Hart, Vastera's global product head. (www.vastera.com)

Patty Murray
U.S. Senator,Washington State

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Washington state Senator Patty Murray has worked hard to create a uniform security protocol for ports around the country. Senator Murray authored the Operation Safe Commerce legislation, which uses innovative new technology to track foreign cargo containers from their port of origin, through their entry into the U.S., and onto their final destination. She serves as the highest-ranking Democrat (and former chair) of the Senate Transportation Appropriations subcommittee, which writes the nation's transportation budget. In this role, Senator Murray has advocated for increases in highway funding to help alleviate the transportation problems facing Washington state and communities around the country.

Old Dominion Freight Lines

Through advances in technology and customer service, Old Dominion, based in North Carolina, exemplifies best-in-class practices amongst the new breed of 'super-regional' LTL freight consolidators as they expand outward to integrate into the global supply chain. Service centers have recently been opened in Maine, Colorado and California to expand capacity to nearly 150 throughout the country. Offering direct service to 41 states within the Southeast, South Central, Northeast, Midwest and West regions of the country, through marketing and carrier relationships OD can serve the entire United States as well as international services around the globe. New to OD Global Services is its Canada Multipak System, which allows customers in the U.S. to consolidate their small shipments to Canada. (www.odfl.com)

Stephen E. Flynn
Author of America the Vulnerable

How do we secure goods and people traveling to and from the United States without the implementation of draconian border-control measures that would cripple the U.S. economy? That's the question posed by Flynn, who says that the U.S. must work closer with other governments to make international trade safe-or else close the book on globalization. In a recent testimony before the U.S. Senate's Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations, Flynn credited the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) and Container Security Initiative (CSI) programs, as they "represent both a dramatic and constructive change in the way nations and companies have approached the issue of trade and transportation security." Yet at the same time, he said there were "serious shortcomings" that need to be addressed to make them viable. His constructive criticism is helping to make global supply chains more secure without comprising efficiency. (www.cfr.org)

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp.

When it comes to low-priced retail logistics, there's Wal-Mart and Costco and then there's everybody else. In public financial statements, these combined $300 billion firms measure profit margins per category to the hundredth of a percent. Together, their requirements drive quantum-leap advances in logistics and teach how successful penny pinching in the supply chain can drop to the bottom line.

Gail Rutkowski
AIMS Logistics

The supply chain field recognizes excellence within its own ranks. Early this year, the National Small Shipments Traffic Conference [NASSTRAC] named Gail Rutkowski, director of transportation services at AIMS Logistics, as its "Member of the Year" for 2005. Providing information on pending legislative and regulatory changes as well as networking support, NASSTRAC members are logistics professionals in LTL, parcel and small package shipping. Rutkowski, active in the organization for a decade, currently serves on its executive board and education committee. AIMS Logistics, headquartered in Tennessee, was founded in 1994 by industry professionals determined to provide large volume shippers with flexibility and custom solutions not then being met in the marketplace. (www.aimslogistics.com)

Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs

According to Jeffrey D. Sachs, "economic development works." As director of The Earth Institute and director of the UN Millennium Project, Sachs believes that, "Extreme poverty can be ended, not in the time of our grandchildren, but our time." Part of the problem we need to overcome, he says, is that "many of these countries are invisible places, neglected by us politically, neglected by our business firms, by international markets, and by trade...and these are places that are in very deep trouble all of the time, but with largely solvable problems." The solution involves trade with foreign countries, which can contribute substantially to lifting a country out of poverty. (www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/about/director/)

Arthur Mesher
Chief Executive Officer, Descartes Systems Group

Arthur Mesher is not your average CEO of a logistics technology manufacturer. In his 25-year career, Mesher has become recognized as a pioneer and is considered by many to be a founder of on-demand logistics networks to meet just-in-time manufacturing and shipping schedules. He has many such 'firsts' to his credit: he helped develop one of the industry's first store and forward communications networks in the early '80s; several years later he brought to market the first PC-based multi-carrier manifest system, as well as the first data network that tied shippers and carriers together to exchange computer-to-computer electronic logistics data. His work eventually led to the development of the first client/server-based, on-demand freight management system for global cargo visibility. (www.descartes.com)

Robin Lanier
Executive Director, Waterfront Coalition

The Waterfront Coalition represents importers, exporters, transportation providers, and others in the transportation supply chain while promoting the economic importance of U.S. ports and foreign trade. A much-noted white paper issued this spring urged immediate public/private action on the infrastructure issues that threaten to bottleneck the movement of intermodal containers. "The very lifeblood of international and national commerce," is how Robin Lanier describes that flow. Specific recommendations included incentives for expanded investment in intermodal rail capacity, as well as steps to improve the efficiency of short-haul truckers and other measures to ease the flow of goods. (www.portmod.org)

Brian Maher
CEO, Maher Terminals

Methods exist to ease the flow of trade, and Maher Terminals has been pursuing a number of them. In 2003, CEO Brian Maher was honored by the New York/New Jersey Association of Bi-State Motor Carriers for his company's introduction of extended gate hours at its giant Port of New York-New Jersey facility, a move which helped ease traffic, permitted more turnarounds and promoted efficient cargo movement through the port. Since then, Maher has been engaged in adding cargo-handling capacity on both coasts. This spring, local officials announced the selection of Maher as operator of a new West Coast facility in Port Rupert, British Columbia, capable of handling 500,000 containers annually beginning in 2007. (www.maherterminals.com)

Apple Computer

Plagued by over- and under-production throughout the 1990s, personal computer pioneer Apple deftly maneuvered to address iPod supply-chain issues and ride the consumer product hit of the new millennium. While the ubiquitous digital music player and celebrity CEO Steve Jobs made the cover of major newsmagazines, supply chain executives hustled behind the scenes-first, pushing key supplier Hitachi to invest $200 million expanding its hard drive manufacturing facilities in Thailand, then restructuring Apple's entire hardware resources department to accommodate an independent iPod division. "Any company's worst nightmare is to have a hot new product but not enough inventory to sell," Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox told MacNewsWorld at crunch time. Nightmare averted, sales leaped exponentially from 23,000 in the first quarter of 2004 to more than 330,000 in 2005. (www.apple.com)

TransCore

TransCore, a transportation services company, is a leader in directly integrating a web-based transportation management system with a freight matching system-enabling shippers and third-party logistics providers to use a single system to manage their contract freight, private fleet and spot market moves. A shipper can now open a single frame, either to manage its freight through CarrierPoint, TransCore's TMS, or purchase transportation through DAT, TransCore's freight matching solution. TransCore, the largest global manufacturer of transportation-based radio frequency identification technology communication products, is adding a new infrared cargo sensor (think TV remote) to its offerings. (www.transcore.com)

C.H. Robinson Worldwide

From its start as a produce company in 1905, C.H. Robinson Worldwide, in this its 100th anniversary, has grown into one of North America's largest third-party logistics providers with operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, and Asia. Most of the company's revenues come from providing truck, rail, ocean, and air transportation in markets around the world. Sourcing and information services are also important components of the company's revenue mix. As a non-asset 3PL, C.H. Robinson has the flexibility to offer customers multimodal options. (www.chrobinson.com)

Port of New York & New Jersey

The Port of New York & New Jersey recorded record volumes in 2004, surpassing $110 billion in total value of cargo handled. The strong performance was notably buoyed by Asia container trade, which grew by over 20 percent. China ranks as the Port's leading foreign trading partner, followed by Italy, Germany, Brazil and India. The top three import cargo commodities on a tonnage basis were beverages, vehicles and furniture. The top three export cargo commodities were wood pulp, plastic and machinery. With plans to spend $600 million to install rail terminals and support infrastructure at all its marine terminals, as well as deepen the port's channel to 50 feet by 2014 (at a total cost of $1.6 billion), the Port is investing heavily in future capability. (www.panynj.gov)

Jon Hemingway
Carrix and SSA Marine Chairman, Marine Terminal Operators

Jon Hemingway, as President and CEO of Carrix and SSA Marine, the world's largest privately operated terminal operator, knew well the costs and frustrations of the chronic backlog in the nation's Los Angeles/Long Beach port system. By taking a leadership role with the West Coast Marine Terminal Operators (WCMTO), which worked collaboratively with public officials and others on efforts to ease the congestion, Hemingway was one of the key movers in developing 'PierPass,' a plan that aims to shift substantial freight traffic at Los Angeles/Long Beach to off-peak and weekend hours. The plan has expected benefits for the general public as well-by moving truck traffic out of rush hour to off-peak periods, it should help ease traffic congestion and reduce vehicular pollution. (www.ssamarine.com)

Walgreens, Rite Aid, and CVS

With the safety of the entire international drug supply chain at stake, the top three drugstore chains-Walgreens (www.walgreens.com), Rite Aid (www.riteaid.com), and CVS (www.cvs.com)-have joined forces with manufacturers and distributors to tag products with radio frequency identifications (RFIDs) and electronic product codes (EPCs). The new FDA-promoted program, Jumpstart, can "track and trace bottle-level movement of drug products throughout the supply chain," says Walgreens CIO Trent Taylor. Health is their wealth: counterfeiting and theft cost the drug industry $30 billion a year. "Although significant steps remain before these systems can be fully implemented," Taylor says, "we know our goals can be reached."

American Express Global Network Services

Credit is the lifeblood of commerce. American Express, through a long-term global strategy of opening its merchant network and card product portfolio broadly through third party issuers, is taking a leading role in extending credit in places around the world where it hasn't been easy to get. Global Network Services is the AmEx business unit that manages relationships with card-issuing partners in some 70 countries like Bulgaria, Latvia and Kenya (where deals were recently announced). Economic development gurus have long stressed the importance of improving financial services in emerging markets, and American Express is demonstrating a creative way to do this. (www.americanexpress.com)

John M. Hill
Principal, ESYNC

When a warehouse scans pallets using radio frequency identification technology and the information is automatically captured in a central data warehouse, thank John M. Hill. The same goes for supply chain execution technology for warehouses and transportation systems. Principal and Board member of ESYNC, Hill has co-founded organizations like the Automatic Identification Manufactures (AIM) Trade Association, that have played a major role to boost RFID and warehouse technologies. ESYNC is a consulting and systems integration firm focused upon supporting clients with logistics network optimization, facility and handling systems design as well as requirements characterization, selection and implementation of AIDC and information systems for supply chain management. (www.esync.com)

Schneider National

Green Bay, Wisconsin-based Schneider National is the largest truckload carrier in North America, with 36 locations throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Its broad portfolio includes one-way van service supported by 14,000 drivers and 40,000 trailers, dedicated service for specific customers, intermodal, brokerage, and expedited services that includes product expertise in airfreight, high value/high security, LTL consolidators, retail, and general commodities. Late last year, the company introduced a new stackable intermodal container, authorized for use on any railroad to increase route flexibility. (www.schneider.com)

Senate Subcommittee on International Economic Policy, Export and Trade Promotion

A standing subcommittee within Foreign Relations, it is here that the legislative foundations and political agenda that underlay U.S. global trade policy are laid. Under the chairmanship of free trader Chuck Hegel (R, Neb), the steady message coming out of this body is that global trade is good for America. Recent hearings on the impact of NAFTA on the U.S. economy, for example, resisted populist hostility and come down firmly on the side of "resounding success." (www.senate.gov)

Pilot Air

Pilot Air achieved record revenues in 2004, thanks in large part to robust international business, which was up 41.5 percent. Diversification helps this company compete effectively in the marketplace. For instance, Pilot Home Delivery has grown to account for 10 percent of the company's business, or over $70 million. The program was developed to meet increased demand for high-speed, high-quality transportation services in the business-to-consumer market. In addition, Pilot's Special Services provides professional delivery or pickup of large business-to-business shipments such as medical equipment, office furniture, and computer and electronics equipment nationwide. (www.pilotair.com)

Sara Lee Household & Body Care Division

Among Sara Lee's Home and Body Care (HBC) brands are the world's best-selling shoe polish and air freshener, the most popular body care product in Europe, and the leading insecticide in Malaysia. Yet the Chicago company makes none of the above. In a program it calls deverticalization, HBC recently shifted competencies exclusively to sales and marketing, shedding all manufacturing and distribution assets to source instead from European sister firms and anonymous Asian suppliers. With product lead-time stretching weeks longer than before, the company tripled its demand planners and invested heavily in software to help forecast overall consumer trends in 180 countries. Now sales are up-almost 15 percent a year-and so is customer satisfaction. (www.saralee.com)

Panalpina

Swiss forwarding company Panalpina, founded in 1895, specializes in intercontinental airfreight and ocean freight shipments and associated supply chain management solutions. Recently, the company signed a global agreement with Envirotainer as part of its new cold chain management solutions for the healthcare industry. This approach is part of a reaffirming of the company's long-held traditional strategy of focusing on industry sectors such as pharmaceuticals, and fashion and garment industries. At the same time, Panalpina executives say this will be placing greater emphasis on small- and medium-sized customers. (www.panalpina.com)

Harley-Davidson Inc.

With a tangled billion-dollar supply chain and increased threats from low-cost, high-efficiency competitors like Honda, Harley-Davidson faced a tough ride ahead just a decade ago. Since then, the Milwaukee-based manufacturer and retailer cut its supplier base by 80 percent, trimmed $40 million off its materials costs, and slashed product-development time by a third. A new 260-page Supplier Expectation Manual pushed sources to reduce parts defects 75 percent. Shares in the Fortune 500 firm traded for fewer than $5 in the early 1990s. Now, thanks to a logistics-centered overhaul, they cost $50. (www.harley-davidson.com)

Larry Lapide, Ph.D.
Research Director, MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics

Revolutionary global trade/supply chain technologies often trace back to Larry Lapide as a player with a role in their early development. Project director for MIT's Supply Chain 2020 Project, Larry Lapide can be counted on to have his finger in all kinds of innovative supply chain processes and technologies. This multi-year research effort of dozens of MIT faculty as well as industry leaders is looking into the future of supply chain management as it will pertain to business practices, corporate structure, regulations, global trade, and customer expectations. The author of E-Business: The Strategic Impact on Supply Chain and Logistics (The Council of Logistics Management), Lapide was named in 2001 as 'one of the four top thought leaders' in the supply chain. (http://web.mit.edu/ctl/www/)

Ozburn-Hessey Logistics

Customer loyalty has provided OH Logistics a foundation on which to build the largest privately held U.S. 3PL. Since 1951-when OH Logistics first served shippers in Nashville, Tennessee-the company has expanded to become a key link in many global companies' supply chains, including Starbucks and Red Bull. Flexibility provided within each of OH Logistics' multi-client campuses and nationwide network allows clients to adapt to changes in space requirements quickly to move into new markets seamlessly. OH Logistics has made major investments in technology to provide clients visibility throughout the supply chain. (www.ohlogistics.com)

Scott Cooper
Manager for Technology Policy, Hewlett-Packard Company

While many companies post product sales information on the Internet, global buying and selling via the Web has been held up by the lack of internationally recognized warrantees and dispute resolution methods. Scott Cooper is a corporate leader determined to open the Web to global trade. As Manager for Technology Policy at Hewlett-Packard Company-where he is responsible for global electronic commerce, Internet and advanced network services issues-he is working with international bodies to harmonize global trade policies that could one day create a seamless global electronic marketplace. The public policy issues the former Congressional staffer monitors include electronic signatures and authentication, telephone competition, Internet taxes and consumer protection issues such as privacy. (www.hp.com)

H.J. Heinz Co.

Best known in America for its eponymous ketchup, Pittsburgh-based H.J. Heinz operates worldwide under over two dozen brands from Boston Market to Weight Watchers. Yet nothing not even medicine is trickier than food to transport around the globe. To cope, Heinz has turned to logistics e-tendering, starting with automated analyses of its complex international truckload contract bids. When the truckload project improved service and returned profit on investment within the year, CNET named it a finalist for its inaugural Business Technology of the Year award.

TNT

Express consignment carrier and global mail provider TNT's latest product offering is next-day, door-to-door delivery service of diagnostic samples and clinical supplies for central laboratories in Asia to the United States. Clinical trial shipments from Asia to the U.S. are set to double by 2006. Currently, Asia-U.S. shipments account for about 10 percent of the industry, estimated to be worth $30 million a year, half of which originates in Singapore. Separately, the company is aggressively pursuing the pan-European postal market as market liberalization continues. TNT also has a cooperative agreement with China Post. (www.tnt.com)

Procter & Gamble + The Gillette Company

Consumer products giant P&G made a savvy move in its takeover of Gillette (which was still in the process at press time)-not only will the combination create an even more dominant player in the marketplace, but it will marry two extremely well-oiled global supply chains. P&G CEO A.G. Lafley spends hours observing the daily habits and tastes of women. Why? Because roughly 80 percent of the people who buy his company's products in the U.S. are women. This same inquisitiveness and keen observation helped him design one of the most successful global supply chains in the world, which will undoubtedly become even more complex with the addition of Gillette. (www.pg.com)

Greg Cudahy
The Americas Vice President for Strategic Platforms and the Global Vice President for Supply Chain Management, Capgemini

If you want advice on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and how to combine it with supply chain management, you can't do better than Greg Cudahy. In his roles at Capgeimini he specializes in SAP, but Cudahy has had a long career in the integration front. He's been Executive Vice President for Pricing and Revenue Optimization (PRO) for Manugistics and was responsible for the global leadership of their PRO operations, as well as management of Manugistics' Strategic Consulting and Alliance Services groups. In that capacity, he led the integration of PRO technologies into existing Manugistics supply chain products, which generated the firm's new Enterprise Profit Optimization (EPO) solutions. His client list reads like the S&P 500: Georgia Pacific, Pepsi, The Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Kmart, Coca-Cola, Clorox, AstraZeneca, Samsung and on-and-on. (www.capgemini.com)

Eagle Global Logistics

Houston, Texas-based Eagle Global Logistics provides airfreight and ocean freight forwarding and related logistics services. The company achieved better-than-expected revenue and earnings last year, due to strong demand from shippers. One of EGL's keys to success has been its embrace of technology. "The company philosophy is simple. We will participate in any technology which brings us quality and cost savings," stated David Lara, vice president of international products at EGL. Major sectors served include automotive, pharmaceutical, and oil and gas. (www.eaglegl.com)

Ryder

Fleet management is a specialty of this global logistics company, but that doesn't quite say it all. The company's product offerings include: Fleet Management Solutions (FMS), which provides leasing, rental and programmed maintenance of trucks, tractors and trailers to commercial customers; Supply Chain Solutions (SCS), which manages the movement of materials and related information from the acquisition of raw materials to the delivery of finished products to end-users; and Dedicated Contract Carriage (DCC), which provides a turn-key transportation service that includes vehicles, drivers, routing and scheduling. (www.ryder.com)

Robert (Bob) Maddocks
Founder, President, and CEO of Maddocks Systems Inc.

If shippers are finding the truckers hauling their goods more responsive and better able to meet demanding schedules, they can thank Bob Maddocks, founder and president of Maddocks Systems Inc. Since founding the company in 1981, Maddocks has been the driving force in the development of TruckMate for Windows transportation software. This enterprise-wide package provides trucking and logistics companies the ability to manage their entire operation from customer service, to dispatching through to the financial side. And, it's fully integrated to satellite communication technology which, helps streamline the supply chain by enabling decision-making in real-time. Despite his leadership role and stature within the trucking industry, Maddocks remains a 'hands-on' when it comes to freight management software. (www.maddocks.ca)

John J. Collins
Vice President for ITS and Telemetric at Traffic.com, Inc.

Think EZ-Pass and other pass-through toll agencies throughout the country and you'll understand the importance of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) to global trade. The technology, based on short-wave radio frequencies, is allowing shipments to flow quickly through gatekeepers throughout the world. One of the key contributors to the ITS movement is John J. Collins, a recent president of ITS America-a Washington, D.C.-based trade association. Collins worked hard at ITS America to build awareness of the technology's importance, including working hand-in-hand with government officials to promote a nationwide standard for tollbooth technology. In his role at Traffic.com he's applying his ITS knowledge to keep traffic-and shipments-flowing in urban centers nationwide through real-time traffic alerts that utilize traffic-sensor technology. (www.traffic.com)

Landstar

Landstar, a non-asset-based provider of contract logistics and intermodal transportation, stands out for its use of mobile technology. It was recently received Computerworld's "Best Practices in Mobile & Wireless" award for its ongoing success in providing its third-party business capacity providers and independent sales agents with mobile, wireless access to critical information on multiple platforms. The Landstar business model is built around fulfilling shippers' needs through the use of individual businesses and transportation providers. (www.landstar.com)