The word “logistics” gets thrown around a lot these days- in the news, media, and probably at some family get togethers. I, much like most people, never actually realized what all that word entails- in short, a lot! After being in this industry for the past year or so, if you were to ask me to explain what “logistics” truly means, the best comparison I can articulate would be to the sport of parkour. Now that may sound funny, but if you break these two things down to their base definitions, the similarities begin to reveal themselves.
Parkour, defined, is the athletic sport of traveling from Point A to Point B as efficiently as possible. It takes practice, skill, creativity, and athleticism to become a practitioner of parkour. Well, logistics is defined as “the process of planning and executing the efficient transportation and storage of goods from the point of origin to the point of consumption.” In laymen’s terms, logistics is process of moving goods from Point A to Point B as efficiently as possible. And believe me, from experience, it takes lots of practice, skill, creativity, and some mental athleticism to get the hang of operating in this industry. So, you see, logistics is the parkour of the transportation industry. The most important similarity between the two? They’re both REALLY cool!
At BR Williams, we have our very own “Parkour Division,” which has accomplished quite a bit since its inception. Some cool facts about our Logistics Division:
- It was created with just one employee on May 26th, 2010.
- We moved our very first load of auto parts on June 3rd, 2010, to Roanoke, VA.
- Since then, 77,291 shipments in all 48 contiguous states (PLUS Alaska!) have been delivered.
- We have contracted 8,968 motor carriers.
- We have served 321 customers.
The way our division has been built to what it is today is by abiding by the core values of BR Williams- honesty, integrity, and service. These principles are applied to every nook and cranny of what we do; from selecting what carriers we partner with, to how we communicate with our customers and carriers, and everything else in between. We use these principles, along with some creativity, to service our customers by moving their freight as efficiently as possible. We do this by carefully selecting quality carriers that we know will properly handle the shipments and deliver them to our customers on time. Like with anything else in life, it’s not always easy, but at the end of the day, we love what we do (and enjoy employing our skills in “mental athleticism”) to provide a high quality of service to our customers.
Meet Our Team!
As you might expect in an industry as intricate as ours, pulling off what we do requires a crack team, of which we’re lucky to have! Meet our team members:
Thomas (TK) Bardwell, VP of BR Williams Logistics Division: Start date: May 26th, 2010
Kenton Sprayberry, Director of Operations & Carrier Sales: Start date: April 2nd, 2012
Lindsay Jones, Operations & Billing Specialist: Start date: January 25th, 2008
Jessica Vance, Operations & Billing Supervisor: Start date: April 1st, 2021
Abbey Gravitt, Billing Specialist: Start date: March 29th, 2021
Grenda Scheid, Tracking Operations: Start date: January 18th, 2017
Andrew Gilmore, North East Region Manager: Start date: July 18th, 2011
Johnny Ross, Midwest/West Region Manager: Start date: December 11th, 2012
Lott Cates, Southeast Region Manager: Start date: November 30th, 2020
Jacob Floyd, LTL Manager: Start date: March 15th, 2021
Colten Sherman, Branch Manager, ATL Office: Start date: April 3rd, 2023
Grant Montgomery, Business Analyst: Start date: May 30th, 2022
Michael Sheffield, Flatbed Manager: Start date: January 3rd, 2023
