Intro note: This post, targeted toward the bulk of employees who are Millennial or GenZ, introduced a new marketing initiative to partner with HR for more proactive internal transparency and culture-building content. I chose “Superstars” and “Stay Golden” to reflect the gold star in the GSC brand. Identifying client, executive and product names are redacted to preserve confidentiality. Photos and links have been removed.

Dear GSC Superstars:

If you noticed the Water Street office was a little light on higher ups last week, you’re a keen observer. Here’s what was going down: 

[Exec], [exec], [exec], [exec], [exec] and [exec] (of PNW fame) were crisscrossing the continent to get some valuable face time with a few of our key clients on their second Executive Road Trip of this year.  

The itinerary started on Monday in Atlanta, with sit-downs involving [client], [client], [client] and [client]. [Exec] sent a photo from inside [client] HQ that would indicate he could barely contain his excitement, while dad, er, CEO [exec] caught up on his Wordle game. Seconds later, however, five of our key contacts from [client] shared their wins, challenges and plans for the future with our executive team, who listened closely to the needs of this most important client. What sets GSC apart from our competitors is our consultative approach: the business of freight logistics is far from a one size fits all industry, and GSC’s special sauce is our ability to create programs that take into account all the variations in the moving parts of a client’s supply chain.  

(Author’s note: [Exec] would like everyone to know that he was unaware that his casual selfies would get into the wrong hands [mine] and be used for nefarious purposes [this].) 

After the ‘all hands-on deck’ [client] meeting, the team split up to meet with key folks from the aforementioned [client] and [client]. 

Early the next morning, [exec], [exec], [exec] and [exec] headed to America’s heartland — specifically, Bentonville, Arkansas — to meet with a couple of little companies you may have heard of: [client] and [client]. We currently provide drayage services in the PNW for monster retailer [client] and have big plans for moving GSC forward via this crucial partnership. [client] is the second largest meat processor and marketer in the world and ranks 81 in the Fortune 100. 

(After [exec] share these photos, I noted that it just looked HOT. He agreed in a manner that is, unfortunately, not fit to print.) 

Our opportunity with [client] is a result of one thing: the amazing job our operational team has done working with [client], in particular (shout out!) our PNW, IT, CSC and FSC teams. You might be thinking, “What does [client] have to do with [client]?” Well, our two contacts at [client] used to work at [client], are intimately familiar with our service, products and people, and believe, and I quote: “GSC’s service is impeccable.” Boom. This writer has always believed that a great brand and a great product do 90% of the legwork of marketing. All of YOU have created that great product: fulfilling the promise of Delivering Certainty. And now look at that: [client] fell into our laps, and I’m out of a job (kidding). 

(At dinner with [client], our intrepid travelers were schooled on the supply-chain-within-a-supply-chain that is … a chicken. Who knew: the beaks and feet go to China, the blood is used to add protein and iron to animal feed, the feathers are sent to down bedding manufacturers, etc. How they had this conversation over dinner, I do not know. Perhaps they were eating sushi.) 

While Team A baked in Bentonville, lucky Team B, made up of [exec] and [exec], headed for the lovely coastal breezes of Sunrise, Florida, to meet with three key contacts at new client [client]. Sarcasm aside, you probably actually haven’t heard of [client] (check them out here), though you may have heard of their flagship product, [product]. [Client] is a family business (just like GSC!) started by husband-and-wife attorneys who decided one day that they wanted to make toys. Incidentally, before I even learned this, I saw a [product] on a desk over at 512 when I stumbled in the wrong door looking for Thursday’s carrier appreciation event (which I found, eventually).  

Also on the Florida itinerary was [client] (known as [client] around the Commercial team). We are currently doing business with them here in Oakland, and [exec] and [exec] discussed our reorg, growth plans, and the additional opportunities that exist to serve them in the PNW.  

The purpose of these road trips? Of course, we wanted to update our clients on the changes at GSC (which you all learned about at our recent town hall meetings), promote the additional solutions we’d love our clients to take advantage of, and begin discussions about handling their business in ports beyond Oakland and the PNW. But more than anything, we were there to listen, learn, and express our gratitude for the trust these companies have put in GSC, by allowing us to deliver certainty for them in their supply chain. We are a family business, after all – and that doesn’t just mean the Taylor family: it means the family that YOU are a part of, and that every valued client is a part of, too.  

This executive road trip is now complete, and we are all back refreshed from the long weekend. As always, the company is grateful for all the work you do. Now let’s get busy moving GSC forward.  

Stay Golden!

Intro note: This internal post, targeted toward the bulk of employees who are Millennial or GenZ, was part of a “Countdown to the Future” series to explain and generate excitement around a rebrand, corporate restructuring and national expansion initiative. Client names have been redacted. The Taylor family’s roles are public knowledge. Photos are not included.

Dear Superstars:

Scott stopped by my cubicle this week with a small stack of photos, which I eagerly grabbed from his hands to inspect. The first photo below is of him at about age 11, standing in front of a supermarket display of cookies sold by his father Bud’s company, Taylor Sales.  The sign says “fresh cookies,” but Scott said they actually tasted like sawdust. Nevertheless, they flew off the shelves at the astounding price of three boxes for $1.00. That’s three pounds of cookies for one stinkin’ dollar! 2022 it was not.  

In the next photo, above, Bud is standing next to Scott’s brother Rick, who was about seven years old at the time. They are posing next to a railcar filled with Mrs. Taylor’s Preserves. This product, indeed named for Scott’s mother, came about because  Bud saw cases of preserves in their warehouse one day, and approached the manufacturer to ask, “What would you think about putting ‘Mrs. Taylor’s’ on all those preserves?” The answer was yes, and Mrs. Taylor’s Preserves – marmalade, boysenberry, raspberry and strawberry – ended up being carried in every Woolworth’s store across the nation!  Their biggest seller was a three-pound jar of strawberry jam that sold for $.88. Check out these literal carloads of preserves, below, ready for transport to Woolworth’s (which was the bomb diggity of retail — and lunch counters — back in the midcentury). 

Bud Taylor obviously had a knack for merchandising, sales, and business in general, so would you believe, he didn’t even graduate from high school? Right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, recruiters came into high schools: if you enlisted in the armed forces, they would give you a high school diploma. Off Bud went, into the Army, where he trained for cold weather and served in Persia (now Iran).  

The next photo, from 1980, shows Scott’s brother Rick (far left) all grown up and full of righteous ‘70s style, a similarly attired cousin with the addition of plaid, Aunt Sylvia, Uncle Jack, Gladys (Mrs. Taylor, to you), Scott’s grandmother and an unknown couple standing in front of the family home they were able to buy in Atherton (for a whopping $150K!) because of the success of Taylor Sales and the iterations of the company that came after.  

The final photo I practically had to pry out of Scott’s fingers (I insisted we needed to see them all!) shows Bud and Gladys standing in front of their retirement home in Arizona. By this time, 1990/1991ish, GSC was about three years old, having been founded by a 38-year-old Scott, with Bud as VP, following the dissolution of Bud’s last company, LCO (Low Cost Operations). 

Now, here’s just one more: a joyful, smiling Grandpa Bud with his two grandsons, our very own Justin and Brandon, around 2005 -- the third generation of Taylors to continue the family business tradition in logistics and supply chain management.  

From cookies and preserves to everything you can order from [client] and [client]. And now, a FUTURE, starting in just 8 days, where GSC is GOING NATIONAL. 

Doesn’t the place we’re going seem so much more fun and exciting, now that you know where we’ve come from? 

Stay Golden!

Intro note: This is another internal email/blog post in the “Countdown to the Future” series to explain and generate excitement around a rebrand, corporate restructuring and national expansion initiative. Some identifying information is redacted. Executive roles are public knowledge.

Dear GSC Superstars:

We are nearing the home stretch of a complete restructuring of GSC into four subsidiary companies under new parent company GSC Enterprises.

What may surprise you is that this is not the first time GSC has undertaken a major organizational change to better position us for growth and success. Prior to this restructuring, there were two other organizational changes that demonstrated how we are continuously improving, adapting, and transforming: 

The first change we want to highlight is the reorganization of the Commercial team. Just over a year ago, Joe Zepko, then the VP of Sales & Marketing under Chief Commercial Officer Justin Taylor, became the Senior VP of Strategy, a new department under President Dave Arsenault. The executive team felt that Joe’s expertise, wisdom, and unparalleled understanding of the intricacies of our clients’ needs — a product of his decades of experience on the ocean carrier side and with GSC — would be best put to use with a more strategic directive, and the creation of Strategy reflected this determination. This new focus allowed GSC to take a more insight-driven, proactive, and strategically focused approach to sales.

After a year of operating under this new structure, Joe and the Strategy team are now once again reporting to Justin within the overall Commercial organization. This team will continue to grow and pull many of the client-focused activities currently managed by operations – including client onboarding and business systems programming – under the expanding Strategy umbrella.  

Moving these operational functions will have the additional benefit of  freeing up resources within the client service team, allowing them to provide a deeper level of support to our clients. The fact that “we do the work of your internal team” is one of our biggest differentiators for clients, and ensures our service is “sticky” - we are hard to give up!

The end result of this year-long process is that we have supercharged our ability to create  intelligent, intentional, tactical proposals to our clients, and are now able to meet their needs in unprecedented ways. 

The logic behind the current restructuring (four subsidiaries under the GSC Enterprises parent company) centers around this same type of specialization as a path to scalability. We’d rather have one focused team replicating their successful strategies and processes, instead of multiple teams duplicating effort in pursuit of the same goal. That’s the definition of scalability. It is how we will move into the new markets of [market], [market] and [market], and is precisely what the Commercial reorg was meant to enable.  

Another example of an intentional move toward specialization for scalability is the recent creation of a dedicated payroll & benefits role within HR: 

New hire [employee] started less than a month ago as Payroll/Benefits Specialist and is getting up to speed on all that her new position requires. The filling of this position marks the first time in nine years that our own indefatigable [employee] will not be handling payroll! When [employee] started, she was handling all of HR as part of the accounting department, and GSC HQ had only 26 employees. Now we have [###] employees between California and the PNW (with [##] open positions, for a total of [###] roles), a finance department of [##] employees and an HR department of another [##], with [#] open positions! 

So, what will our new Payroll/Benefits Specialist manage? She will: 

• Process payroll for all four GSC companies (minus GSC Enterprises, which has only one employee: our CEO Scott Taylor) 

• Perform benefits audits, and be a resource for benefits enrollment 

• Manage employee files, including a massive digitization project 

• Manage ACA reports and garnishments 

• Maintain Charthop, our new org chart/employee data platform 

• Manage billing for benefits 

What’s [employee] going to do now? Two things, she says: one, get the crap off her desk! Two, focus on PEOPLE, the first and most important aspect of the PEOPLE, [strategy] and [strategy] strategy we all heard about at the town hall meetings last month. She will now turn her attention toward coaching, mentoring, training, partnering and managing labor relations with the unions.  

This company may have been around for decades, but we are definitely not stuck in our ways. We thank all of you for having the flexibility, creativity and curiosity to help us define new and better ways of doing business, and to ride the changes as they come. You help us raise the gold standard every day, and we couldn’t be more excited about where GSC is headed.

Stay Golden!