Beyond the Box: John Campo on 40 Years of Innovation in Logistics

welcome to the know your ship podcast presented by ehub I’m your
host Frank Dolce here we go welcome back to the know your ship podcast I
we’ve been trying to get this guy for a long time but you’re so you’re so
busy and and everybody needs a little bit of your time so just upfront very
thankful grateful that you could be here with us today the man who needs no
introduction this is the one and only John Campo with easy post but easy post
is just kind of where you are right now you’ve had this unbelievable career
in the logistics industry that’s that’s now gone on for nearly 40 years 30 39
years wow yeah that’s amazing yeah I can’t wait to talk about all that you’ve
seen in this industry I’ve only been in the industry about 15 years and the
changes have been unbelievable in the last 15 years right so from where you
started to today it must have it’s flipped upside down how many times um half
a dozen times absolutely but uh you know it it started out as brown boxes and
you know electrome mechanical industrial engineering operations and now it’s
sophisticated online datadriven uh Commerce yeah it’s unbelievable and and
did you just before we get started a little bit on your background did you
growing up did you think well I’m going to I’m really interested in the
logistics industry I mean is that is that is that where you wanted to end up
or or were you like I want to be a fireman I know I want to be a I want to be
an astronaut something like that yeah no I actually uh had no clue about
getting involved with Logistics um I can tell you how it started it just I’m
a naturally curious person my Dad ran his own business and he shipped um
laboratory research supplies throughout the Northeast so occasionally to earn
a few bucks he would hire me on a weekend to you know pack some boxes put
some tape on it you know all that and I kind of watched that here’s what I
noticed he was very concerned that every box got out the door the day that it
was prepared and I said to him what’s the big deal you know the guy’s going
to come again tomorrow and he said John every one of those is an invoice we
want those out the door so uh I realized it was important to his business
which uh took care of our family yeah so it was a a kernel of curiosity that
got me involved in those days what were your were you shipping to Consumers
are we shipping to commercial addresses no these were uh Laboratories
research universities that kind of thing it was commercial and what were your
shipping options in those days there were uh three actually Four there was uh
the ups for some of the bigger boxes mhm uh there was FedEx for the Emergency
got to get it there tomorrow for the lab test M there was a small startup uh
RPS uh roadway Parcel Service and then there was the USPS so that was it
gotcha yeah and and I I’m sure you didn’t have a label generator label
printer how how did you produce a label and book that shipment a lot of this
stuff was a a manual manifest writing in the book um we you did have a label
printer but it was kind of rudimentary and it was a lot of handwriting a lot
of manual yeah yeah oh wow well the industry today is I mean you walk in
warehouses today and you see labels flying off they’re automatically attached
to packages and they’re sorted and everything is odd it’s crazy so you’ve
seen you you’ve seen it all now where was that where where were you where did
you grow up I grew up in New Jersey and where it was was a warehouse in
Neptune New Jersey uh yeah Jersey Shore how did your dad get involved in that
business he was um he was a Salesman in uh the Laboratory Supply sector got
and he realized this is kind of interesting because it was a Confluence of
technical change that allowed him to grow as a business back in the day all
laboratory research was done with uh glass uh pipets test tubes Petri dishes
it was all glass and it all had to be cleaned it was called autoclaving right
so it was very expensive to do very manual uhhuh he had a contact in Denmark
that um produced plastic that could survive cryogenic freezing so the plastic
wouldn’t crack so think of those little test tubes all the DNA stuff you see
on TV today and he became the sole distributor of cryogenic test tubes that
could go into um you know liquid nitrogen and freeze so he captured a market
that was just emerging mhm and uh he did well for himself yeah yeah so did
you ever have a thought of you would follow that path or that wasn’t of
interest to you growing up no you know uh it was I was curious about it it
seemed to be a way to make a good living but I had actually uh had a fairly
cloistered uh childhood I stayed on the East Coast I grew up in New Jersey
you know New York Connecticut Pennsylvania you know Florida once in a while
but I had never seen the West Coast so I just decided uh that is something I
want to see before I get saddled with uh full-time responsibility the career
right where’s your New Jersey accent uh where did it did you leave it back
there my mother beat it out of me no I can go Jersey on you but no I um I
specifically worked actually to kind of neutralize it did you really yeah ah
I don’t know it’s but but you can bring it up oh yeah when when you want to
maybe some point maybe that will be one of my three you may you keep it on
you just keep that handy because that may one of my three random questions
I’ll ask you a question I want you to answer it in a jersey Jersey accent so
you went through grade school high school all all in New Jersey when did you
decide to move out yeah I did um following College it was uh the country
actually was in a recession it this was I’ll date myself here it was it was
1981 yeah and I well I remember that interest interest rates were crazy I
mean you think they’re today they’re an issue you know they were way big yeah
they were in the teens yes back then they were in the mid teens is this also
the era of the gas lines and the odd and even license plates and you had to
do all yeah yeah it was kind of it it all evolved through some you know
economics that were macro yeah and I just decided that you know California
looks good I’ll give it a shot and uh drove cross country you’ll like this no
technology no cell phone all right obviously they didn’t exist yeah I didn’t
even I didn’t even have a credit card I I had a stack of American Express
Travel Travelers checks that was it unbelievable but it was one of the most
fantastic Journeys to see America you know it was great I I love it we
growing up we used to we used to take road trips every summer mostly from
California I grew up in Southern California to Colorado to visit family and
then sometimes we would use that as a base and we would just do little trips
from there but I developed this love of a road trip I love a road trip even
to this day sure and we did the same thing there was no technology available
I typically was the guy with the map and then trying to fold it back together
and doing doing all of those things but it’s a great way to travel it’s a
great way to see the country and you just don’t I don’t know if people take
that opportunity as much anymore yeah I have this kind of idea that I’d like
to end up later in my career which I am getting later in my career but as a
truck driver because I just love love to be on the road I don’t know if I
want all of the frustration that goes along with being a truck driver because
there that that can be I think that can be a challenging job you’ve probably
seen that in in your career sure driving a driving a truck can be can be
difficult but but it is a great way to see the country yeah I actually I
always worked I always loved work still do and one job that I had that was
Trucking related is I worked on a cross do uh for a company called Viking
Freight and they were acquired 30 Years Ago by federal express but Viking
Freight my job was to drive a forklift truck unloading a tractor trailer from
one side that tractor trailer came in from Nevada or from Reno actually MH
and then doing it cross do and reloading it uh on the other side to the other
truck so uh didn’t know it I guess it was in my blood eventually absolutely
yeah so did you go to did you attend college University in San Diego nope no
I uh you just went over to see you went to you drove across country you
wanted to see the West Coast that’s right okay and then spent some time there
what happened next well I enjoyed the freedom of being on my own yeah okay
which also meant you got to get a job so that’s where I work for Viking got
okay excellent and uh you know if you were willing to work there were jobs
for sure and I paid the bills and that was good but then I realized you know
I I had third shift so 11 a.m. to 6 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. was not a great
life no uh did you know I was doing that kind of work and then realized um
there’s there’s other corporate I was more structured towards going towards a
corporate job and and there was a woman who lived upstairs who was a sales
rep for of all places Pitney Bose and she kept bragging about her commission
checks so I realized you know I’m I’m as smarter smarter than her I can I
know I can do this so I uh I interviewed several times and then got the job
started in San Diego is literally a a low-end sales rep and uh then just
parlayed that into a 25 year career with bows gotcha were you always okay so
take me through that that that’s that’s interesting that’s the Genesis you
you had a neighbor yep who who was in the industry yep and you thought well I
could I could be pretty good at that and jumped in yeah okay that turns into
25 years right with Pitney Bose you started in low-level sales where did you
end up what was the evolution um The Evolution was uh pretty interesting
actually I I realized that I like sales I was good at it but I realized that
the real money to be made in that industry at that time was on the East Coast
because it was primarily a mailing business a letter mail business and if you
look at the map of the US the East Co East Coast Corridor Boston New York
Philly um you know down to Miami and then out over into Chicago that was like
the Golden Triangle of producing uh letter mail M and decided okay that’s
where the money is I actually come from New Jersey so I ended up going back
to New Jersey nice into a more advanced sales career gotcha and then uh
figured out I was curious about how do they make this stuff you know where do
where does all of the where do the rules Come by uh that says okay this sells
for that or where does this Pro product come from and um ended up uh getting
asked to uh go down to Washington DC to lead a sales team which I did did
that for sever several years and then having exposure to Washington opened up
a lot of doors for me and uh that had to do with you know dealing with the
government and dealing with uh the military and dealing with um just the the
business of the Commerce of Washington DC I then went up to the corporate
headquarters did a stint in uh Stamford Connecticut and then uh ended up
going finally ended up going back to Washington DC and headed up their
government relations office for a few years gotcha okay so well I I kind of
want to ask you about Pitney Bose today because it’s a it’s a super
interesting yeah story yeah I guess about where where Pitney is today do you
have any thoughts on what’s happened with that company you know I do um it
provided a great career for me yeah which was wonderful I met my wife at
Pitney BOS she was a sales rep there oh nice we met in California awesome so
uh we’re still going strong after 36 years congratulations it must have
worked out well well and uh but you know in today’s world you know there are
companies I think that um sees the day when it comes to uh technology
execution and some that choose maybe it’s a tough choice it’s like the
innovator’s Dilemma yeah it’s like what do you do when what do you do when
you have a you know annual recurring Revenue good cash flow from a certain
product line and you don’t necessarily know how to disengage from that to go
on to something new and I think that that was a challenge for them yeah yeah
and so that yeah I think all of us in the industry were we were kind of
scratching our heads about if if they were going to jump in if they weren’t
and then it kind of got late in the whole in the whole process so this I
think it’s really interesting this exposure you had to Washington DC and
working in on the government side of it which led leads to the position where
you where you are now with easy post but you’ve held this position with other
other companies this kind of government relations yeah and so I think that
could be unbelievably challenging and without getting into politics I mean if
you look at our political landscape today if you follow it at all I mean you
it could it could it could produce some anxiety it’s an art not you know it’s
an art and a science you know but in in in your business in my business in
the pharmaceutical business the automotive business the transportation
business yeah every bit of it is regulated to some degree and that that’s
that was the role that I got involved with I was interested in well how do
these how are these rules promulgated how how do businesses get told what’s
the best way to do something okay and in the the postal World which was I was
very Centric to that um easy post does something that you know Pitney does
and stamps does and that is prints live Postage and it’s it’s something that
you just don’t get to do you have to earn the right to do it and that right
is technically driven you know it takes a lot of um security and a lot of
cryptography and a lot of technical Acumen to be able to get the okay to
print live Postage and uh that was that was the kernel or the the very
beginning of my involvement with Washington DC it was actually to help uh
launch PC postage back in 1999 wow yeah wow that’s amazing amazing I have
lots a lot of questions about your role working with the with the government
so as you as you look across your experience and what you’re doing today and
what you’ve done with other companies in this role how do you how do you
interact with the government how do you I mean are you are you in there
trying to help improve relationships are you in there trying to just
understand what’s going on and how companies can work appropriately with the
government entities and then I guess the other question I have is is there is
there efficiency in the government or could that be improved in some way in
the in in how they work with we’ll just keep it with the logistics industry
but I mean like you said it it’s with every Pharmaceuticals and health and
wellness and everything else that’s right yeah I I think um you know to be
frank the the word efficiency in government don’t necessarily go hand in hand
but you know I I actually think that there’s a role for it um you know safety
is one security is another and uh you know the general good of us and all
Commerce is is another aspect of it um yeah I I think that uh what I’ve seen
where it works best I’ll use NASA as an example you know NASA put man on the
moon Kennedy did is put men men on the moon in 10 years right back in 1961 it
was done and it was done with NASA as the prime if you want to call it that
and but behind the scenes there were other companies that were doing a lot of
the development work and the and uh what it’s morphed into today is when a
satellite wants to go up all right it’s usually Elon Musk or Jeff Asos or
private sector that does a lot of that now yeah I think where government
works best is when it works best with with in partnership with the private
sector there’s there’s a win-win there how do you I think you’re right but it
seems like in that relationship there’s it’s always it’s ever changing and
there’s always conflict that you have to have to manage and I don’t I don’t
know I I guess I’m curious about is that is that necessary or or and and is
it necessary and are those things are we always improving what’s happening in
the industry yeah I I think it I do think it’s necessary okay um without it
industry can go south real real fast okay you at Enron okay you look at the
financial you know okay there’s there’s untethered you know Commerce can go
south uh pretty fast so I think I think maybe the the government role is to
play to our better Angels you know to to make sure that yeah that that
Commerce is is done within the boundaries of trust and legality and safety so
I think there yeah I think there is a role there yeah how do you approach how
do you approach Your Role with in in working with government entities how how
do you how do you interact with with that side of the business yeah I think
the main first of all all of this is built built on relationships if you
don’t have the trust and if you don’t have the cander you know to speak truth
to some of the tough decisions that have to be spoken to then you don’t
really get anywhere um I think it’s built on trust and it’s built on value ad
you know I’m so glad that you said that I didn’t know where you were going to
go with that answer but we have some recurring themes on this podcast and one
of the things that always comes up is you know grit and effort and hard work
and determination I think those are I love those things and and I know you
have an Athletics background and you love baseball I think you played soccer
soccer growing up and I played soccer growing up as well all my kids ended up
playing soccer um and so and another theme that always seems to come up in
this podcast is the power and necessity of building strong relationships with
partners and with people and and so when I think about working with a
government agency it it feels daunting it feels overwhelming and it sounds
like what you’re saying is the business business principles apply oh yeah you
know corporate world government world if it’s mixed you still have some
foundational principles that make things work yeah yeah that’s that’s
definitely true and I I think that um there are times when when government
can be ahead of the curve and in order to get to their wish Point uh it does
take the partner partnering with the private sector why because we tend to do
things with far less bureaucracy and far less uh far fewer layers of decision
making and that that helps us but I do remember um back when uh commerce was
basically contracted through checks and hard copy and fax machines were
considered novel okay that that was uh we we thought that was pretty decent
and that was a good way to go and then all of a sudden this thing called the
internet pops up and then it then it becomes it goes back to that word trust
and originally I think there was a lot of uh wobbly uh applications of the
internet because you know am I going to put my credit card out there is it
going to be all over the world to be seen am I going to get the goods that I
ordered can I trust the party on the other end that all came to fruition over
time that was the private you know the private sector was driving that yeah
Innovation Innovation was driving that government on the outside was keeping
it you know honest to make sure that um there weren’t you know major
violations and that kind of thing yeah I think that’s a I think that’s an
excellent way to describe it we have a fax machine do you over here but
people walk by it and they it’s like looking at you know maybe for you and I
looking at a typewriter it’s complet what does this thing right what does
this thing do what is the what do you think your the best thing that you
provide in your role is the government relations person for easy post what is
your what is your strength okay well uh good question I and it’s not just
government Rel you know it’s it’s also carrier relations absolutely so so
it’s it’s both of those sectors um I think the strength is uh based on
historical knowledge trends that I’ve seen happen that have come to fruition
so it’s like you know there’s pump the brakes where it’s necessary and and
you know go all out where it it’s also opportunistic uh and sharing that
knowledge with the government entities now I I deal with the Postal Service
which is a fine institution 250 years old I deal with them a lot but they’re
a regulate they themselves are regulated they have they have an ig’s office
that oversees them they have a postal Regulatory Commission they have they
have two committees or uh subcommittees in Congress that oversee them so
they’re they have to deal with a whole set of issues on their own and I think
helping to connect the dots between where’s the value okay of decisions that
are being made uh that is probably one of my strengths well we both have have
worked with the Postal Service we’ve both been partners with the postal
service for a long time and and the truth is the pul PSAL service can be
challenging mhm for partners and difficult sometimes and it’s still an
unbelievable organization do you I I sometimes feel like there is a lot of
bureaucracy around that organization and maybe efficiency could be improved
if it was managed differently I could be completely wrong about that any
thoughts on on the postal surface as it stands today and where it’s headed
yeah that’s um you know a lot of times the general public doesn’t understand
that besides being 250 years old and employing 600,000 people it has a
responsibility embedded it’s a Cong it’s it’s in the law they have to deliver
uh six days a week to roughly 160 million addresses uh every day MH and they
have to be all things to all people that is tough to do no kidding and in
order what I do see now is management now realizes that they uh the the
former business model which was letter Centric uh for decades if not hundreds
of years has morphed into a hybrid of both letter communication which still
has strong value and uh Commerce via packages so I think right now uh the
challenge that they’ve accepted is to uh re-energize and reinvigorate their
Network to to play to that Marketplace versus one that was just primarily
letters 25 30 years ago yeah yeah yeah well I I still I mean I still think
that like you said the postal service is an amazing organization and it’s the
only organization that hits every every doorstep yeah on a daily basis six
days a week right and that’s to think about the scope of that yeah just that
is I think it’s it’s scope in responsibility yeah because you know the
demographics of the country are changing somewhat you know covid brought out
working from home there’s a lot of people that have decided Well you know
Jackson Hall or you know Missoula Montana is a fine place to live and work
both are and both are that’s right but they have to be serviced and uh and
serviced probably at a more robust level than they were before yeah um yeah
yeah okay so I have a few a few questions about that uh your experience from
helping your dad ship some packages to where you are today can you can you
point out one or two Evolutions in the industry that you think have been
fascinating over time sure um I think the first one is um work sharing has
proven to be I I think highly successful I agree you know it it’s uh it’s the
ability to do things let’s call it upstream or in advance of induction um so
when and please just take a minute just describe work sharing so everybody
understand sure no problem uh if you have a business that can do um whether
it is sortation or data management or uh proper production proper induction
to optimize the efficiencies of the partner who’s going to receive that on the
other side that can be USPS it can be FedEx it can be any carrier sure um
that’s a good thing so I think that the the embracing of of work sharing has
been a healthy um approach yeah in the business and then secondarily the
Advent of really robust technology speed uh trust and that it’s going it’s
going to work uptime um because a lot of what underpins this package Commerce
that we’re so familiar with is not just the the uh the trust and the
efficiency but it’s also the uptime it’s almost become like a utility and
let’s say you go on vacation right and you come home from vacation and you
walk into your kitchen and you flip on the lights and the lights don’t go on
that’s a major problem okay it might be a fuse down the basement okay A
little thing but it’s a major problem because your family’s expectations or
your personal expectation is it’s going to work yeah right right and I think
a lot of what the internet has done and the data management uh combined with
the Internet is become almost a utility and then that creates expectations
for our mutual customers yeah and as long as it as the bar keeps rising and
the productivity keeps Rising people will continue to use it yeah absolutely
you I just had a thought when we were talking about it’s a little off topic
here but you mentioned walk into your house and you flip on the lights and
the lights don’t go on yeah and and that used to that used to be or it still
is I mean it still produces anxiety but I’m sure you carry a cell phone mhm I
carry a cell phone we didn’t used to carry cell phones and we got along just
fine without cell phones but have you ever had the experience of misplacing
your cell phone sure and the the anxiety that produces yeah and why why is
that how did we become so we’re talking about tech how did we become so
attached to that thing yeah it’s like I could go in and turn flip the lights
on the lights don’t go on and I’m like okay you know we’ll figure it out but
if I leave my cell phone somewhere and it’s gone for a few minutes I’m in
full panic mode sure that’s where the technology is well that digital
technology is you know uh basically created a world of constant connectivity
can be good can be bad but well which is it is it good or is it bad I don’t
I’ll tell you where I fall on this go ahead I don’t think we should have I
don’t think we should be or the expect the expect is because we have all of
this technology that we’re constantly available so someone trying to reach
out and you don’t answer the phone and then there’s well they have a phone
they should be available all the time I don’t know if I like that yeah
expectation so I would say that’s the downside of Technology yeah yeah I I
think um I think managed correctly you know you’re the head of this business
you you have you you create basically um and in my business too with easy
post levels of expectation so I think the promptness is a good thing sure in
the in the and and it’s fine-tuning managing those levels of expectation yeah
but constant all the time you can create burnout that way absolutely yeah no
question okay I the other thing I wanted to talk about is you mentioned it
with the USPS and evolution and where is the industry what is the what’s
happening in the logistics industry today we talked about a little bit as we
were just sitting here chatting before and you mentioned an inflection point
I’d love for you to to talk about that a little bit more yeah well there have
been a couple a couple of these inflection points I think uh one of them was
just the robustness of the internet itself and again I use that word trust
people got comfortable using it they like using it it is convenient it has
collateral benefits too you don’t have to you know get in the car and go to
the mall and you know to get the goods that you want um all that happened
okay that’s past tense then this Black Swan called covid happens and that
creates an envir an artificial environment where uh people are told don’t go
to work stay shelter in place don’t you know however people still need to
live okay and they still need to connect and uh purchase goods and services
and with that came a wave of usage of this uh new service and uh it was
fairly intense some companies bet the bet the farm that was going to continue
I think wiser companies realized that perhaps this Black Swan would grow some
white feathers and we’re going to figure it out and we always do America’s a
great econom it always figures out you know eventually the best way and I
think that is what happened but for those that overinvestment more towards a
market discipline of how you know how do we properly size and scope the
solution sets that we want to provide IDE to companies and customers would
you call that a correction yeah definely yeah because there were there were
several and I know in our industry we saw that very distinctly yeah this
immediate growth for for for a couple years and they kind of kind of leveled
off but I think you’re right there’s several companies Industries businesses
that didn’t project it or maybe just I I I don’t know didn’t didn’t think of
it with very strategically yeah and and all of a sudden find themselves in a
situation where yeah it was it was a bit of a sugar high yeah you know well
and and then kind of I I mean Perfect Storm maybe not the way to put it but
um Perfect Storm of kind of coming out of that and people aren’t staying at
home as much and then uh a challenging kind of a challenging economy
inflation this talk of recession all of these things that maybe you couldn’t
project maybe you could but people got out over their skis yeah a little bit
I think that happened yeah yeah tell me about tell me about the the carrier
you work with carriers carrier relations tell me about the carrier Market
which is Ever Changing and super interesting and always evolving what what’s
what should we be thinking about in in that area of the business you know
they are um you know they’re operationally and strategically there are some
fantastic carriers that are out there uh right now looking at what’s it going
to look like 10 years from now and they’re planning and executing uh towards
that so I I think one uh they have different issues okay they have they for
example um United Parcel Service it’s 110 years old great company
operationally I mean if you’ve ever been to their worldport like in Kentucky
it it’s humbling they they just it runs lights out it it works it’s really
amazing but now they’re I think they’re looking at certain value sectors
within the logistics sphere uh whether it be Healthcare seems to be one of
them and I tend to agree that um you know demographically people are going to
be uh using more medicines I think as uh as the as the country ages I also
think that there’s the need for specialized really Precision handling of um
product healthc care product um laboratory product Etc that uh poses a great
opportunity you know to address the Health Care Marketplace then you know
back in 30 40 years ago that really wasn’t high on the priority and then
you’ve got uh Federal Express another fine fine entity just celebrated their
50th anniversary and they have a little bit of a different challenge maybe
it’s a less of a labor Centric challenge that maybe UPS had and then
addressed earlier uh this this past year or last year but um you know FedEx
has a uh two different um they have like an air Network and a ground Network
and merging those two together that’s hard to do and they seem to be doing it
well uh but again it’s not without pain and I think that the the management
team is an excellent one that is again really specifically focused on
gleaning all the operational efficiencies they can uh and what I mean by that
just in layman’s terms is there’s no reason to have two trucks from the same
company go to one address in one day yeah you know that it’s not efficient no
yeah no as you look at uh if we’re just taking those you know USPS FedEx um
UPS we could probably put DHL and now there’s a lot of other kind of carrier
opportunities that are getting started and growing and Regional stuff and uh
as as you look across that that whole landscape I guess uh do do you see
where do you see the evolution of that where where do we think it’s headed is
it is it based in better technology is it based in better operations
efficiency where do you think that whole the whole industry is moving well
you know the the there’s the marketplace that the big guys address which is a
national network MH okay the regional networks I think if they try to be um
all if they try to emulate that in totality that’s hard to do okay I think
what what’s going to happen is the Regionals um there’s a little bit of a
ShakeOut a few years ago in in the industry and the really good um efficient
Ones Will Survive and Thrive and backing that up will be the use of data
because there’s there’s our CEO is a a brilliant guy and he always says he
says there’s always a cheaper truck somewhere and there’s you know okay we
don’t want to play in that in that space I think the reality is is using the
data that comes out o