Q&A . . . With Jeff Auslander

PUBLISHED JANUARY 2026

Q: How would you assess the overall health of the U.S. logistics industry and supply chain heading into the new year?

A: It’s definitely a very different time than the last two or three years, where things slowed down quite a bit from a production standpoint. I mean, for the first couple years, during the first Trump administration, things went bananas. And then COVID hit and it went even more bananas. Bananas means that there weren’t enough carriers on the road because of all the furloughs from COVID and all the industry increases from regulations being taken down by that administration, that service mattered significantly more than price because of the supply and demand balance being way in favor of the carriers, because there were fewer of them on the road.

Q: And more recently?

A: That switched in the summer to spring of 2022, and it became the opposite. Inflation drove production down, and there were other factors, of course. And then, of course, that took the balance for the first time in such a way we hadn’t seen since maybe 2010 and 2011, where there was less freight on the road than carriers in demand. That was inflamed a little bit by the tariffs that were brought in when the administration took over—well, they were almost as I would say more of a scare tactic—but more people were worrying about what it’s going to do to things.

Q: The impact for shippers from that?

A: And so we project that 2026, and that’s already happening, is going to be a move back towards carrier capacity issues for shippers. And so ultimately the partners and the companies and the carriers that have that capacity committed to them are going to be the ones that benefit from that. And the customers and shippers that are tight with those providers are going to probably see that benefit as well.

Q: Are certain manufacturing sub-sectors, or other sectors, feeling a disproportionate impact from these trends?

A: Anybody who’s importing, companies that rely on China, rely on Europe or South America to get product in, raw-material-wise or whatever, because of the tariffs. You know, we’ve seen a slowdown with those, almost just because they’re not sure what they can predict from the tariff activity that’s going on.

Q: It sounds like a fair amount of whiplash taking place for decision-makers in that space.

A: I’ll be honest: This is one of the more bizarre markets I’ve ever seen, because nobody knows what will happen. And with what’s just happened in Venezuela, I’m watching my stocks today, going way up, and that generally mirrors what the manufacturers are experiencing as well. There will be more pressure to produce more product.

Q: Connect the dots on that trend with what’s happened on the driver side.

A: The government has taken thousands of non-English-speaking drivers off the road, and now shippers are giving us a lot of business, telling us they need drivers who speak English. That’s all over the place, not just one sector of the country. More of them want the person driving a load worth $100,000 to make sure they know what they’re doing with customers. So that balance is switching back towards the carriers slightly, but it seems like it’s progressing on a monthly basis to where the supply and demand is going to switch back towards the carriers’ favor to where there’s going to be more freight than drivers who can handle it. And so that will drive pricing up. That will drive service, at least for the customers we target, to a higher level than cost-benefit, because ultimately they’ve got to keep their customers happy.

Q: Wouldn’t shippers have always wanted those same guardrails in place?

A: Well, nobody was watching it. We live in an industry that is hard to regulate, and if drivers all quit, nothing moves. That’s always going to be the case. We can talk about removing drivers but at the end of the day, that’s an expensive route to go. And it’s not proven that those on longer hauls are trustworthy on safety, necessarily. In many cases you need to have someone in the cab with them if they’re on a longer haul. It’s definitely an interesting time. My guess is, there will be some sort of paradigm shift in the next five to 10 years, brought on by things like AI, but you still have to have the human element, too.

Q: Within the Kansas City region as a major inland port and distribution hub, what specific opportunities or challenges do you see arising from recent infrastructure investments, such as expansions in rail and highway networks?

A: On the Kansas City side, we’ve not seen many negatives. This is a good town for shipping because of our location, we’re within two or three days from almost everywhere in the country. I think Kansas City will maintain itself as a central hub that is strong with strong backbone on both sides of the state line, given the infrastructure built into this town because of the demand for it. … The West Coast, I can’t speak of in details, but they’re challenged with regulations and restrictions, specifically California. Kansas City doesn’t have those issues. It’s a friendly place to ship out of, and well-located. One customer of ours is building a hub not in Kansas City, but not far outside of it, because they understand that to get to their customers in the west or Southeast, it’s faster coming out of here than coming from the north-northeast.

Q: Recent developments with the Chiefs aside, so you see any cross-state collaborations or disagreements impacting logistics efficiency here?

A: Both states could do more with cross-state permitting to make it easier to work between the two; they could do more to build out truck parking and making investments where drivers can sit and rest while waiting for work. Those things would be profitable for both sides of the state line. Ultimately, infrastructure is the key to that. The more we work together, the better for carriers. We’ve seen that with Gardner and in western Johnson County, and to an extent in Jackson County. There are reasons why Meta and Amazon have places here.

Q: Missouri has a years-long rebuild and expansion of I-70 ramping up from Blue Springs to suburban St. Louis; will traffic delays impact shipping?

A: I don’t think so, not significantly. If you’re coming cross-country and hit that construction, you have the option of Interstate 80, so it may make sense in some cases. But to be honest, I’ve not heard complaints about that yet, because I-70 is such an important thoroughfare for these carriers. Drivers generally are paid on cost per mile, so do go out of their way is adding cost to their shipment, and customers don’t like that. My very educated guess is that carriers will be instructed to live through the slowdowns.

Q: What’s your assessment of the recent drop in fuel prices?

A: I filled up yesterday at Sam’s Club at $2.30 a gallon, and was thinking, man, this was $2.85 just a few weeks ago. That drives shipping costs significantly. Can it go too low? Any time things become easier to buy, it’s good news. We saw what inflation did to supply and demand, and to production–it slowed down manufacturing because it cost more to produce, and they were being more careful about when to produce. When the economy shifts in a direction where inflation is mitigated more and more, prices go lower and lower. My belief is that fuel can be a direct indicator of where the direction of the economy is going. My guess is that as the cost goes down, that’s good for manufacturers.

Q: You see that as a win-win for all?

A: I believe that’s good balance:  you’ve got to keep drivers on the road for the good of the country. A large chunk of GDP is transportation, it’s a Top 10 sector. Any time things are unhealthy because there’s not enough demand for drivers, they’re gone, and when it comes back, they’re not there. It won’t be like 2020, when it was literally “find me a truck.” But that was a 100-year epidemic. Things are starting to swing, though: Not long ago, a customer with attractive freight might need to wait only a couple of minutes to find a truck, and now it’s closer to an hour. Some of that may have been driven by the holidays, but things are definitely moving in the direction of demand for carriers.

Q: Construction delays due to material shortages and regulatory hurdles are affecting new warehouse and distribution center builds; what trends in construction timelines and costs should business owners factor into their expansion plans for 2026?

A: From what we see in a volume standpoint, things have slightly ticked up from last year in construction. It’s January, so there’s not a lot of construction in places where it’s cold, but still, a slight tick up since spring and summer of last year. Again, though, this is the weirdest time I can remember in 16 years of doing what I do. Nobody knows exactly what will happen, but the inflection points we’re seeing show more requests in construction. I don’t know if they’re loading up and preparing for worst.

Q: Are automation and AI integration continuing to drive change?

A: Absolutely. We’re seeing it with the tech we’re building ourselves and buying to add into other technologies. Our job to have that tech. A great example is with a current customer who was using email and spreadsheets to manage freight, and they never really knew where their shipments were. Now they can see it at all times, with updates on pricing and timing. They’re expecting not only all that, but pretty much real-time reports on how things happen, and Ai is driving a lot of that. We embrace that. And not just with management of customers, but how we gain customers. The other side of it is, I’ve been in places with 20-30 people on the accounting staff, AI is taking a lot of that. … Now it might be five or six, so some human capital goes out the door.

Q: Overall, what advice would you give business owners outside the logistics sector to mitigate risks from supply-chain volatility heading into this year?

A: Depending on the size of the shipper, they need to embrace the Web-based tools that are out there that can give them visibility automation reporting so they can see it’s the old saying if you can measure you can manage it and if you’re not able to measure it because you can’t see it, it’s a lot harder to manage it. So my advice, and we’re seeing this, we’re seeing a lot more phone calls being taken by our sales team than I’ve ever seen before. So a lot of these shippers are already getting ahead of it. And then there’s also a new crop of managers that run these departments at these manufacturing companies that are younger, and they’re embracing the technology they expected, because they all live on these things. They live on their phones, or their double screens. And so the idea now is if you can demo a system that can give you full access and visibility and control of your freight, I would look to embrace that now vs. later, because your competition is starting to do it instead of you.