Talking Michigan Transportation
The Talking Michigan Transportation podcast features conversations with transportation experts inside and outside MDOT and will touch on anything and everything related to mobility, including rail, transit and the development of connected and automated vehicles.
Talking Michigan Transportation
What we learned from a Michigan maritime policy panel
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This week’s edition of the Talking Michigan Transportation podcast features conversations with two key participants in a panel discussion convened to discuss the need for a Michigan maritime strategy and sustainable funding.
First, Elisha Wulff, a freight policy specialist at the Michigan Department of Transportation who has been leading maritime efforts, talks about the potential benefits from implanting the strategy and the challenges in finding agreement on a sustainable funding source.
Later, John Peracchio, a member of the Michigan State Transportation Commission who moderated the panel discussion, talks about his takeaways and why he also believes a key priority is identifying a funding source.
Why Maritime Matters In Michigan
Jeff CransonHello, welcome to the Talking Michigan Transportation Podcast. I'm Jeff Cranson. This week a special Michigan Maritime Policy Panel convened to talk about maritime strategy and possibilities in Michigan. It's not always at the top of people's list when they think about transportation. Obviously, everybody thinks about roads. Some people care about other important modes of transportation, including transit and rail. But Michigan's waterways, being a Great Lakes state, surrounded by four of the five, is also always front of mind for people who deal in the delivery of freight. So I wanted to hear what came out of that panel and what the strategy is going forward and just what's going on with maritime policy in Michigan. Elisha Wulff is the MDOT planner who coordinates these activities and oversees the maritime office and strategy. So first I spoke with her about her perceptions and challenges and what she does in her work and what came out of that panel discussion. And after that, I spoke with John Peracchio, who is a State Transportation Commission member and a veteran guest of the podcast. He moderated the panel discussion and he has uh a real interest in this topic too. And he had some interesting things to say. So I hope you enjoy the conversations.
Meet The State's Maritime Planner
Jeff CransonSo again, as mentioned in the introduction, I'm with Elisha Wulff, who oversees uh, among other things related to freight coordination at MDOT, um, what we're doing with Maritime. Um, I should say what we're doing and what we hope to be doing. Elisha, thanks for being here. First time on the podcast. I appreciate it.
Elisha WulffThanks for having me, Jeff. It's a pleasure to be here.
Jeff CransonSo talk first a little bit about your career trajectory, um, what you did to get to where you are now.
Elisha WulffSure, sure. So I can't say I ever thought I would be doing freight transportation when I went to urban and regional planning at Michigan State University. Um, started with MDOT around uh 10 and a half years ago as an entry-level transportation planner and quickly learned that uh one of my colleagues that I had the privilege of shadowing for four years was looking to retire and they really needed somebody to absorb some of that freight and maritime knowledge that he had developed over a 30-year career. So I sort of landed into Freight and Maritime and uh fortunately I absolutely love it. I find it to be very interesting and engaging and a very different area, a unique focus area that MDOT gets to work on. So that's how I how I got here. And I I feel pretty fortunate that I get to interact with the stakeholder groups that I do.
Jeff CransonSo talk about that a little bit. What is it that you wouldn't have known before that you learned and have has you know kind of stoked your passions?
Elisha WulffAbsolutely. Yeah, I think when I talk to people who work in maritime, especially, they are folks who grew up watching freighters, you know, visiting the Sioux locks and watching uh vessels go through the locks. And uh that's not something I had the opportunity to do as a young person or even as a young adult. Um, it was very new to me what the freight industry did. And um, you know, I think the general public, much like me, knows that they can go to the grocery store and pick up their goods and they're just simply there. And we don't understand how they got there and uh what that progress looks like getting something from you know where it's produced to where we uh purchase and and use these goods. So I never understood that that connection. And I now very much get to understand and interact with a lot of the different uh groups that are involved in movement of freight.
Jeff CransonYeah, there's definitely a community of of uh, I guess I'd call them freighter files, or maybe there's a another term for what they are. But if you spend any time, it you know, if if you've lived in a landlocked environment and spent any time in a harbor town, um, I've seen it in Holland and Grand Haven and Manistee. Um I worked for a few years in Sandusky, Ohio, and it was definitely a phenomenon there. That uh every evening uh a lot of people will come down to the docks to watch these freighters come in. So it's really interesting. Indeed, yes. So talk a little bit about what we're doing with this this maritime
Why Maritime Is Surging Again
Jeff Cransonoffice. Um we can get into uh one of the biggest challenges, which is trying to find a sustainable funding source. But um, before we talk about that, you know, what are your hopes and dreams for this?
Elisha WulffThat's a great question, Jeff. I have a lot of a lot of hopes and dreams uh for for maritime, especially. And and really maritime is one does. As one does for sure. I would I think Maritime is really having a moment right now, really in in Michigan and and nationally. And it's something that's really exciting for for us to see. We're seeing you know, renewed interest uh in domestic supply chains, resiliency, making better use of the infrastructure we have. And um it's really, really cool to be one small part of where the industry is going. But I'm part of a larger interagency uh group that came together to develop the Michigan Maritime Strategy, which the state of Michigan put out last week. And that came out of having ongoing meetings between the various state agencies and understanding that we were all working on different things as it related to maritime. And wouldn't it be great we thought to come together and really have a strategic vision and outline of where we want to be in Michigan with regard to maritime in the next 10 years? So that is how it came about. And now last week we put out the maritime strategy, and we are going to now move into implementation of that strategy and be able to work together with the industry in Michigan to implement some of the goals and objectives we have in the place.
Jeff CransonSo before we get into, and I want to talk a little bit more about the strategy itself, but um, when you feel like freight is having a moment, maritime transport of freight specifically, uh, why do you think that is? Is that because of um things going on in the trucking industry or is it a whole bunch of things?
Elisha WulffYeah, I think it's it's a a number of things. I think freight and maritime is is something that occurs behind the scenes a lot of the time. And I think the awareness is starting to increase. And the more that uh we are hearing industry talk um in public and at various you know associations and stakeholder events, we're starting to gain a better understanding of what the industry is doing, why it is is mattered. And um one of the remarks I heard from a panelist, we'll talk a little bit about the Michigan Maritime Policy Panel that we held yesterday. But one of the remarks I heard uh from a panelist was that maritime comes and goes in the night. It drops off bulk commodities and you know, iron ore, limestone sand. Uh, and a lot of the public doesn't even know they were there. It happened while they slept. And it's it's something that I believe now we're starting to really get our get a better handle on. You know, this is a backbone of Michigan's economy, and this is why it matters, and this is how uh goods are moved, and this is why you're able to have the things that you have in your home and your and your work and and be able to purchase those items.
Jeff CransonIt's kind of cool to think about the thread of history here, right? That long before the invention of the internal combustible engine and all the transportation technology that we have now, um, hundreds of years ago, waterways were how we transported people and things.
Elisha WulffSo that's exactly right.
Jeff CransonYeah, so when you say it's kind of having a moment, uh it's a bit of a comeback story, I guess.
Elisha WulffAbsolutely. Yeah, and a lot of these vessels are 40 to 70 years old. This is not, you know, new technology. This has been here for a long time. And it's uh, you know, like many other pieces of our infrastructure when we're talking transportation, this is aging infrastructure that's uh needs continued investment to continue to serve our economy.
Port Funding And Ownership Challenges
Jeff CransonOkay, and that kind of brings us to the strategy, right? A big part of that strategy is how to get that uh I I used the term sustainable earlier, and I don't know that there's a better word for what you're talking about, but that continued investment. So talk a little bit about that.
Elisha WulffYeah, so we see among the various Great Lakes states the different types of investment and um those states having the ability to invest in different ways and ownership of these facilities varying among among the states. And in Michigan, um, much of this infrastructure is owned by the private sector. We have two public uh port authorities in Michigan. The rest of our 33 cargo ports are privately owned and operated. In some states, this is similar, and other states, like ports of Indiana, the majority of them are publicly owned. So you see different states and agencies are able to invest in in different ways depending on what that structure looks like, but we haven't in our history uh had a dedicated grant program or revenue source to fund maritime transportation. So we were able to put out a one-time $5 million grant program in fiscal year 2024 to uh five Michigan ports. And that's something we hope to you'd be able to continue, but without a, as you said, reliable revenue source, uh, it is difficult to identify how future programs like that could be funded. And um it's a need that we feel uh strongly about, um, and the ports certainly feel there's uh a dire need to invest in some of this aging infrastructure of their docks or seawalls, um, the vessels themselves in many cases. So it's an ongoing uh conversation, but uh you know, without that, there's some federal sources uh grant programs, but there's no dedicated, you know, formula funding for maritime.
Jeff CransonYeah, funding is a challenge in all modes of transportation. That's just the fact. It's especially true in Michigan, but it's true everywhere. But when you talk about, I I know one thing that always gets people going is that sense of competition. And when you talk about what other states are doing, um, none of the other so-called Great Lakes states actually have frontage on four of the five, as Michigan does. So um are some other our neighbors uh doing better on this front than we are?
Elisha WulffI think some programs have had um a lot longer standing um programs that they've identified where those funds should, you know, come from. Some are legislatively appropriated, some are carved out within their uh transportation budgets. Um, but I think it depends on the sophistication of the program. Again, it depends on the makeup of jurisdiction of those of those ports and uh marine terminals. And in some cases, you know, we we do have some catching up to do, but we feel we're really well positioned given, like you said, geographically the Great Lakes uh system, and and we have a lot of capacity and we have the ability to I think fill some of those needs in a unique way that other Midwest states uh are not able to.
Can Ships Reduce Truck Traffic
Jeff CransonSo one thing that would be appealing to people, everybody complains about trucks, right? And uh and we know in terms of uh not just the congestion and what what having more trucks on the road does from an environment, environmental aspect, there's also just a safety issue of the interaction between smaller vehicles and trucks. Um, with a more robust maritime program, would that take some trucks off the road?
Elisha WulffAbsolutely, yes. They've got some tremendous uh figures that uh the American Great Lakes Port Association of just how many based on how many tonnage of goods that you're moving, um, we would see a significant reduction of truck congestion if we were able to divert some of these movements to the water. And that's one of the things that we're trying to better get a handle on just how much could we divert and what commodities make the most sense? And where is there a business case to make those switches happen? We're looking into some research projects through MDOT's uh research program for fiscal year 27 to 29 to take a look at just that is where would it make sense to divert some of the traffic to the water? Um, where, as I said, you know, it's not competing with other users, you know, no blocked rail crossings, no uh trucks on the roads. So really a clean and seamless way of transporting goods.
Policy Panel Takeaways And Momentum
Jeff CransonLet's talk a little bit about the panel this week. What did you find? I mean, you knew the topics going in probably better than anybody in the room, but what surprised you or what did you find particularly interesting in the discussion?
Elisha WulffYou know, in my 10 years of working in freight or maritime, that was really the first venue that I've seen all of those individual sectors in one room together having this larger conversation and sharing why this matters to Michigan and why now after all these years are we are we having this conversation? And it was really just tremendous to hear some of the progress we're making uh at the ports and in some of the ways that we're developing workforce. And I think it was really just truly heartwarming that we are all coming together, and there's real, you know, bipartisan support for maritime and the ways that it supports our transportation system and our economy. And we know that maritime is one of our greatest strengths and one of our uh state's competitive advantages to having that asset and being surrounded uh by the Great Lakes and 3,200 miles of shoreline, uh 33 active cargo ports. So uh to me, it was just uh a great opportunity to sit back and soak in how far we've come after uh many years of uh hearing these messages myself from the ports, but giving them the opportunity to share that with the legislature and um other state agencies and members of the public.
Jeff CransonYeah, that was a very good uh cross-section uh in the room in terms of representation. Did you feel like for the lawmakers and other policymakers that were there who were probably the most important audience, that there were some light bulb moments, perhaps?
Elisha WulffI do. I do. And I think they're starting to recognize that if they themselves had very little understanding of what the maritime system looked like being in the positions that they are, then boy, the public has that often the same level of understanding. So we're all start, you know, starting from a similar place and uh baseline of, you know, if we can start getting the message out and educating and increasing awareness, they think you know, a little bit could go a long ways within their jurisdictions. And it's just really exciting to see how they think that there's a great alignment between all of the state agencies and the goals we have as greater state of Michigan.
Jeff CransonYeah, that's really well said. Thank you, Alicia, for taking time to share this. Uh, is there anything else that you want to add?
Elisha WulffNo, no. Thanks for um the opportunity, Jeff, and for helping get the maritime message out. And I'm happy to return and talk anytime about maritime in Michigan.
Jeff CransonYeah, well, I appreciate that, and I appreciate how much you love your work. I'll be back in a minute to talk to John Peracchio, who is a State Transportation Commission member and also moderated the panel that Alicia has been talking about, and we'll get his perspectives and thoughts. So thanks again, Alicia. Thank you, Jeff. Please stay tuned. We'll be back
Median Barriers And Crash Prevention
Jeff Cransonwith more talking Michigan transportation right after this.
MDOT MessageOh, look at those beautiful wildflowers along the road. Aren't they pretty? Check out that classic car. You don't see many of those anymore. Wow, look at that cable median barrier. What? You mean that wire guardrail in the middle of the road? Exactly. Aren't they gorgeous? Um, not exactly. They were put there to prevent crossover head-on crashes, which are some of the most deadly type of freeway crashes. And they're really effective, reducing those types of incidents by 90%. That's a lot of lives that have been saved. Huh. I guess I never really looked at them like that. I prefer the wildflowers. But I'm seeing those median cable barriers in a whole new light.
Jeff CransonSo
Maritime Strategy And Trade Routes
Jeff Cransononce again, as promised, John Peracchio, who is now a regular on the podcast, he's just about to qualify for a five-time jacket, I think. John, uh recently ensconced as a state transportation commissioner, has tremendous interest in all things transportation. I I think. Um, is it unfair to call you a transportation geek?
John PeracchioI don't like geek, but uh, you know, maven maybe is all right. Yeah, I'll be a Maven for you, Jeff.
Jeff CransonOkay. Not a mogul, but a Maven. Maven. John is a transportation maven, and he is here to talk about the maritime strategy and what the state is doing in that realm, and about a panel that he moderated this week. So I I talked to Alicia Wolf earlier, John, and uh my biggest takeaway from her about the timing of this and why we've kind of reached some critical mass, she said maritime is having a minute. So um I sounds like you agree with that. Why is that, do you think?
John PeracchioUh well, I think first of all, uh fundamentally it's because the state of Michigan in January, uh, much to my uh pleasant surprise, issued a maritime strategy. I mean, here we are, two peninsulas surrounded on three sides by water, uh, but we really don't consider the Great Lakes to be a transportation resource, at least until now. And I will say the strategy goes well beyond transportation to talk about the opportunities for uh economic development associated with things like uh shipbuilding, uh ship operations, uh, and very significantly uh what we can do to improve our ports and other um uh facilities that are uh pertinent to water.
Jeff CransonWould you uh say this has been building for some time? I mean, I talked to Alicia a little bit about how um, you know, for all the technology for you know from the internal combustible engine and development of other kinds of transportation over the past hundred years or so, uh, we were moving people and goods by water hundreds of years ago. Um so is this like one of those things that goes around and comes around again and a realization that you know water is a is a great means of of moving goods?
John PeracchioWell, I I think you're absolutely correct. And um, I think we can we can look at um the auto industry in particular, which is very, very important to our state's economy, and see that um a lot of um uh completed vehicles and components for vehicles are currently transported by water. It's just happening on the east and west coast. It's not necessarily happening through the St. Lawrence Seaway. So a lot of uh, for example, automotive components come from Europe and elsewhere, and they start in the maritime provinces of Canada, go through Quebec, Ontario, Michigan, okay, and then uh both completed vehicles as well as other components go from uh Michigan back through the to uh through Canada, but then through Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, the ports of uh New York, New Jersey, and Baltimore are very, very important. And increasingly the port of Savannah in Georgia, which is supplying the auto industry uh that exists in southeastern United States. And so when you start to think about the art of the possible, when you're moving a lot of stuff, a lot of it is heavy, and you can um achieve great efficiency by moving all of that via um ships and on the water.
Jeff CransonYou know, it's really interesting that you say that because I learned just last week that uh a cable stay bridge in Savannah. Is actually going to be raised by 25 feet so that it can accommodate the larger freighters and the containers that stack up on those. I don't know if you knew about that or not, but it's a $170 million project to actually, you know, loosen the cables and raise this bridge by 25 feet.
John PeracchioSo I honestly I didn't know about it, but it makes perfect sense, right? Because it enables um you know more uh containers on ships that are designed to handle um these things stacked up, you know, certain distances. And so you have to have clearance. I I mean, I think, you know, the the truth is in in our area, particularly the port of Monroe, I mean, there's nothing in the way of bringing um you know major container ships into that port.
Jeff CransonSo when you talk about the role of Canada in this, both coming and going, is that mostly the port of Halifax? Yeah, Halifax.
John PeracchioThe stuff comes in there, gets on trucks, right? The containers go on trucks. Yeah. Okay. You can put a lot of containers on a container ship. And instead of those trucks uh being on roadways, they can the containers can be shipped uh via waterway.
Jeff CransonSo
Short Sea Shipping Made Simple
Jeff Cransonhow do we talk about this in a I I want to get to funding in a minute, but um without sounding like we're pitting, you know, one industry against another in terms of maritime and trucking.
John PeracchioUh so um uh there's a concept which I actually I just learned about during, well, it was before the panel, somebody gave me this um this really interesting slide on what's called uh short C shipping. You can't say that real quickly multiple times, but if you just uh do it slowly, short C shipping of containers, what it means is it actually uh uses uh the trucking mode more efficiently by combining it's an intermodal concept where you combine moving uh containers short distances on water to points where they can um uh connect with uh trucks that take it to the ultimate, take those containers to the ultimate destination. So it isn't displacing uh trucking, it's just using the trucks more efficiently over shorter distances and using ships over shorter distances. So it's rethinking their role. It's common elsewhere, right? It's just we don't think of it that way. And that's you know part of the um you know historical importance in this year of our uh nation semi-quincentennial, that Michigan has now at least an outline of what we can do to leverage our tremendous water resources.
Jeff CransonI talked to Alicia a little bit about this, and I want to get your perspective too, because you talked about you know being surrounded by water on three sides. And when we talk about the Great Lakes states, uh ours is the only one that touches as frontage on four of those five Great Lakes. But where do we rank against those states in uh funding maritime and having a you know a long-term strategy?
John PeracchioWell, now we have a strategy, so that's good. Um funding, we're less good. Um other states are doing more, and um and that's the challenge for us is to find a stable funding mechanism that isn't a one-off, that can you know cross fiscal years, and doesn't um uh deplete funding for other critical transportation needs.
Jeff CransonYeah, so do you think that that that will work? That uh kind of you talked about rethinking the efficiency of the movement and the shorter trips. Um you think that's something that will become a concept more people are talking about and understand? Well, I certainly hope that's the whole idea, right?
John PeracchioYeah, exactly. I certainly hope so. And I and I think you know, part of the efficiency can go towards supporting our uh water infrastructure, our port infrastructure. Okay. In other words, what I'm saying is if the private sector can save money by using um uh the waterways as a transportation resource, I think it's fair that part of that efficiency can be captured as um let's call it a user fee to be able to support the development of ports and um uh shore infrastructure.
Jeff CransonYou've
User Fees And Stable Funding
Jeff Cransonheard me use this uh analogy before, but I think it bears repeating here because so much of this strategy discussion involves a sustainable funding method. Um if if I went to Boyne Mountain, I just use that as an example because I'm a skier and said, I want to pay a 1994 price for a lift ticket because that's the last time the federal gas tax was raised. And they said, Well, sorry, we can't do that. You know, we have a business here. Um, but so many people think the solution to funding is just finding something in what you already get instead of um expanding the pool, right? And so now this discussion about maritime is well, we'll take some money from here and put it here instead of we just need more money overall for all the modes. Um, did you did you sense any breakthroughs in terms of that yesterday with the policymakers who were in the room?
John PeracchioUh I did not. Uh, I think um it seemed to me that we're still in a zero-sum game of having to take from other uh transportation needs in terms of um uh providing funding for maritime. I don't think that's a good answer. Um, I will say this. I uh I commend the governor and the legislature for providing um money to do a road usage charge uh study and pilot, something we've talked about on your podcast. And that speaks to the need to find alternative funding mechanisms for transportation. Now, in that in this particular case, uh the Budget Act specifies that uh you know we're looking at roads and bridges, but the concept could go beyond that to support other uh modes of transportation in the state, such as uh transit. Uh but going back to my earlier comment, I think you know, user fees are certainly something we need to take a look at if we're able to capture cost efficiencies by building up our port um uh infrastructure.
Jeff CransonYeah. So, I mean, again, and maybe, you know, God knows you know so many things about so many things, but if you don't know this, that's fine. But are other states being more effective at identifying that user fee model when it comes to maritime?
John PeracchioThey certainly are. I think it's just so different in in other parts of the country because we're so underdeveloped, you know, and you know, we very much appreciate the the legislature providing the um the 5.3 million that that's gonna roll over from the fiscal year 26 to fiscal year 27 for a grant program. And
Shipbuilding Innovation And Security
John Peracchioand that's very, very important. Uh, but we need we're need much more. Um and that's you know barely a drop in the bucket, as some have said. And I agree, I agree with that. But um we need to look at alternative funding sources really to make this work in Michigan. We're starting, uh I I in one sense it's a good thing. We're starting from scratch. We really have um an opportunity here to do something uh innovative, leverage technology, um, uh look at unmanned surface transportation, um uh especially because you've got these three, you know, these great bathtubs of the Great Lakes that are in a relatively controlled compared to an ocean environment. And in fact, you sparked another area of opportunity, which is to support uh commercial and military shipbuilding, uh, because we are in an enclosed and secure area. So, for uh, for example, U.S. Navy research and development, the Great Lakes are absolutely ideal because our adversaries can't get in here, right? It's literally impossible. And I don't know if you know this, but in World War II, the U.S. Navy actually trained aircraft carrier pilots on the Great Lakes. There were two aircraft carriers, USS Wolverine and USS Sable. They were converted paddle-wheel commercial steamers, okay. And the U.S. Navy throughout World War II trained their pilots on the Great Lakes. It's a great example of how our uh natural resources can support um national security.
Jeff CransonI did know a little bit about that because of a Navy uncle of mine um in Battle Creek who talked about that and also talked about other things uh related to Michigan's role in World War II and including the advantages of uh of our cloudy days here.
John PeracchioSo well, yeah, right. But I mean the other thing is, you know, the Navy right now is struggling to they don't seem to be able to um uh build a ship to save their soul. They've got all kinds of manufacturing issues. Do you know who knows more about manufacturing on Earth than the people in Michigan who've done it for over a century, right? Yeah. We absolutely can help the Navy, we can help commercial shipbuilders, which are also struggling, okay? Um, and we're it's not that we're gonna build ships here in Michigan necessarily, although ultimately we could. But you know, the Navy, for example, is building ships and modules. So we can build those modules here, put them on a container ship and take them to where the ships are actually being assembled. So there's a huge opportunity, and it's outlined in the maritime strategy that Alicia uh helped write.
Jeff CransonSo we've established that you're a transportation maven, but what is it about this that so specifically you know sparks your interest, I guess? Is it is it your background with uh with naval issues or just all of that?
John PeracchioSo I'm a as you know, I'm a civilian. I never served, but uh I'm a lifelong Navy Leaguer, Navy League of the United States. I belong to the U.S. Naval Institute. Um, and uh I'm a region, what they call a regional director for the U.S. Naval War College Foundation in Newport, Rhode Island. And um, you know, when I visit naval facilities, I was recently at a conference um in Norfolk, uh, Virginia, which is just a ginormous U.S. Navy base uh and operations center. And I I I look at the coastline and the shore facilities, and I think of Michigan. There's no reason, I mean, we're not gonna be Norfolk, but we certainly could be more than we are in terms of um, you know, both commercial and military port facilities. And we should be thinking about that. And I've always thought, wow, what a missed opportunity we have um on the Great Lakes uh to participate in um the uh both commercial shipping and then in supporting national defense.
Jeff CransonWell, John, we could talk about this forever. Um, as always, I really appreciate it. I uh really appreciate that you're willing to give your talent and time to our state um to do these things. And uh it's always a always a great conversation. Is there anything you wanted to add?
John PeracchioNo, I really appreciate the opportunity. I again, you know, I I think this is historic. And uh, you know, to um to Alicia's point about uh Maritime having its minute, I'm I'm I'm hoping it's gonna be more like hours and and days because it's really worth it and and uh ultimately a uh a great benefit to the residents of Michigan. He hopes so too. Well said, thank you.
Jeff CransonI'd like
Thanks And Where To Find Notes
Jeff Cransonto thank you once more for tuning in to Talking Michigan Transportation. You can find show notes and more on Apple Podcasts or BuzzSprout. I also want to acknowledge the talented people who help make this a reality each week, starting with Randy Debler, who skillfully edits the audio, Jesse Ball, who proofs the content, and Jacke Salinas, who posts the podcast to various platforms and transcribes the audio to make it accessible to all.