One thing has always struck me about supply chain executives – most of them are really nice people.

Some of those who occur to me off the top of my head: Tom Dadmun at Adtran; Mark Jameson at Kimberly-Clark; Pat Sinnott at Canadian Tire; Nick LaHowchic before he retired from The Limited Brands, who didn’t even complain too much when we misspelled his name a few times; Matt O'Connor at Rockline Industries, whom I just met; our own Contributing Editor Gene Tyndall; Doug Baker at totes Isotoner; and many others.

Another of those is Fred Berkheimer of Unilever North America. I got to know Fred when he was VP of Logistics for the North American division of Unilever’s Health and Personal Care products division. A few years ago, Unilever combined that group with its food division (the previous Best Foods) and Fred ran logistics for the combined business in North America.

As I started SCDigest, he would occasionally send in a Feedback commentary, and he wrote to us once saying that he would send in more, but felt a bit constrained by not getting too controversial in the very conservative consumer goods corporate environment.

But he did write this after one of my First Thoughts columns: “Thank you for your consistent efforts to make us think about critical supply chain issues.” That meant a lot.

In 2005, I asked him to come to San Diego to participate on a panel on collaboration at a Retail Industry Leaders Association logistics conference, and he happily obliged. It’s funny how some can consistently manage to do things like this, while others are perpetually “too busy.”

Fred was indirectly involved in one of the funniest things I heard anyone say in my supply chain career. The software company I was working for at the time was proposing a web-based visibility and supplier collaboration system for Unilever, circa 2001. We spent several hours white boarding the system with some of Fred’s staff. It looked like we had a “meeting of the minds” after a long afternoon.

While we were bringing the technology to the table, Unilever was also helping us understand what was really required. At the end, the leader of the Unilever team said, “OK, there is only one question left: how much are you going to pay us to teach you how to build this thing?” We had been thinking of a somewhat different financial arrangement. In the end, we split the baby.

I received an email from Fred yesterday saying he was retiring from Unilever effective today, and moving to North Carolina from Connecticut.

He wrote that, “With regard to the next chapter in my life, the best explanation is "I don't know, yet; let's wait and see." His new email address is in part “joyinthejourney” at a service I won’t name – but wouldn’t it be nice if we all felt joy in the journey?

So, in addition to just remembering my interactions with someone who I can’t say I knew well, but whom I respected nonetheless for many years, this bit of advice to those who haven’t reached the executive level:

• It can’t be coincidence that the majority of supply chain executives are really nice to work with – I would argue at a higher percentage rate than mid-level managers
• You reap what you sow

We all need to remember that last point.

Best luck to Fred Berkheimer in his new career.

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