Real Women in Trucking: Podcast on the perishables sector
Practitioner insights on food transportation policy
As part of CIAS work on food transportation, we organized a session on food transportation policy at the 102nd Transportation Research Board meeting January 8-11, 2023. We featured insights from several practitioners however Michelle Kitchin, Real Women in Trucking, was unable to join us due to an errant load of rainbow chard. She shared a recorded presentation with us that we want to share with you. You can access the PDF “Facts about chasing produce” to go with the audio presentation below.
The following slide decks from our session are available on the conference website.
- Kranti Mulik, USDA AMS Transportation Economics Division, Challenging Dynamics for Agricultural Shippers
- Henry Posner III – Railroad Development Corporation, Plan B for the Black Sea-Resiliency for Grain Transportation Under Wartime Conditions
- Mike Steenhoek, Soy Transportation Coalition, Infrastructure Resilience
- John Kane, Warehouses 4 Good, Fresh Food Logistics
Speaker biographies
Kranti Mulik, is an economist in the Transportation Services Division, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). She works primarily on trucking issues including supporting the preparation and dissemination of various transportation market reports, conducting analysis, and providing economic insight on a variety of transportation issues and leading and developing research projects. Prior to joining USDA Kranti worked at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Iowa state University, IHS Global Insight and North Dakota State University. Kranti holds a Master’s and PhD in economics from Kansas State University.
Henry Posner. Prior to forming RDC in conjunction with his partner Bob Pietrandrea, Henry Posner entered railway service at Conrail, serving the Operating, Marketing and Sales departments in Detroit, New York and Philadelphia. He serves as Chairman of RDC; Iowa Interstate Railroad; RDC-Deutschland; RégioRail; and The Hawthorne Group. He also serves as a director of Eurorail; and a director of Vivarail.
A graduate of Princeton University (BS-Civil Engineering), Mr. Posner also holds an MBA (Finance) from the Wharton School. He serves as Chairman of the EBT Foundation, a nonprofit organization formed to restore and operate the East Broad Top Railroad; Iowa Interstate’s alternate director at the Association of American Railroads; a member of the Transportation Research Board; Agriculture and Food Transport Subcommittee; a board member of the Independent School Chairpersons’ Association (ISCA); and as an Emeritus Trustee and former President of the Winchester Thurston School.
He teaches an undergraduate course on rail deregulation at Carnegie Mellon University and has lectured and published extensively on railway matters. He was a contributor to the book Railway Transformation, published in 2010 by Eurail Press under the auspices of the Community of European Railways.His philanthropic activities range from support of the Jewish community in the Former Soviet Union to Operation Lifesaver. He was named among “75 People You Should Know” for Trains magazine’s 75th anniversary; is the recipient of a Paul Harris Fellowship from Rotary International for his work in Guatemala; and is an occasional contributor to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on regional affairs. RDC’s history is profiled in the book Railroaders Without Borders by Prof. H. Roger Grant (Indiana University Press, 2015). He writes haiku and speaks English, Spanish, French and Russian.
Mike Steenhoek is executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition (STC), an initiative established in 2007 and comprised of the United Soybean Board, the American Soybean Association, and thirteen state soybean boards. The Soy Transportation Coalition exists to promote a cost effective, reliable, and competitive transportation system that serves the agriculture industry.
As executive director of the STC, Mike’s responsibilities include communicating the initiative and the importance of transportation issues to soybean growers and processors; establishing and executing the organization’s strategic direction; and building collaborations with other effected industries. Mike is a member of the Iowa Department of Transportation’s Freight Advisory Council – currently serving as chairman. Prior to his work on the STC, Mike worked for United States Senator Charles Grassley (Iowa) for eight years – both in Washington, DC, and most recently in Des Moines, Iowa. In Washington, DC, Mike served as the Senator’s scheduler and frequent speechwriter. In Des Moines, Mike served as Senator Grassley’s director of economic development.
Mike received both his undergraduate degree and his Masters in Business Administration from the University of Iowa.
John Kane leads the Warehouses4Good development effort, recruiting partners and pursuing grant funds to implement our mission. With a strong background in philanthropic logistics, he understands the challenges faced by both food producers and food-insecure families in rural communities across the US. Since 2006, he has led or contributed to efforts that delivered more than $150 million in donated goods to locations in the Caribbean, across the US, the Pacific, and central Asia, meeting both everyday and disaster response needs.
Prior to his philanthropic work, John started and ran an advanced materials research firm, conducting projects for energy and aerospace clients. There, he was awarded multiple patents for energy, environmental, and materials processing innovations. John and his wife Elizabeth live in Houston, caring for three house cats and a feral cat colony.