Tomasz Jamroz’s People-Process-Technology Framework: Transforming Roadrunner from Bottom to #2 LTL Carrier

Anthony Codispoti (00:01)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Codaspodi and today’s guest is Tamash Jamroz. Let’s try that again, Jamroz, right? All right. Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences.

Tomasz (00:20)
Press.

Anthony Codispoti (00:28)
so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi and today’s guest is Tamash Jamroz, the head of operations at Roadrunner Freight. They are a truck transportation company founded in 1984 that focuses on providing high quality, scalable LTL freight services across the US. They specialize in delivering freight with next day options and encourage a culture of accountability through their motto,

Ship it like you own it. With a background in streamlining processes, Tamash has led key initiatives to upgrade technology and improve delivery times. He was also recognized for fueling the company’s expansion into new lanes and forging strategic partnerships for continued growth. In recognition of his exceptional contributions to the industry, Tamash won the 2023 Pros to Know.

He has played a vital role in strengthening Red Roaner Freight’s mission to make freight shipping reliable, efficient, and customer focused. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Adback Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line. Imagine being able to give your employees free access to doctors, therapists, and prescription medications.

And here’s the fun part. The program actually puts more money in your employees pockets and the company’s too. One recent client was able to increase net profits by $900 per employee per year. Now results vary for each company and some organizations may not be eligible. To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at addbackbenefits.com. All right, back to our guest today, President and COO at Roadrunner, Tomas. Thanks for making the time to share your story today.

Tomasz (02:23)
Thank you Anthony, thank you for having me.

Anthony Codispoti (02:26)
So, Tomas, you grew up in Canada and you had some great roles at terrific companies in Canada. I’m curious to hear what have you found to be some of the biggest differences in business culture between the US and Canada?

Tomasz (02:41)
So ⁓ one little clarification. I actually was born and raised in Poland. I emigrated to Canada ⁓ when I was 20. ⁓ Pretty much came here from my university. ⁓ going back to your question, ⁓ I think is a… Canada is a bit more structured. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (02:47)
Okay.

Tomasz (03:10)
And I would not necessarily say it in the positive sense. It’s a bit of, it has a number of invisible borders ⁓ that you kind of need to overcome when you kind of work in Canada. US on the other side, I think is really this American dream, is that country that you can come and you can start on the dock and you can become a CEO of that company.

⁓ And it’s kind of very deeply rooted in the DNA ⁓ of everybody. And I kind of had a chance to see that difference because I was working for large multinationals ⁓ and I had an opportunity to work across the globe, ⁓ mostly Canada and US. And I remember from the very early…

⁓ in my career, I kind of like working in US. US was kind of a place that you were able to question more. ⁓ People were kind of naturally very open to somebody coming and as long as the idea made sense, there was, I would say, less of a judgment of, you know, how many years of experience you have or ⁓ where, you know, where you gained that knowledge, where…

Anthony Codispoti (04:35)
Is that what you mean by

the invisible borders in Canada?

Tomasz (04:38)
That’s what I felt.

That’s what I in Ghana. felt a bit like people were less risk takers and they kind of like hiding behind like, well, I don’t know if we should do it. And I don’t know if this is the right idea. And they kind of were trying to create this kind of, ⁓ well, maybe, know, maybe, maybe you don’t know this because you haven’t had ⁓ a chance to be working really long in that industry or something.

It was very, very interesting because I was kind of operating within similar industries across the border and the same point of view was really differently perceived ⁓ north and south of the border. So ⁓ I think that’s the biggest difference. I would still choose Canada over Europe because that is too regulated and ⁓ over complicated, but definitely…

US seem to be a bit more, I would say, business friendly than Canada is. ⁓ And kind of on the spectrum, you know, I’ve never I’ve never really had a chance to ⁓ I work in Asia, but I haven’t worked enough that I would have the same level of exposure to all the regulations and all the rules that apply. ⁓ So it’s hard for me to speak. if I were if I were to put like a Europe and any place in Europe.

Anthony Codispoti (05:42)
It’s your safe.

Tomasz (06:07)
This is very similar, especially through their European Union concept. And compare European Union, Canada, and US. US really would be on top of a place that is just an easy to do business. I think it’s deeply rooted in that DNA of American dream that anything is possible. And I absolutely love it working in US from the first time I

I had an opportunity to work and advise my ⁓ clients at the time.

Anthony Codispoti (06:41)
So I want to talk a little bit about ⁓ some of your background before we get to present day, because you’re a tech guy at heart. And I don’t often see sort of this transition from tech into like a president role. But before we kind of get into that transition there, you know, there’s a company that you worked at ⁓ called Scale AI. And nowadays, everybody’s talking about AI.

Right. It’s on the tip of our tongues because chat GPT, open AI, large language models have brought it to, you know, the forefront of everybody’s awareness. But you were that there back in starting in 2019 before most people were really using even any of that vernacular. Can you tell us about the work that you were doing there at the time and maybe tie into how you’re still able to leverage some of that experience in the work that you’re doing with Roadrunner today?

Tomasz (07:39)
Of ⁓ I actually stepped into what we call today AI back in 2015. It was connected to my background, ⁓ educational background. I was kind of a person that…

Anthony Codispoti (07:55)
Okay, even earlier.

Tomasz (08:07)
explored quite a bit. So I’ve been in med school, I did biotechnology engineering back in Europe. ⁓ Then I came to Canada, did neurobehavioral psychology and I did computer science. And as I was doing those kind of, let’s say, interdisciplinary studies, where I was doing research in neurobehavioral psychology, I started kind of applying in very kind of advanced and sophisticated models, ⁓ which kind of

opened me to learn more about computer science and ultimately get part of a degree ⁓ in computer science. But the most important work that I had a chance at the time to be exposed to it was actually working with people that at the time were already experimenting. the machine learning and artificial intelligence, this concept is since 50s actually.

So this is not new. What really changed was that at one point in time, ⁓ we had a cloud computing, ⁓ which gave us amazing opportunity to scale. We had a lot of data, because everybody started using social network and everything else. So there was a vast amount of information that ⁓ you could get access to.

ability to compute such a vast amount of data, enable that those models and those concepts that kind of existed for a long time, ⁓ they suddenly started to get traction. So ⁓ I was very lucky to be in kind of, I would say, at the early stage of machine learning becoming kind of a major movement in technology that

⁓ that ⁓ required people who had a good understanding of all the algorithms and fairly sophisticated mathematical models. ⁓ And it happened that I had that experience. I had a chance to experiment with it ⁓ at the time when I was still doing my research at school. ⁓ And that naturally kind of moved me ⁓

when I was working first for Accenture, then for CGI, that’s why I had a chance to work with Scale AI. ⁓ When people were looking like, can we move to the new form division that everybody identified that this is the future, for me, when I raised my hand, it was such a natural thing because ⁓ I had very good understanding. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (11:02)
So what kind of

work were you guys doing there at scale and who were you doing it for?

Tomasz (11:06)
So for Scale AI, it’s a very interesting initiative. ⁓ that was government of Canada came up with a $4 billion ⁓ investment. And the goal of that investment was that we had to ⁓ identify ⁓ very tangible use cases.

⁓ And through the partnership between the logistic companies, small startups and the key multinationals like Accenture, Deloitte, ⁓ IBM, all the kind of big consulting firms, we had to deliver and fix some of the major

challenges that exist, utilizing machine learning. ⁓ So there was a number of interesting initiatives. I would say those things that you go today and ⁓ you see in Amazon stores, like I think Amazon Go. ⁓ Those are kind of initiatives that we were working and figuring out how would you do it? How would you go? How would you do it?

do it that you can go and figure that somebody touch, grab something from the shelf and you’ll be automatically able to charge that customer. We work on much more sophisticated models that led to a lot of optimization that you can see in pick up and delivery when you have a traveling salesman algorithm. So a lot of initiatives, the key of everything we work on

was that it had to really be a tangible use case that has return on investment. And I think that was a key point and very interesting, actually, because as a technologist, you often get excited about the technology and you lose the reason why you’re doing it for. ⁓ And Scalia had absolutely

Anthony Codispoti (13:13)
Mm.

yeah.

Tomasz (13:34)
amazing, very robust framework. And it absolutely required that you have that return on investment. And even in the middle of a project, suddenly, there was no ⁓ opportunity to go further. ⁓ Because suddenly, like, no, you cannot prove the case that you’re going to be able to make money or save money.

we had to kind of stop. So it was very interesting experience.

Anthony Codispoti (14:06)
Yeah, it sounds like a very practical approach. And I want to come back to your comfort and your understanding of AI and potentially how you’re able to insert that into Roadrunner today. But first explain to us how the opportunity to join Roadrunner came.

Tomasz (14:25)
So for me, joining Roadrunner was months, if not years, in works. So I really enjoy the work that I’ve been doing. By utilizing AI, data, and technology, I kind of established myself as a fixer. I was able to come to the company and fix

One of the most fundamental and challenging problems they face, often the challenges that the leadership of that organization was just failing to address. ⁓ I really, really like it. ⁓ My brother, who is kind of an amazing… ⁓

amazing leader who specialized in turning around logistics businesses. He has ⁓ generated billions of dollars for shareholders ⁓ in turnarounds that he was successful ⁓ in driving. ⁓ He’s been asked to go and fix Roadrunner. And when he entered Roadrunner,

He kind of realized that at one point this is a very different problem than the ones he had in the past. this ⁓ company was fundamentally broken. ⁓ Road Rider was, when Chris was telling me, ⁓ when he kind of engaged, he was not sure if that company was going to survive 90 days. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (15:56)
Hmm, how so?

Tomasz (16:18)
So there was a bit of ⁓ trick that he pulled on me. I was actually sailing in Greece. He came, we went on the yacht and he brought our mom and then he told our mom that like, wouldn’t it be great if two of your sons worked together?

And I really didn’t want to join it because it’s it’s it’s I love what I did. I was really at the the most advanced. I was at the edge of working with the Fortune 100 and governments of the most advanced technology. ⁓ And then, you know, coming. No, let’s just think about that. Sexy tracking. Yeah, it’s even less. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (17:01)
Yeah, and logistics isn’t that sexy.

Tomasz (17:10)
⁓ So, you know, it’s utilizing a bit of like an unfair advantage of our mom who we absolutely love and adore and she is, you know, not somebody you can fight with because she managed to… A bit, yes. ⁓ And to be honest, I’m very happy because I think this is a challenge that… ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (17:26)
So you did this to make mom happy.

Tomasz (17:37)
a challenge and opportunity that I would not step into otherwise. And it enabled me to… It’s almost like, I don’t know if you ever wonder, but I always wondered if I suddenly move back in time, would I be successful? You know, like, how would I do? Like, imagine… Yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (18:03)
Like is technology the only thing that

you’re good at?

Tomasz (18:06)
Yeah, kind of. But I kind of felt that what happened because I was in such an advanced tier of what’s happening. Almost like it felt like a different galaxy. And then somebody brought me back to like 70s or 80s where technology was. And you kind of have to go and catch up and bring yourself up to speed. it was kind of a… I think it was a very interesting challenge to be part of.

Anthony Codispoti (18:36)
So you were brought in initially as the CIO and so, no, okay.

Tomasz (18:40)
Not even. no, no.

So initially I was brought as ⁓ a kind of an advisor and ⁓ I’ve been asked to kind of, know, Chris asked me like, can you help me understand where the challenges are and how technology can help? ⁓ And I came and

I remember the first thing I was amazed was the amount of data that is completely not used but exists in tracking and logistics.

Anthony Codispoti (19:22)
Give us an example.

Tomasz (19:24)
When you think about it, in tracking, have information about everything. I have information from ELD and telematics of the engine. I have years and decades of all the movements of freight. have…

Anthony Codispoti (19:45)
How would you use that?

How would you put that to use in a useful way?

Tomasz (19:49)
You can create and understand what is the most efficient way for you moving freight. You can understand what are the patterns. You can see what’s almost like you can start predicting what might happen. How the seasonality plays out. And if you’re go and gonna start kind of going and collecting that information and ⁓ looking at your cost and

⁓ and trying to combine everything, you’re starting to have a very clear understanding of where are the opportunities for you to be more efficient, more effective, ⁓ what way of moving freight might be ⁓ much better for you from a perspective of, ⁓ I call it total cost of ownership, TCO.

⁓ What I mean by that, know, initially when I came, looking and I remember I was talking to the executives that I’ve met and they told me, rail is the best for us. I’m like, okay, great. I’m like, true. It seems that the rate per mile is pretty low. So rail is great. ⁓ But then when I kind of brought all the data together, then you start to realize, okay, but the dry edge…

It’s actually not that cheap and managing everything and especially if you miss your window from a dry edge, you’re going to the penalties of ⁓ storage. Dry edge, yeah, it’s basically a storage, but also you need to bring that container back to terminal. And then you kind of look, okay, so let’s look at all the shipments that traveled through rail.

Anthony Codispoti (21:27)
Trayage is basically what? Storage.

Tomasz (21:43)
and you’re trying to utilize them ⁓ and compare them against any other shipment, you’re looking at the ratio of claims and you realize, wow, that’s something interesting happening because your claims are just incomparable. It’s ⁓ completely different ratios that you experience. So then you start looking at it from A to Z and you actually realize it’s

In our case, it was the most expensive form of moving freight. So you can get excited because you see just part of it. Oh my god, cost per miles is so small, not really. if you look from a full picture of picking up from a customer to delivering to a customer, and if you’re going to go on top of it and apply a factor of

Anthony Codispoti (22:27)
You didn’t get the full picture there. Yeah.

Tomasz (22:40)
and happiness from the customers that you might have, you start realizing it is not the best. And listen, don’t get me wrong, it depends what you’re shipping. And in certain instances, rail is absolutely phenomenal way to transport goods. But the goods that we were transporting as a roadrunner, it was the worst. It was the worst for us.

Anthony Codispoti (23:04)
Not so much.

Tomasz (23:08)
But you would never ever be able to get to that point of understanding unless you brought all the data together. And that’s what kind of happened. So when I came, I kind of realized there is so much data, but everybody has an opinion, but nobody provides me ⁓ data-driven answers. And I’m very empirical. ⁓

Kind of our board of directors has a nickname for me. They call me Dada Dog. Because I am like, really, it really doesn’t matter what you tell me. If you don’t have a way to show me and tell me the story through the numbers, just, even if I would like, I won’t be able to convince myself. And I’m very honest to myself always to.

Anthony Codispoti (23:57)
You don’t

get emotionally attached to who’s right or who’s wrong. Just show me the data. Let’s make the decision based on that. So.

Tomasz (24:03)
So

this is pretty much how my story, I started playing with it, so I went and built a very sophisticated ⁓ data infrastructure for Roadrunner. And as I was doing it, naturally, because of my technology, I started to realize, okay, the issue is here, the issue is there. So I started going and I would say expanding by…

going and taking other ⁓ tech areas because the data is one, but the importance of ⁓ data governance and quality of the data goes back to the system of records. So I need to set up that there are guardrails that when people use the system, they cannot put the dirty or ⁓ misleading data because the system doesn’t have verification. ⁓

Then I kind of went after all the systems because system becomes my input to the whole data lake that we have built and make sure that those systems work and are integrated with each other, that they give the data sanity. So when we make that decision and we building those algorithms on top of the data, then we don’t make wrong decisions because garbage in garbage out. ⁓ This is very important that

⁓ that you take very, very good care of the quality of the data you have in your system. And naturally, it’s kind of, know, once I start touching those systems, started having, let’s say, seeing opportunities of how we can improve. And then when I kind of stepped into the CIO role ⁓ at Roadrunner.

Anthony Codispoti (25:53)
So you started out as a consultant. You start building this technology infrastructure to help you guys make better decisions. So you’ve got easier, quicker, better access to the mountains of data that have been collected over the years. Then you really start to get an idea of the big picture where the opportunities are. You move into the CIO role. ⁓ From there, you’re continuing, I’m guessing, to solve problems using data and technology first.

Eventually you migrate into the role of COO and president. Now you don’t leave your tech behind, right? Tech runs in your blood. how that’s, that’s the big lever that you pull for solving problems. But I’m curious to hear, especially as you’ve made that transition, what percentage of the problems do you find you can’t resolve with tech? You know, an organization your size, people are a big part of what either works or doesn’t work. Just as an example.

Tomasz (26:51)
So ⁓ yeah, you’re absolutely right. So my migration happened because once I established and I understood now I have the technology, I have all the data, naturally I wanted to work as a consultant to the business and advise people to maybe modify the decision that they make and show them a different way.

And I was faced with a lot of, I’m doing it for 25 years and what do you know about it? You’re new to the industry. And that for me is like, it’s like you’re gonna show the red piece of cloth to the bull. Like you told me, you made statement like this, my psychologist comes in, okay, so you’re defensive now. ⁓ You’re defensive because…

Anthony Codispoti (27:35)
Just making you angry.

Tomasz (27:47)
I’m showing you something that you have absolutely no clue what I’m talking about it and you’re hiding yourself behind that statement that you’re trying to establish your position but you basically don’t know what I’m talking about and that for me became the path that like I need to step in more ⁓ because we basically need to make sure that we have a right team and we make decisions differently because the way how

company was making the decision was just questionable at best. how do I make those decisions and how many are ⁓ not technology driven? I would say all of them and none. And I would explain it. I don’t believe in technology as a magic solution. I believe in the people process and technology in that order.

⁓ If you have the right people that really know what they’re doing, you can survive without the processes and you can survive without technology. If you have people that maybe need some improvement, well then you definitely need ⁓ procedures and processes. ⁓ But if you really, really want to have an organization that

that let’s say is safeguarded and ⁓ really operates efficiently. And you don’t have to worry. You need to make sure that you take care of the third one, which is technology. So I don’t believe just technology can fix it, because I can put the best technology in front of somebody. They don’t want to use it, and they’re not going to use it. Nothing’s going to change. ⁓ So you need to make sure that you have a process of ⁓ how you kind of implement the technology.

and you to have people that open for using it. Today, I really… And this is something… It’s not me. ⁓ This is how I was brainwashed by Accenture. ⁓ That’s where they kind of made me this way. Everything is people, process and technology. And it’s actually… It’s true. ⁓ I find that this is where you’re going to be the most effective. That’s where you’re going to have the best… ⁓

⁓ the best return on investment if you really find that ⁓ perfect synergy between those three key elements to success. for me today, ⁓ it’s very important that we identify and fix problems. Fixing through technology is not the right way. The first thing, make sure you have the right people and that’s the first thing I’ll go and remove and replace.

⁓ The second thing I’m gonna go is I’m gonna make sure we have a process and see if this can work because technology is expensive Technology can take time to build and the last things you want to be doing is you want to be building technology for a broken processes or for the wrong people because what you’re gonna do you’re just gonna fail faster ⁓ and this is this is this is this is not this is not the right way to do it, so ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (31:03)
So if I’m understanding correctly, at some point as you’re moving up through sort of the leadership roles, you come to understand that there are probably some of the wrong people in the wrong seats and you need to make some changes. ⁓ Pretty big changes. Was this a painful transition for you or for the company to go through?

Tomasz (31:24)
A bit unfortunate. So there is not a single head of a department as I was going through departments. ⁓ I kind of, you know, ⁓ I start ⁓ bringing the data and kind of starting to have an understanding. ⁓

we identify and this is now when kind of I look at it almost feels maybe I should have been even faster in making those decisions because I have to admit the one thing that

because it was such a big group of people that throw at me that, I have decades of experience and so on. I am kind of a person that I like to reevaluate. I’m very analytical. So I’m like, what if I am making a mistake? What if there is something I don’t see? And kind of I have to.

Anthony Codispoti (32:25)
So you were open to the possibility

that maybe you were in the wrong here. Okay.

Tomasz (32:29)
Always. ⁓ And I think they managed ⁓ to plant the seeds of doubt in my approach, which kind of slowed me down a bit. ⁓ Because like, what if there’s something? ⁓ I don’t. And listen, I would be stupid thinking that I know everything because it’s impossible. ⁓ And that’s…

I know that this is a wrong assumption to operate under. So that was something that definitely affected me. But at the end of the day, there is no single head of a department that stayed. Because when we went, what was really amazing was that we had a lot wrong leaders. think there was just this. is just what it was. But the layer under.

We had a very good, so let’s call it the senior management. We had a perfect people. There is this working for wrong people. So what I actually managed to do, I managed to elevate that senior, was really the one people that were like holding that organization or that department, but the heads were kind of, know, not really understanding the big picture or, and I’ll be honest, it wasn’t easy.

And I don’t want to go and say they were wrong people. They were wrong people for what needed to happen. And what needed to happen is major overhaul, major transformation. ⁓ You need to experience. You need to be part of the organization at least once that you go through major transformation to really understand how you make the decision, what kind of decisions you need to make.

what kind of speed of decision making is required in the process like that. And most of the people, they would never ever be in those situations. I was very lucky ⁓ that in my career, ⁓ I was both at ⁓ Accenture and CGI. I went through multiple major transformations for different businesses.

And I remember that when I was coming and working with those businesses, there were people working there for 30, 40 years. And through the period that I was there for a year or a bit longer, it was the largest change they ever experienced in all of their career. Because it was a fundamental kind of reorganization change, complete…

Anthony Codispoti (35:11)
So you had quite a bit

of experience in change management by the time you got to Roden.

Tomasz (35:16)
And change management, a lot of transformation. That’s why I was a fixer. me, it became a bit like, you could be a phenomenal doctor, but not every phenomenal doctor or surgeon, and you’re going to put them in the middle of Iraq or Afghanistan, in the middle of a war theater, where you have to operate under,

bombs and things and machine guns shooting and so on. Not all of them is going to be good. And I happen to be that kind of a surgeon that operate in that work theater. So for me, that environment was… And I think that was a big difference. And I think that people struggled because ⁓ they were used to operate in the good companies. And they just happened to be at Roadrunner, which… Roadrunner…

Roadrunner had at the time fundamental challenges ⁓ and they didn’t really know how to handle it. They know how to run a good company. They didn’t know how to transform and completely overhaul ⁓ something that absolutely is required. ⁓ I think that’s…

Anthony Codispoti (36:33)
What

really needed to be overhauled though? I we talked about, you were able to use data to help make better decisions. And we use the example of rail is good in some cases, but not always because they weren’t factoring in drayage, but kind of help us understand, like how was it fundamentally broke?

Tomasz (36:48)
Never. So, Rayo was actually never good.

⁓ Listen, ⁓ Anthony, it would be easier to say what we didn’t have to change, was the name of a company.

Anthony Codispoti (36:57)
Okay.

Okay. It was, it was that broken, that flawed. Everything sort of needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Tomasz (37:04)
Everything,

from from from that was prior to me and Chris joining. But, know, there is there was a DOJ investigation into accounting fraud and Roadrunner in 2018, I believe, or something. So there was there was it was really amazing company. Roadrunner used to be absolutely amazing company.

Anthony Codispoti (37:21)
Okay.

Tomasz (37:34)
I believe up to, it was, as you mentioned, was created in 1984 until 2010. It was phenomenal business, phenomenal tracking LTO. Then through some kind of the weird decisions and ownership changes, Roadrunner suddenly thought that it’s going to become a bit of everything.

So they bought the airline, they bought the cold storage, warehousing, tracking, brokerage, you name it, they would go after it. And it was a completely unmanaged ⁓ pursuit of acquisition with zero integration and logic, how this actually helped the organization. ⁓

That led to almost the collapse of the business. ⁓ It went through serious troubles, as I mentioned, due to DOJ investigation and some of the executives actually serving prison sentences. ⁓ So was quite something. And then another ownership change occurred in… ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (38:49)
Wow.

Tomasz (38:59)
in somewhere around 2019, I think. And that’s where, you know, first Chris was brought, then he kind of, I kind of joined the party a bit later, we had we had a bit of our own team there. And we started kind of peeling the onion. And I have to admit that we had to go

pretty close to, I call it ⁓ open heart surgery, that we really had to break the business and go to ⁓ the points that we had to question everything. if you talk about the rail today, we do zero rail. We don’t touch it. Zero. ⁓ If you look about, yeah, when we came, we had to close a significant number of markets.

Anthony Codispoti (39:42)
Interesting.

Too problematic. Too expensive.

Tomasz (39:54)
because we were not able to serve them. were just… And make a lot of changes, operationally, financially, cost-wise, bring a lot of new people. And I would say question everything. We literally question every decision that has ever been made.

and we managed in four, well, it’ll be five years now. ⁓ Turn it around. We’re super proud. ⁓ Transport Logistics, they run this massive ⁓ survey with shippers in the United States, and shippers voted us as the second best LTL carrier.

Anthony Codispoti (40:47)
Wow.

Tomasz (40:47)
and United States. So when you think about it, when we came and we were absolutely hated by our customers and we were like bottom of a bottom of a barrel, like really there was we were like, we’re horrible. ⁓ Absolutely horrible. ⁓ And today, customer comments. And I have a customer is reaching out to us and say, listen,

I do something, I only have Old Dominion that is doing it. But there is only one company that I would be willing to move this type of business to if you guys agree to do it. ⁓ So, you know, putting Roadrunner, I don’t know how familiar you are, but Old Dominion is this amazing ⁓ northern star in LTL that nobody for years managed to really ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (41:27)
to voter confidence.

Tomasz (41:43)
compete with them or even give them any hard time. And I had some people from all dominion reaching out. It’s like, how did you sneak out on us? Like this? Like, how did you do it? Like four years ago, like everybody was laughing about you and thinking like, what’s gonna happen? And on top of it, they brought the people that are not from a tracking company. So they probably gonna kill this business. And then like four or five years later, it’s like, holy cow, now we have to watch out for you.

Anthony Codispoti (41:52)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

right?

Tomasz (42:13)
how that happened. it ⁓ is a of a fun journey of being focused and unapologetic ⁓ and very driven ⁓ and really believing in the mission. And we strongly believe that Roadrunner will be the best. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (42:37)
Yeah, so

I mean, what I’m sort of putting together here, as you were saying, the company was broken. I mean, there, there were illegal things going on, people do in time, there was a DOJ investigation. ⁓ It also sounds like and maybe this is related or not. But you know, there were some people at the helm whose maybe eyes were bigger than their stomachs, like, hey, business is going well. Let’s grow in all of these different areas at the same time without really a well thought out plan. And so

this put the company on the verge of collapse and you outsiders come in with this fresh perspective, know, lots of change management experience, lots of data experience, and you were able to figure out how to rebuild this thing. And today you’re successful. Number two in the country in that, you know, customer satisfaction survey. Are there any other numbers that you can share with us that, Hey, when we came in, this is where we were. Here’s where we are now.

I think it’s a privately owned company, I don’t know what you’re comfortable sharing, but that would be interesting.

Tomasz (43:38)
I think the data that is available there, I can tell you where I came, our claims were at 5%. And to be honest, they were worse than 5 % because there was a lot of data manipulation. So 5 is already horrible.

When you think about it, 5%, I really think it was more like 20%. But the people were really manipulating the data to look better, which was one of the biggest challenges I actually faced is how to bring the operations side and make sure that what we see is what it is, not what people want us to believe. ⁓ And that required… ⁓

They really required a lot of late nights to figure how we’re to do it. Our ratio of claim is 0.2 today. And I can assure you it’s very valid because the data that we develop and the visibility that we have, I can even tell you which forklift operator touched that freight and broke it because we have algorithm running and…

Anthony Codispoti (44:45)
Wow.

Tomasz (45:02)
And I have machine learning vision models analyzing the pictures and things to kind of understand when things might have happened and so on. So I know that this is a valid number. I can tell you that when we came, ⁓ our service was 50%.

Anthony Codispoti (45:23)
What does that mean your service like service satisfaction?

Tomasz (45:25)
So the big thing in tracking

service means how accurate are your deliveries to the times that you committed? And this is on time, yes, at best. ⁓ But this is kind of interesting. This is very interesting for the whole industry because everybody is lying on this number.

Anthony Codispoti (45:38)
So you were only getting half of those.

Tomasz (45:53)
everybody, even my admirable alt-dominion, they always kind of over-advertise it. Because there is a bunch of things that you’re not gonna… It took me a while to understand it, but there’s a bunch of metrics that you’re not gonna count. So, for example, if you deliver something to Florida and suddenly in Florida is a hurricane and you’re not gonna dispatch your truck there, well, you’re gonna count it as

you don’t have to count the service. If you’re gonna go and do it because it was snowing in Dallas and if there is a frost in Texas, the state is closed. So anybody who is from Midwest doesn’t really understand it because we operate with the snow, that is a very specific, it’s different. Everything is perspective. So in those southern states, when you get a bit of a snow,

it’s a very different story, then okay, you wouldn’t do it. And then I realized that operations ⁓ come up with bunch of other reasons why we’re not going to count the service. So it’s almost like you’re judging yourself. Are you judging yourself? And you kind of make it more favorable to look. So what I did when I came, and this was interesting because

Anthony Codispoti (47:03)
It was cloudy today.

Tomasz (47:19)
some of our executives in operations actually left after I decided to implement this logic. I said, you know what? I’m going to do CPOV, customer point of view. And I really don’t care what the reason is. You can put the reason, I just not going to count it, which people were shocked. Operations hated it at first. ⁓ Because in certain instances, when you think about it, it’s unfair to them.

Because it’s not their fault that the city is under snow and you cannot… It’s not their fault. They came to work, they want to work and it happened that a truck broke and etc. But I explained them like we are in customer business. So it doesn’t matter if it’s fair to us or not. I gave this analogy of a toothbrush and it somehow would work.

Anthony Codispoti (47:52)
and you’re making their numbers look bad. Yeah.

Tomasz (48:17)
pretty well with our team. ⁓ And I’m incredibly proud of my operations because today they live by it. And you tell them that CPOV is wrong? my God, like, watch out dude, watch out. I mean, I would not go there. ⁓ It took us a while to get get where we are, but they came along. But the example of a toothbrush I gave was, so…

Anthony Codispoti (48:34)
They’ve come around though.

Tomasz (48:46)
If I forgot my toothbrush and I go and buy it online and somebody’s to tell me, you’re going to have it on Thursday morning, the only thing I care is, will I have a fresh or bad breath on Thursday when I go and meet my customer? ⁓ Because that’s what really matters. Everything else doesn’t matter. It’s outside my control. I come to the company, company commits to me.

that they’re going to go and deliver something and do they deliver or not. And I get it. There’s a bunch of reasons that something might have happened in between that prevented it. Some of them are good, some of them are not. But it doesn’t change. At the end of the day, that customer perspective is what we really need to be focusing on. So we introduced this customer point of view, which was a shock to

to my operations. As I said, today I’m very proud of them, how they kind of embrace it. And customers were shocked. Because when I came to customers and I showed them, and that’s how customer measure you actually, which is a funny story I didn’t know. So when I came and I showed them my numbers are lower than how they were measuring me, they really were surprised. Who is that new road runner?

Everybody comes and has a better numbers than you come to me and you tell me the numbers are worse than the one I see it, but they are actually pretty good. And you tell me that they’re actually worse than they are because you have a more drastic way. Because through the months and everything, we came up how to make this logic even harder to it ⁓ just to kind of take the bar.

Anthony Codispoti (50:35)
You gained a lot of credibility

through that process.

Tomasz (50:37)
Yeah,

take a bar higher, not lower. I almost use another analogy. It’s telling me, ⁓ yeah, I can still fit my pants, but I just keep opening my belt. No, Tighten it up and try to tighten even more. And then use the same statement. So it was really, I think it was one of the first signs, customer realizing that…

So maybe that Roadrunner 2.0 is not just a marketing gimmick, but there is something really different. ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (51:14)
So tell us more about Roadrunner 2.0 or even 3.0. What are you most excited about that’s coming for the future of Roadrunner?

Tomasz (51:23)
So the 2.0 is what we call the best comeback in transportation industry because Roadrunner, as I said, to 2010 was absolutely loved, amazing company. Then it’s a bit of a few sins ⁓ happened between 2010, 2020.

And since 2020, we really kind of stepped on that transformation of ⁓ how to make ⁓ Roadrunner a premium carrier, how to bring it back, to regain the trust, how to establish ourselves with the best peers in class. ⁓ And kind of happy to report that.

We get there. We are already there. through Quest, through Mastio survey, we see that through our customers, we already get there. Now that, which was a lot of changes. If you look at it, the number of people we changed, the process we installed, technology we’ve changed, data we utilize, it’s day and night.

Today I can tell you I have a report, I can see a daily hourly level of 1000 metrics at the executive level. And I probably utilize 10 % of them. But I like having the other 900 because if something looks weird, I can go and check what could be the others influencing variables and…

And for me, it’s a great opportunity to analyze and understand the business and go really into the tiny detail. But that means that every team has a real-time visibility and they can understand what’s happening. And I think this is absolutely critical in that 2.0 transformation. 3.0, we’re of slowly stepping on.

This is really reinvention of LTL and tracking. So we caught up. We caught up with the guys ⁓ that are on top and consider premium carriers. And now we want to come and bring a lot of innovation, ⁓ a lot of outside way of thinking, questioning status quo and influencing the future of the industry.

by being that ⁓ innovation leader, being that somebody that’s going to be doing things differently. And we showed already through CPOB and few other things that at the smaller scale that we attempted. Now we want to go and really make ⁓ it and show that if my predecessor is on the call and he ever talks to you, ⁓

He doesn’t have to say that he moved back in time because he went into tracking. When somebody comments like, my god, this is so cool. And tracking is so cool, actually. I should say, for the last four years, five years, I absolutely fell in love in LTL. I love LTL. It’s such a fascinating, unnecessarily complicated ⁓ industry.

very fascinating and just it’s something romantic and sexy about moving freight and I’ve worked in a lot of industries but I’ve never had the same amount of passion for any industry I work in as I have for trucking.

Anthony Codispoti (55:34)
Do you think that’s because trucking historically has been so far behind and so you see just this tremendous gap that you can help the industry fill?

Tomasz (55:46)
Definitely part of it. But I manage through the years attract people from other industries. And when they come, I don’t know, something addictive about there is something about the concept that you

Anthony Codispoti (56:01)
They have the same feeling.

Tomasz (56:08)
There is no way that any day is going to be the same. Because it’s always something happens and you look at it. Now we have a tariff. Who would think about it? You will have to go and navigate around it. Then COVID happens and you know, COVID happens and you know, great, you can go and work from home. I actually joined in COVID, which was even more, it was maybe even more exciting to join logistics, but…

You know, people like, you can work from home and you’re going to have a mask and you’re going to be on Zoom calls and so on. Well, you know what? That doesn’t apply to logistics because if that happened, we would literally die because we would have no food and we wouldn’t get nothing. So we wouldn’t get those laptops if we needed them to be on those calls because somebody needs to deliver them. So it’s kind of you kind of living the challenges and whatever happens.

You have to navigate and there is never an option that… There is no like, ⁓ okay, I cannot do it. No, there’s just impossible. In this industry, in logistics, you always need to find a solution. Doesn’t matter what the problem is. Doesn’t matter how impossible it seems at first. The failure is not an option because theoretically the whole economy would collapse.

So it’s kind of, I think that that’s the other part. Definitely for me, because being a techie and having an opportunity to go and bring a company to more modern era is one. But I would not undermine the impact and the influence of actually how important is the job that you do every day. And really in COVID that

That kind of made you realize that you are the essential service. You are the ⁓ most critical ⁓ chain of that supply chain and that tracking and what you do is fundamentally, you ⁓ you’re responsible for well-being of many people. So I think that sense of responsibility is also part of it.

Anthony Codispoti (58:26)
The country needs you. Yeah. Tamash, I just have one more question, but before I ask it, I’m going to do two things. First, everyone listening pause for just a second. Go to that podcast app you’re using right now. Go ahead and hit the follower subscribe button. So you continue to get more great content like we’ve had today with Tamash from Roadrunner. I’m also going to tell you the best way to get in touch with Tamash and that is his LinkedIn page. And we’ll include a link to that in the show notes. But for those of you listening to the audio version, Tamash is spelled T O ⁓ A

S Z and his last name Jamroz is J A ⁓ R O Z. And for Roadrunner to get in touch with the company directly, it is shiproadrunnerfreight.com. So last question for you, Tomas, you and I reconnect a year from today, and you’re celebrating something big, you’re very excited. What’s that big thing you’re celebrating one year from now?

Tomasz (59:23)
one year from now. I’m celebrating.

Browse to ⁓ now.

Anthony Codispoti (59:34)
What’s that?

Tomasz (59:35)
No, I’m proud to know. I’m celebrating a lot of things, so you kind of put me… It is the weird one, I have to admit that you put me… I’m computing.

Anthony Codispoti (59:42)
That’s a weird one for you, huh?

Tomasz (59:52)
Have a year from now.

I don’t know. Please remind me.

Anthony Codispoti (59:59)
Okay, well let’s

pick a different one then. So how about something as you look at your past that seemed like a mistake at the time, something in your career, whether it was with this business or another one, that now you look back on with gratitude because it helped to propel you in a different direction or helped to teach you something that was an important lesson.

Tomasz (1:00:24)
Earlier in my career, I made the pivot to…

going to the data and analytics space very early. ⁓ And for a number of reasons, somehow I failed it. And I failed it ⁓ because

I had a very different expectation what the work would be. So I was working for a big consulting company. I was in strategy and technology. And I felt like I want to go into analytics. It was kind of early. was, I don’t know, early 2010, 2011. But I was really kind of, felt that I should go into that analytics.

I couldn’t really get in. Within the organization, couldn’t really find somebody who… In order for you to change within the company, you need to have a sponsor to go. And I was trying to. And I was pitching and I was trying to find somebody who’s gonna help me to…

to make the change because I felt that I don’t know love that data and analytics field. And it didn’t work out. even try I went for some training. I kind of like I didn’t even like it. ⁓ And and I remember at the time, instead of being like a frustrated, so like, okay, well, it’s different.

Different than what I thought. I thought that I would be great in data analytics and years later it out that I’m pretty good in it. But my first attempt was absolute failure.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:33)
What

was lacking at the time?

Tomasz (1:02:37)
I think I was lucky that nobody wanted to take me because I find a lot of people in analytics ⁓ or in advanced analytics or anybody working a lot of with data is they don’t understand the business.

and they understand the numbers and they’re getting overexcited about numbers and they’re paying attention to things that are not meaningful because data shows you something but in reality it’s not meaningful at all because that’s just how business operates. And I think I was lucky because my ⁓ failure to join that analytics teams earlier resulted in me being

part of a major transformation, me seeing how businesses really function. And I built that knowledge then later on when this opportunity presented itself, ⁓ advanced machine learning ⁓ opportunity were starting to pop out, there were no people who had any background in the area. And

I had all the background from a mathematical point of view, but then I always had. But now I brought that business acumen. So that was kind of an interesting opportunity for me that I had a good instinct. I thought I was going to be good at it. Turned out I am very good at it. But I failed at first. And that failure helped me kind of develop the

the skill set that I would never learn if I went there right away. Because would, that is so fascinating that you can get lost in it. And I learned a lot about business. I learned a lot about big transformation, learned a lot of technologies, implementing it, challenges, operationalizing it and everything that comes with it.

that when I was kind of reintroduced to that field within the same company actually, because it happened Accenture, I had a very different perspective. And I think that perspective is that helped me to be successful with Scale AI, CGI, now with Roadrunner and at one point with Ascent as there was something that I was also working on in the last

a years. ⁓ So this is something, don’t get discouraged if something didn’t work out at first. If you’re really good at it, if you’re really motivated, just ⁓ follow the path, take the pivot, and then there might be another opportunity. And when you have that opportunity, just take it. Just take it.

don’t overthink it and it could be great. ⁓ It worked out for me. So that would be the advice.

Anthony Codispoti (1:05:47)
I love that lesson.

Yeah, I love that lesson, Tomas. And I think, you know, big part for you, it sounds like was needing to go and get some other skill sets first, some other experiences so that when you came back and you were looking at the data, you had a different lens at which to see it.

Tomasz (1:06:03)
100%. I really developed a point of view that I would not be even capable of comprehending if that earlier pivot was successful.

Anthony Codispoti (1:06:22)
Tamashi Amoraz from Roadrunner. want to be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

Tomasz (1:06:30)
Thank you Anthony. was a pleasure talking to you, talking to your audience. Thank you for thinking about Roadrunner and giving us an opportunity to tell the story because there is a lot of interesting and amazing people ⁓ behind that story. ⁓ I had a pleasure of talking about Roadrunner, but there’s many more Roadrunners out there that…

They’re really amazing, amazing, amazing job to ⁓ make us best in class.

Anthony Codispoti (1:07:06)
Love it. Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.