I have yet to really share in my blog about school. For those of you who don’t know, I am in the middle of an MBA program at George Fox University. And for those of you how do know, school is going pretty well. Every class, every instructor, every meeting, and every team seem to be a little different with pros and cons, but as a whole I am really enjoying school.
Now, about the yellow bus. Today was a fantastic field trip that I must share. In this case, we (about 30 in total from GFU) met at the Port of Portland Terminal 6 at 9:30 this morning. As we all loudly boarded a bus and seemed to squeeze two adults into a seat, all of us chatted about two things…the giant cranes along the port moving containers off of a really big ship or the days when we would fit three friends onto a seat on the school bus, and much more comfortably at that. Typical of any field trip, the instructor began counting heads and searching for the now one missing person. Talk about déjà vu.
As the bus tour wound down and we moved into the administration building for a presentation, the chatter had change to a sense of complete respect for this world of container shipping. Commercial shipping has been around for centuries and yet container shipping as we know it today has only been around for about fifty years. The things that were discussed and I learned about today are knowledge bites that I am still trying to wrap my head around. Barry Horowitz from the Port of Portland spent much of the day with us, sharing his extensive knowledge and understanding of such a necessary industry. In its simplistic form, container ships bring products to demand markets. In its complicated form, the shipping industry is a historic path of who, what, where, when, and how.
If any of you ever get a chance to tour Terminal Six, do it. Or any other container port.
1 comment:
LOL - I don't think I could have stated it any better myself. Yes the days of the school bus seem to be back!
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