Old Dominion University alumnus Will Fediw ‘08 was one of the school’s first students of maritime and supply chain management when the topics were first offered in the Strome School of Business.
He had just pivoted from biology to business when he met Professors Sara Russell Riggs and Wayne Talley, the latter’s whose name is synonymous worldwide for supply chain management and scholarship. As ODU’s Eminent Scholar of Economics and professor of maritime and supply chain management, Talley, now retired, planted the seeds of the program with Russell that led to this fall’s opening of the School of Supply Chain, Logistics and Maritime Operations.
Fediw graduated from Old Dominion in 2008 and has worked on the water since then, first serving in the United States Coast Guard, then working in the commercial oil and gas industry, and most recently as the senior vice president of the Virginia Maritime Association.
This is a busy time of the year for Fediw. This week, he’ll be formally recognized as an “Inside Business” Top 40 Under 40 professional. He’s also the executive producer of the VMA’s annual maritime and supply chain symposium that drew some of the biggest names in the business to Norfolk last week. Entitled “Harnessing the New Normal,” discussions covered how flexibility is more important than ever in the blue economy.
ODU News talked with Fediw about his career, his work on the Maritime Supply Chain Advisory Council and the importance of networking.
What’s the most important thing people don’t know about the field of supply chain and maritime management?
People are surprised by the number of opportunities in the maritime industry. Sometimes people think it's just ships and ports, or it means being a sailor. Those are all parts of it. But those are just a few things about this massively diverse industry.
Look at me. While at ODU, I did an internship with the Virginia Port Authority, which is a state agency and terminal operator, then went on to the federal government with the Coast Guard, then I went into the commercial maritime industry in the Gulf Coast, and now I'm in a trade association role representing and advocating for all of those things.
What’s an important message that you share with ODU’s students?
I tell them that maritime also means standard business services. When you think of all these maritime companies, you have to remember that they all need legal, human resources, finance, accounting, marketing, etc. We also talk to a lot of the general business students at ODU. You want to be an accountant? Fantastic. Check out the opportunities in the maritime industry because it's stable.
It's showing people that being involved in maritime doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to work in a terminal or go to sea, which is also a great opportunity.
Have you seen an interest in the study supply chain and maritime operations grow among students?
That's a two-part answer. A lot of what happens in the maritime and supply chain space happens behind the fence line. It happens out at sea. It happens in places where people normally don't go or see so there's not a lot of exposure. Kids grow up and they say, “I want to be a doctor, a firefighter, a policewoman or a pilot,” because they understand those jobs, they’re tangible. No one grows up and says, “I want to work in a port,” because it's something they're not exposed to. When folks are exposed to it, they become interested in it.
The pandemic taught us about supply chain. Remember when we were ready to fight grandmas in Target over toilet paper? No one cared about supply chain until there was a supply chain crisis, until the Suez Canal had a vessel stuck in it, until we were in a trade war with China, until factories were shutting down due to Covid-19 . Then, suddenly, the supply chain became super important.
Since the pandemic, and more recently since the Baltimore bridge catastrophe, the supply chain is getting more media attention at the national and international levels. Businesses are paying more attention to it. Leaders are saying, “maybe we should have contingency plans.” The supply chain has become more interesting to the common citizen. There's an uptick in interest, because it goes back to the first part of that statement which is that it's really a visibility issue.
How has the maritime industry evolved and adapted with technology?
Shipping and global commerce are as old as time. We have been moving things over the water for thousands of years. It's not new and it's something that we're going to continue to do for a very long time until we figure out the ‘Beam me up, Scotty,’ way to transport things. So, if we're going to move things on ships, we need ports and we need trucks, railroads and warehouses. We need people across that space, including more people in fields like cybersecurity, robotics and artificial intelligence because those technologies are becoming increasingly interwoven in transportation and supply chain networks. Therefore, there are lots of opportunities for students to explore.
For example, if you looked at a warehouse 20 years ago, it may have been a dark, dingy place filled with forklifts, hand trucks and a large amount of manual labor. If you look at a modern warehouse today, you’ll likely see some with cutting edge technologies like AI and robotics to give us those purchases that we love to have on our doorstep the next day.
Technology has also opened the field to new jo https://www.odu.edu/supply-chain-logistics-maritimebs. ODU students can find a home in the maritime space, whether they're mechanical engineers, computer scientists, cybersecurity professionals or environmental specialists. They all touch maritime.
What’s the most important piece of advice you offer students?
I'm really excited about networking and connecting people. There are still business leaders in the maritime space today who mentored me in 2006 and 2007. They're still leading at their companies, and that's special, because they saw me come up.
I think it's about opening doors for people. Most of the students that I have mentored will tell you I have one famous question, which is, “Where are your business cards?” I'll invite them to networking events and I’ll ask them, “where are your business cards? And they say, “I'm a student. I don’t have a job.” I then tell them that because they are at a networking event they need something to put into someone's hand that has their name, number, graduation date, email address and what they’re interested in.
Now we have LinkedIn and ways to show employers that you’re starting to build relationships. That gives people time to get to know you and see what you're really about, so that when you're ready to start applying for jobs, you already have the beginnings of a network established.
Networking is a learned skill. It's not something that people inherently know how to do. It's about getting students to actually go out there and knock on doors and get to know people, to show up and put a business card in their hand, because that's what makes people stand out amongst their peers.