Fellow Attendees,

Welcome to Inland26! My colleagues and I at Outpost are excited to be the host sponsor for the event that will dive into “The Big Payback.” Many of you remember how quickly the last cycle turned in mid-2022. Trucks bought at record prices and space leased at the top became the overhead everyone carried through the downturn.

This year’s theme will explore the repercussions of a changing market. Rates are rising again, and everyone at this conference is recalculating something: margin recovery for carriers, transportation budgets for shippers, and load coverage for brokers as regulation tightens capacity. Imagine this market with increased demand!

But rising rates won’t solve our industry’s underlying problems, such as fuel prices, cargo theft, and the pressure to stay competitive as AI reshapes our cost to serve. The real “big payback” won’t come from one side of the market winning at another’s expense. It will come from infrastructure, technology, and operating models that improve service and resilience without proportional increases in cost and risk.

That’s hardest to do on the road leg of inland distribution that connects ports, intermodal terminals, warehouses, and customers. Airlines can serve a city without building the airport. Shippers can move a box through a port without owning it. But for the nearly three-quarters of US freight tonnage that moves over the road, shared infrastructure doesn’t exist: if you want it, you tie up capital in your own facilities even as your network shifts.

Outpost brings a firsthand perspective to this infrastructure gap. We own and operate terminals and yards across the U.S. and develop AI gate automation used at our properties and at facilities run by shippers, 3PLs, and carriers.

I look forward to meeting you in Chicago. Stop by table #5 between sessions or contact me directly at trent@outpost.us.

Sincerely,

Trent Cameron
Cofounder & Chief Executive Officer
Outpost