October 21, 2020

Transportation and Logistics Management student team places second in national academic competition

This year's competition was held in a Zoom format due to COVID-19.

A team of three students in the University of Wisconsin’s Transportation and Logistics Management (TLM) major recently competed in the Intermodal Association of North America’s (IANA) 2020 Academic Challenge, a case-study competition judged by professionals from the intermodal industry. This year’s team included Sarah Montrose, Kayleigh Seagraves and Peter Gosswiller. The group placed second only to Georgia Southern University, edging out competitors from Auburn, North Florida, North Texas, College of Charleston, California Maritime Academy and the University of Maryland.

UWS TLM student teams have participated in the IANA competition since 2014 and have consistently been finalists, winning the competition in 2016. Held in past years at the annual IANA Expo in Long Beach, Calif., this year’s competition was held in an online Zoom format due to COVID-19.

The UWS team presented a complex, current business case study that required them to apply quantitative and qualitative techniques in developing their proposed solution. Using historical data for twelve U.S. ports, the team determined trends in container imports and exports, using this information to allocate drayage (trucking) resources in the ports over a three-year period. In order to address the final question, they developed qualitative projections for container movement in 2022 based on factors they researched such as consumer demand, trade wars, supply chain resiliency, near-shoring and out-sourcing, and changing trade corridors.

“In their ten-minute board room briefing, the UWS team was poised and provided a cogent and concise case study analysis for the panel of judges who advanced our team to the finals,” said Richard Stewart, UWS professor of transportation and logistics management. “During the Q&A session our team addressed in-depth questions from the industry experts. The UW-Superior team finished second in the competition with some of the six universities ranked behind them having business schools with higher enrollment then our entire campus. Our students were exemplary and once again demonstrated their ability to rank in the top tier of universities.”

“I was very grateful to have the opportunity to compete in this year’s IANA Academic Challenge,” said Sarah Montrose, TLM student and team participant. “The competition is known to be very thought-provoking and this year’s event proved to be just that. It provided valuable real-world experience to apply what we’ve been learning in the classroom at UW-Superior.”

This year's competition was held in a Zoom format due to COVID-19.