Joel Sutherland was on his way to receive CSCMP's prestigious Distinguished Service Award when the hotel doorman asked him where he was headed. Sutherland explained that he was going to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) Annual Global Conference. "What kind of meeting is that?" asked the perplexed doorman.

"And that's the kind of business we are in," reflected Sutherland during his acceptance speech. "Few understand what we do, but everyone benefits from our efforts."

Throughout his career, Sutherland has tried to pursue those opportunities that create benefits for all. "Joel has dedicated his career to creating innovative techniques, processes, and solutions to improve supply chain efficiency and effectiveness," said Rick Blasgen, president and CEO of CSCMP. "He is also an inspirational leader who believes in leadership by example and has greatly contributed to raising awareness of the supply chain management profession around the world."

Sutherland is currently the managing director of Lehigh University's Center for Value Chain Research. Over the course of his 30-year career, he has made an impact on various areas of the profession such as helping to create the non-asset-based third-party logistics provider Transplace and serving as president and COO for Air-Road Express. To learn more about Sutherland, see DC VELOCITY's exclusive interview with the award winner.

Sutherland was not the only one to be honored at the conference.

• Intel Corp. received the Supply Chain Innovation Award for its efforts to improve customer responsiveness. The company has gone from responding to a customer request for supply within seven to nine days to responding in only one day.
• Lieutenant Colonel Timothy J. Pettit received the Doctoral Dissertation Award for his ongoing research project "Supply Chain Resilience in a Global Enterprise." Pettit is an assistant professor of logistics and supply chain management at the Air Force Institute of Technology.
• Matthew A. Waller of the University of Arkansas and Brené D. Williams of Auburn University received the E. Grosvenor Plowman Award for their paper "Improving Order Forecast Accuracy: A Vector Error Correction Approach." The Plowman Award is given to the best research presented at CSCMP's Supply Chain Management Educators' Conference.
• The Bernard J. La Londe Best Paper Award was given to Daniel J. Flint of the University of Tennessee, Britta Gammelgaard of Copenhagen Business School, and Everth Larsson of Lund University for their paper titled "Exploring Processes for Customer Value Insights, Supply Chain Learning and Innovation: An International Study." The La Londe Award is presented for the most valuable paper in the Journal of Business Logistics.