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Col. Ted “Migs” Silvester, U.S. Marine Corps (retired), is the vice president of marketing and development of the Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation. Prior to joining the Toys for Tots Foundation in July 2015, Silvester served in the Marine Corps for more than 25 years.
After graduating from Hobart College in 1990, Silvester was commissioned a second lieutenant via the Marines’ Platoon Leaders Course. In March of 1995, he deployed with the Fighter Attack Squadron-122 in Beaufort, S.C. on two Western Pacific Unit deployments. He then joined Fighter Attack Squadron-142 in Atlanta, Ga., in 2001 as the active duty officer-in-charge. His five-year tour with “The Flying Gators,” as the squadron was called, included a deployment to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Silvester then served as the Marietta site commander and Marine Aircraft Group 42 executive officer for a MAG of 1500-plus marines and sailors, where his duties included assisting staff and unit leaders in organizing and executing base realignments and closures. He was transferred to the Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC) Department of Aviation at the Pentagon to assist with plans to transition all USMC aircraft to next-generation platforms; he was later reassigned to HQMC department of manpower and reserve affairs in Quantico, Va., to serve as the head of the Reserve Affairs personnel management branch. Silvester’s final assignment was as chief of staff for the Office of Marine Forces Reserve for Commander, Marine Forces Reserve, where he coordinated among HQMC, the Secretary of the Navy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and congressional staffs to integrate the reserve component into the total force.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 00:01
The logistics behind Toys for Tots. Industry predictions for 2024. And the growth of the electric vehicle market.
Pull up a chair and join us as the editors of DC Velocity discuss these stories, as well as news and supply chain trends, on this week's Logistics Matters podcast. Hi, I'm Dave Maloney. I'm the group editorial director at DC Velocity. Welcome.
Logistics Matters is sponsored by PERC, the Propane Education and Research Council. Propane is the safe, reliable energy for material handling. Propane-powered forklifts may improve air quality inside your facilities for a healthier, more productive workforce. See how propane can give your productivity a boost at propane.com/forklifts.
As usual, our DC Velocity senior editors Ben Ames and Victoria Kickham will be along to provide their insights into the top stories of this week. But to begin today: Each year, the United States Marine Corps Reserve and its partners undertake one of the nation's largest toy drives, known as Toys for Tots. It's a goal to ensure that all children have toys for Christmas morning. It takes an army — or rather a marine corps — of volunteers and corporate partners to pull it all off. To find out more about the logistics behind the annual campaign, here's Victoria with today's guest.
Victoria.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 01:27
Thanks, Dave. Our guest today is retired Marine colonel Ted Silvester, who is also vice president of marketing and development for the U.S. Marine Toys for Tots Foundation. Welcome, Colonel.
Col. Ted Silvester (Ret.), VP, Marketing and Development, Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation 01:39
Hello, Victoria. Thank you for having me today.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 01:41
It's great to have you here. I think most people are familiar with the Toys for Tots program, but can you briefly describe its origins and what the organization does today?
Col. Ted Silvester (Ret.), VP, Marketing and Development, Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation 01:52
Yeah, so you know, Toys for Tots is an official activity of the United States Marine Corps, and it's been — this is our 76th year, so it's been around for a long time. Started in 1947, with reserve major Bill Hendricks and his Marines in Los Angeles, where they were able to collect and distribute, you know, toys to roughly 2,000 children. And then fast forward 76 years later, we've distributed over 650 million toys to 291 million children, which does not include this year. You know, last year was a record year for Toys for Tots. Our Marines and volunteers distributed over 24 million toys to 10 million children in need, and we are expecting similar results this year. Sadly, the need is great. We're getting reports from many of our local chapters. We have 864 local community choice routes collection distribution points in all 50 states and U.S. territories, and we receive a lot of requests from them. You know, as as good as our Marines are at collecting toys and locally, they they fall short compared to the number of children they're supporting, and so that's where the foundation comes in. With help from our corporate partners and generous individuals, we're able to augment their toy drives with many toys.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 03:08
Those are some amazing numbers, it must take so much work to coordinate all of this behind the scenes. You mentioned volunteers, but also managing the distribution and delivery. Where do you begin? How early do you start preparing for all of this? How does it start?
Col. Ted Silvester (Ret.), VP, Marketing and Development, Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation 03:26
Yes, well, those of us at the foundation, we have a small staff of 25, and we work year round, and we actually we have — it really starts at the beginning of the year, you know. So, in January, we're collecting all the after actions from our local chapters. We have an annual audit in February, to keep our activities verified and transparent. And then we begin a lot of our year-round activity to include — we purchase a lot of toys in the spring timeframe to be shipped in the fall to our holiday campaigns, and then we are recruiting new campaign coordinators in counties in areas where we don't have a Toys for Tots campaign in the winter and spring. And then we bring our coordinators in for training, for a three-day training conference in September to get them ready to go and to set up their campaigns, which begin in October. So, the coordination is pretty extensive for a local campaign coordinator. Wherever we have a marine reserve unit, and then about 700 or so other locations where we don't have reserve units, we have an individual running it as a campaign coordinator, and they work with their local communities. It's a community action program, and they build very large volunteer networks. They work with first responders, they work with local businesses, they work with their local media, TV, and radio outlets and work with organizations to help identify the need of families in their communities, and it's quite a big effort, and a lot of a lot of logistics involved, and when you're talking collecting and distributing 24 million toys to 10 million kids, it takes a lot of hands. You know, we have about 40- to 45,000 volunteers that help out our holiday campaign throughout the fall there, so it's a pretty big effort.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 05:14
Sounds like it. I'll ask about the nitty gritty of the logistics in a second, but first, you mentioned a variety of different volunteer partners there. You said corporate partners, local volunteers. Like, can you sort of just encapsulate what's the scope of your volunteer network, from the corporate level down to local communities?
Col. Ted Silvester (Ret.), VP, Marketing and Development, Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation 05:34
Well, about the 40, 45,000 individuals that volunteer, they're individuals that make up the community. You know, they could be mom and dad and their kids helping out, you know, collecting and sorting toys, and distributing toys, or could be, you know, Hasbro has a global day of joy, and a lot of companies encourage their employees to get out there and work and they have paid time off to go out and volunteer with with, you know, local nonprofits and charity. So there's quite a few organizations that that encourage their employees to go out there and volunteer. And, and again, it's really just kind of combination of individuals in any given community that kind of, you know, that they cumulatively add up to oh, well over 40,000 people that are helping us collect short and distribute toys to children in need in a pretty short time span, in the fall timeframe.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 06:27
So how do you handle the logistics? I mean, do you use your own warehouses, distribution centers? What about the transportation? How does all this come together?
Col. Ted Silvester (Ret.), VP, Marketing and Development, Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation 06:36
That's a great question, because our 860-plus local chapters, almost all of them rely on temporarily donated warehouse space, you know, so they're out there, as part of the part of their setting up their campaign, they're working with a local business that has space and availability to use their warehouse, so, that alone is pretty challenging, but, yeah, most of them use donated warehouse space, with the generosity of local businesses in their community. The transportation, again, just working with a lot of local businesses, and, you know, rental cars. It takes a lot of vans and small trucks to drive around. And putting the volunteer network together and having access to some of those vehicles, as well, as, you know, donating a gift card, gas cards for the gas. There's a lot of a lot of logistics getting boxes out — we have several 100,000 toy-collection boxes throughout the U.S. — in the fall timeframe. So we have to get those boxes out to participating businesses, and then they fill up with toys, and we have to get the toys back. So there's quite a bit of working with local businesses and local individuals in each community in every state to make that happen. And again, it all kind of falls on the local Toys for Tots campaign coordinators, you know, our hat's off to them, because they do a phenomenal job. Of course, Marines, you know, they're going to get the job done regardless of the challenges,
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 08:05
Right. Yeah, that is amazing. So volunteers at all levels, not just the toys, but the logistics services as well. We write often about supply chain delays and disruptions, especially these last few years, and those can be caused by a variety of factors. How does an organization like yours sort of prepare for any potential snags in the supply chain? You mentioned, Marines just get it done. I mean, how do you — that's probably just the attitude, right? Just deal with it.
Col. Ted Silvester (Ret.), VP, Marketing and Development, Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation 08:32
Yes, well, my my counterpart in operations here at the foundation, he does all the toy purchases, and we buy toys in the millions each year, with the generous help we get from the public and our corporate partners. But he obviously keeps an ear and eye to what's going on with a supply chain. He does a lot of purchasing in the spring timeframe. Not only is that offseason, taking advantage of of lower cost per toy in the spring timeframe, but knowing, like for example, in 2021, 22, you know, a lot of disruptions there. Are we going to be able to get the toys in our hands in time, you know, with our toy vendors or whatnot. So we work with them very early in the year to get our first supplemental toy purchased and delivered. It doesn't get delivered till the fall, but we placed the orders in the spring to kind of get ahead of any potential issues with the supply chain there.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 09:30
This just occurred to me, but what's the breakdown between what you purchase in the spring and then what you get for volunteers — I'm sorry, donations. Is it pretty much 50-50, or how does that work?
Col. Ted Silvester (Ret.), VP, Marketing and Development, Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation 09:42
Well, last year — I don't have the numbers for this year, because they're we're still in the middle of it — but last year we distributed 24.4 million toys, and 14 million of those were collected locally, you know from individuals dropped in one toy at a time in our in our toy collection bins, and we were able to augment local toy efforts with 10 million toys, and that's a combination of toys that we purchase, and toys that are large in-kind product donations from our great partners, you know, like Hasbro and Disney and Target — all the other companies, you know — Five Below — that donate product, their products. So, 10 million of those 24 million toys were augmented as a result of individuals donating and companies donating in- kind products. Terrific. Thank you. You mentioned there's just a huge need this year. Is there anything else about the program or this year's drive that you'd like to share with our listeners? Yeah, absolutely. You know, most people know Toys for Tots as a Christmastime charity, as we have been for over 75 years now, and that's the vast majority. Our biggest program is the holidays. But for the last five years, our president and CEO Lieutenant General Jim Laster, has really pushed. We can use — just because the holidays are over doesn't mean the needs are over, right? from from people. So we've been doing a lot of toy, game, and book distributions all throughout the spring and summer. For example, earlier this year, in the in the late winter and spring, we we provided a million toys to Title I-funded schools, but we also have a literacy program. We distributed 6 million books last year, in addition to the toys. And we provided 100 truckloads of toys to various nonprofits throughout the country, you know, with our partner, Good360. You know, whatever those local nonprofits do in the spring and summer, they might be providing food or clothing, or whatever they do, you know, we're trying to add a toy, game, and book element to that, so those are activities that we've been — keeping us busy all throughout the year. You know, and then of course, getting ready, in the heart of it now with our holiday campaign.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 11:58
And I imagine listeners who are looking for more information on on those programs or the program overall, it's ToysforTots.org. Is that correct?
Col. Ted Silvester (Ret.), VP, Marketing and Development, Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation 12:08
That is correct. Yep. And we're very happy. We have a new website, ToysforTots.org, and just to also let let let your listeners know that we're very proud of our program support ratio. You know, we have a 97 to 3 program support ratio. So that means of every dollar that's donated, 97 cents goes directly to the program, putting toys in the hands of kids, and only 3 cents of every dollar that goes towards fundraising and admin costs. So, we make good use of your donation, and it is 100% donor-supported organization. So we are blessed with a very generous population.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 12:42
Well, Ted, thank you for joining us today and explaining all this to us. It's really been a pleasure.
Col. Ted Silvester (Ret.), VP, Marketing and Development, Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation 12:49
Well, thank you, Victoria. It's always great to tell the Toys for Tots story, and thanks for having me today.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 12:55
We have been talking with Colonel Ted Silvester of the U.S. Marine Toys for Tots Foundation. Back to you, Dave.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 13:01
Thank you, Colonel Silvester and Victoria. Now let's take a look at some of the other supply chain news from the week, and Ben, you wrote this week about some forecasts looking ahead to 2024 in the logistics sector. Hopefully we'll see some improvement over 2023. What are the experts predicting?
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 13:21
Yeah, we're in the final days of December here, and this is always the time of year when industry experts look into their crystal balls and make predictions about the coming year. We get a lot of those here at the magazine, and, depending on the company, they might focus on topics like freight or technology or economics. But today we're going to talk about real estate, which might sound dull, but that's where all the warehouses and distribution centers are, and that's what makes the whole logistics system tick. So, we got a forecast of seven trends that could happen in 2024 from Prologis, the logistics real estate firm, and the top-line one that caught my eye was that they predicted the global freight recession we've all been living through will reverse, demonstrated by what they think will be double-digit growth in port and truck traffic. In Prologis' view, the Southern California region is likely to be among the first to benefit from that shift, as import volumes at Los Angeles and Long Beach could exceed pre-pandemic levels. For proof points, they pointed to some numbers showing that those two combined ports have already seen a 46% resurgence in imports since their most recent trough in February, and that's because temporary factors, such as contract negotiations with dockworkers and a post-pandemic bullwhip effect, have largely faded away. So overall, the firm had a sunny view of economic conditions in the coming year, saying that their outlook highlights 2024 as what they called "a year of healthy demand growth, constrained supply, technological evolution of logistics facilities, and a turning of the capital markets cycle," which is a reference to that balance that we've all been watching between inflation and interest rates.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 15:08
Well, Ben, it has been a pretty tight freight marker for a few months now, and we could all use some good news. What else was in the forecast?
Ben Ames, Senior News Editor, DC Velocity 15:17
Right. The Prologis report had seven business predictions for 2024, and the remaining six were these: They said that what they call a "great construction bust" will intensify, with global building starts hitting the lowest level since the 2008 financial crisis. That's a reference to fewer groundbreakings and construction beginnings for new warehouses. Latin American rents, they said, will grow at more than double the global average, driven in part by a growing nearshoring trend that we've been tracking. Annual real estate demand in China will be [at] the second-highest level on record, they said Technology, especially AI, will drive up the energy requirements in logistics facilities, and that could incentivize warehouse owners to double their solar capacity to generate more power to run the technology. Interest rate declines, they said, will double private equity real estate funding in 2024. They really think that interest rates are going to drop, and that will make money easier to come by. And in another sort of angle on that same issue, they said that cap rate movements will reverse as those interest rates decline. What they mean by that sort of financial language is that the cost of capital is expected to decline in the U.S. and Europe, although apparently it's supposed to rise in Japan. So, lower interest rates will make it cheaper to borrow money or to carry debt, and that's always good for business growth.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 16:46
Yeah, it is good news, and hopefully it does play out that way in 2024. Fingers crossed. Thanks, Ben. And Victoria, you wrote this week about the potential for growth in electric-vehicle markets. What did you find out?
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 17:00
Yes, Dave, that's right. So, electric vehicles for last-mile delivery remain remain in demand around the world, and that's according to a recent market report from a research firm called Global Market Estimates. The group says the EV market for last-mile delivery will grow at a nearly 16% compound annual growth rate over the next five years, and that's driven largely by demand for more sustainable business practices in general, as well as government policies and incentives to purchase EVs. Worldwide commitment to environmentally friendly urban logistics is a major factor behind the prediction as well, as many governments and businesses strive to reduce carbon emissions in urban areas.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 17:42
Victoria, are there particular industries or segments that are driving all this?
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 17:46
Yes, there are. So, the food-delivery services segment is expected to hold the largest share of the market; and that'll be followed by retail delivery, which includes things like small business, local shops; and then package delivery services. The report also outlines the type of vehicles most in demand, and those are light-duty vehicles which are cars, vans, SUVs, pickup trucks, and they'll hold the largest share of the market for that EV delivery going forward. And medium- and heavy-duty vehicles are expected to see the fastest growth over the next five years. We've written quite about — quite a bit about research, development, and testing of those larger vehicles, as well as adoption in some areas, so there's an expected continuation of that trend as well. By region, North America will hold the largest share of the market, and Asia Pacific is set to experience the fastest growth and adoption of EVs for that last mile. This all comes amid slowing adoption of EVs in the consumer market, at least here in the United States. But on the logistic side, it seems there's still a growing interest in anticipated adoption. And that's probably a really good thing, given the accelerated delivery volume over the past few years. It's interesting, we posted a report in late November stating that middle- and last-mile delivery vehicles making the rounds this holiday season will emit roughly 32 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That's enough to fill 7 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, so that seems like an awful lot to me. So I think anything the industry can do to reduce those levels is probably a good idea.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 19:22
Yeah, you're right. It definitely puts us on the right road. Thanks, Victoria.
Victoria Kickham, Senior Editor, DC Velocity 19:26
You're welcome.
David Maloney, Editorial Director, DC Velocity 19:27
We encourage listeners to go to DCVelocity.com for more on these and other supply chain stories. Also, check out the podcast Notes section for some direct links to read more about the topics that we discussed today.
And we'd like to thank Colonel Ted Silvester of Toys for Tots for being our guest. We welcome your comments on this topic and our other stories. You can email us at podcast@dcvelocity.com.
We also encourage you to subscribe to Logistics Matters at your favorite podcast platforms. Our new episodes are uploaded on Fridays.
And a reminder, that Logistics Matters is sponsored by PERC, the Propane Education and Research Council. Propane is the safe, reliable energy for material handling. Propane-powered forklifts may improve air quality inside your facilities for a healthier, more productive workforce. See how propane can give your productivity a boost at propane.com/forklifts.
We're taking next week off to enjoy the holidays with our families, so this will be our last podcast of 2023. Thanks to our listeners and sponsors for making our fourth season of Logistics Matters such as success.
We'll be back again on January 5 to launch Season Five, when our guest will be well-known economist Jason Schenker of Prestige Economics, who will share his forecast for supply chains and the economy in general for 2024, so be sure to join us. Should be a good interview.
Until then, for Ben and Victoria and the rest of us at DC Velocity, we wish you a truly very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year that is filled with peace and joy. Thanks for listening.
Articles and resources mentioned in this episode:
- Prologis says global freight recession will reverse in 2024
- Report shows EV market for last mile delivery set for growth
- Visit Supply Chain Quarterly
- Listen to CSCMP and Supply Chain Quarterly's Supply Chain in the Fast Lane podcast
- Listen to Supply Chain Quarterly's Top 10 Supply Chain Threats podcast
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