Building Smarter Warehouses Through People, Technology, and Purpose With Jeremy Van Puffelen
- Rise25 webmaster@rise25media.com
- 5 days ago
- 32 min read
Jeremy Van Puffelen is the President of PRISM Logistics, a third-party logistics company specializing in warehousing and supply chain services for consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, retail, and manufacturing businesses. With more than 20 years at the company, he has helped PRISM expand its warehouse footprint to over two million square feet. Jeremy also serves on the board of the International Warehouse Logistics Association (IWLA).
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
[3:43] Jeremy Van Puffelen shares how his father founded PRISM Logistics and how he started as a janitor in the company
[8:31] How early experience in operations shaped Jeremy’s business development approach
[11:18] The meaning behind PRISM’s motto, “We succeed when you do”
[15:50] Why PRISM invested in automated guided vehicles (AGVs) and the company’s journey from concept to implementation
[23:57] PRISM’s criteria for selecting a trusted technology partner
[28:50] Leadership lessons on slowing down, assessing decisions, and learning from mistakes
[32:21] Building a culture of accountability and continuous improvement
[36:01] Jeremy’s favorite podcasts, wines, and passion for cooking and smoking meats
In this episode…
The evolution of the logistics industry is driven by automation, efficiency, and changing customer expectations. How can companies scale without losing the human touch that keeps teams and clients connected?
As an operations and business development expert in the logistics industry, Jeremy Van Puffelen advocates for understanding every corner of your business — from sweeping warehouse floors to leading executive teams. He recommends spending time on the ground to understand real operational costs and challenges before making strategic decisions. Jeremy maintains that automation should amplify — not replace — human potential and that transparency in pricing and performance builds trust. Leveraging technology and teamwork as tools can create sustainable, people-first growth.
Tune in to this episode of The Tao of Pizza Podcast as Mark Hiddleson interviews Jeremy Van Puffelen, President of PRISM Logistics, about how hands-on leadership and automation shape modern logistics. Jeremy delves into the company’s automated guided vehicles (AGV) journey, lessons in building lasting client relationships, and how to foster a family-oriented culture of continuous improvement.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Specialized Storage Solutions, Inc. contact phone: 707-732-3892
Mark Hiddleson's email: markhiddleson@aol.com
The International Society for Service Innovation Professionals (ISSIP)
Quotable Moments:
“I started in 1996 as a janitor with a cast on my leg, sweeping floors and unloading flour for General Mills.”
“When our customers succeed, then we, in turn, also succeed across the board. It allows us to put back into our own team.”
“We weren't looking at it from the standpoint of replacing labor. It was, ‘How do we maximize that labor?’”
“It's okay not to put the rose-colored glasses on. Just take a step back, take a look at what's going on around you.”
“If the culture is, I can't mess anything up all the time, that's a tough culture. It really is.”
Action Steps:
Invest in understanding operations firsthand: Spend time on the warehouse or production floor to learn how things actually work. This builds credibility with your team and helps you make smarter, more grounded business decisions.
Adopt technology to enhance, not replace, your people: Use automation to eliminate wasted labor and improve efficiency while keeping your workforce engaged. This approach drives growth without sacrificing company culture or morale.
Foster a culture of accountability and learning: Encourage employees to own mistakes and discuss them openly in team meetings. This builds trust, continuous improvement, and innovation throughout the organization.
Build long-term client relationships through fairness and transparency: Align on expectations, pricing, and timelines early in the relationship. Honesty strengthens trust and leads to repeat business and mutual success.
Balance speed with thoughtful decision-making: Before diving into new projects, pause to assess the full impact and risks. This ensures sustainable growth while avoiding costly missteps.
Sponsor for this episode:
This episode is brought to you by Specialized Storage Solutions Inc.
Listen...
I have been in the logistics and storage industry for several decades. I know I don’t look that old, but it's true.
We provide industry-leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide.
So basically, if you have a warehouse that needs Rack, Shelving, Carts, Conveyors, or Mezzanines, we help with....design engineering, installations, inspections, and repairs to help clients optimize their logistics operations.
Sometimes people don’t even realize that we can actually help with permit acquisition services.
We take a holistic look at your entire business supply chain ecosystem to develop the resources for continually improving your operation.
To learn more, visit specialracks.com or give us a call at (707) 732-3892. One of the best ways to learn more about our products and services is to follow us on Instagram. And there’s a link on our website to do that.
I will even give you my personal email address for podcast listeners, so email me at markhiddleson@aol.com if you’re ready to take your warehouse storage and retrieval systems to the next level.
Episode Transcript:
Intro 0:01
Welcome to The Tao of Pizza, where we feature top logistics leaders, entrepreneurs and supply chain innovators and share their inspiring stories with a holistic twist.
Mark Hiddleson 0:14
All right. Mark Hiddleson, here, host of The Tao of Pizza Podcast, where I talk with top industry innovators in the warehousing, logistics, and supply chain business with a holistic twist. Before I introduce today's guest, Jeremy Van Puffelen, this episode is brought to you by Specialized Storage Solutions. Look, I've been in the logistics and storage industry for several decades. We provide industry-leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide. So basically, if you have a warehouse that needs racks, shelving, carts, conveyors, or mezzanines, we help with the design, engineering, installations, inspections, and repairs to help our clients optimize their logistics operation. And Jeremy is funny; sometimes people don't even realize we can actually help with permit acquisition services as well. So we deal with the red tape so you don't have to. We take a holistic look at your entire business supply chain ecosystem to develop the resources for continuing, improving your operation. To learn more. Visit our website at specialracks.com, or give us a call at 707-732-3892, and just for podcast listeners, I give out my personal email, which is Markhiddleson@aol.com, yes, I still use AOL, and I'm proud of it. If you're ready to take your warehouse storage and retrieval systems to the next level, drop me a line. And one more thing before I introduce Jeremy, I got to have a give a huge shout out to Michele Carroll for introducing me to Jeremy. Michele is the president of Carrollco Marketing, where they specialize in sectors like logistics, supply chain management, high tech, and software. Their services include market entry, brand building, website design, public relations and integrated marketing campaigns. She is also the executive director of IZIP, the International Society of Service Innovation Professionals, and she was a great guest on the podcast a few years ago. So thank you very much, Michele. Today, we're joined by Jeremy van Puffelen, and Jeremy has served as president of PRISM Logistics since 2022 after years in just about every other job in the company, starting in the warehouse and leading business development as PRISM doubled its size and volume twice in the past decade. He serves on the board of IW LA, the leading organization for developing logistics professionals that serve as their voice in Washington. He's been named a pro to know by supply chain, supply and demand chain executive, and has been getting a great deal of press lately for pioneering investment in ag vs and automation in this fast-growing warehouse network in Northern California. Jeremy, welcome to The Tao of Pizza. No. Thank you. Glad to be here. Yeah? Well, had to give Michele is so awesome. I've known her for almost 30 years. We served together. We were always doing some kind of industry event.
Jeremy Van Puffelen 3:00
Yeah, Michele's a great lady. We've been working with her for quite some time, and it's nice to have someone that you can rely on just to pump great content and kind of help push things forward. So it's been a good relationship.
Mark Hiddleson 3:12
Yeah. And when you're volunteering, in which in 10 years, we were doing four or six tours, it's always good. You know, on the on the people you get count on to show up. It's something got 40 or 50 people showing up. And someone's got to do the registration, somebody's got to pass out the brochures, introduce the speaker, and she's been a dynamo. Yeah, she's been great. So share a little bit about like to ask about your background, where you grew up, and and how you got started in the in the logistics industry?
Jeremy Van Puffelen 3:43
Sure. Well, it really starts with my father and what he got into so he was, he used to run the YMCA in Savannah, Georgia, and then when he met my mom, they were deciding to create a family. He was looking for something that might do a little bit more for him to support that family than running the YMCA moved to Colorado. His brother-in-law and sister were there, and his brother-in-law had a bank and was helping finance for this company called Acme distribution, still, still in Colorado today. So he ran out there and started unloading box cars. And was just kind of brought in to help bump things and move boxes around. And quickly grew so, you know, long story short, he really enjoyed the logistics industry. Had the opportunity to grow at AC me, and then moved on from there. Moved to California in 81 to help turn a company around. And was doing that for quite a while, and then after a little while, and 93 decided to start his own company, PRISM logistics, with his partner, Paul van der Rohr. So after doing it for other people for a while, they got going. Then he had five kids, and I think he was. The nervous as could be in 93 My sister just graduated high school. I was going into my junior year, and then I have three younger siblings, so he was, he was definitely nervous about taking that leap, but he did, and we all benefited from that. So I graduated high school in 95 and I wasn't really planning on going to work with with dad, but somehow ended up doing that in 96 and he needed a janitor. And it was we had a warehouse, and small warehouse, 40,000 square feet, where we did flour for General Mills. He needed the janitor, and was tired of me sitting on his sofa. I had a broken leg, and so he was going to put me to work. So I had a cast from my hip to my toe, and he said it'd be great just walk around with a broom and start throwing bags of flour and did everything he could to make me really just like working for him. And somehow it stuck. I kind of got into it, and after a few years, really, kind of, in the 2000s got a little bit more serious about growing in the business and fell in love with it. Really enjoyed it, and I enjoyed the operation side of it. Really enjoyed loading, unloading trucks, and the daily operations portion of it got opportunities to move up through driving a forklift and then running the office, and then running the warehouse, and then running multiple warehouses, and then development and so on and so on. And just really have enjoyed pretty much every aspect of the business. So here we are today, and I've grown into I'm the president, but we really kind of run by committee. We have an executive team, and I might get the title, but we really have a group of presidents that we're all working together to move the company forward. So I'd love to take the credit we've got a team that has been in the industry for a long time, and they do a great job of just keeping things moving the way they should. Yeah, I Met Your
Mark Hiddleson 7:01
Dad through the warehousing, Education and Research Council. I was on the Northern California Council for 10 years, early in my career, and we put on four or five tours every year. And your dad was one of the regular faces, Jerry and Ray. I don't know if you know Ray. You know Ray Wilkinson and Dennis Lee.
Jeremy Van Puffelen 7:19
I know Dennis. Yeah, I and I think I've met Ray. I don't know him well, but I've met Dennis a painful times, for sure.
Mark Hiddleson 7:26
Yeah. So those guys, we serve together on the board. That's how I met Michele. So it's, it's an interesting journey, and I didn't realize he worked at AC. Me, there's a lot of people, I think Ray, I think a lot of people work to AC. Me, I've heard that name, yeah, come up. So I was in the thing, you love this business. It's interesting. I love this business too, like, a little more than I should, because, like, it's killed, right? And I'm, like, through the blood, right? Yeah. But it, uh, it's a fascinating business. Like, you talk about flour for General Mills. A lot of people don't realize, you know, you think they're making cereal. They just have everything there on site that they mean and everything, but there's this whole distribution network where their ingredients come from, and the timing, how they buy it. So it is, it is fascinating, and you've had a lot of success in business development, obviously doubling in the two decades. So I was curious. I want to ask you, how did the lessons you learned on the operation side, or warehousing or the janitor, how did that translate into business success, or business development success?
Jeremy Van Puffelen 8:31
You know, that's a great question. And I think I've actually talked about this at the IWA, you know, at the essentials course load, but just going through and telling people, you know if you're if you're coming here, and you're in operations, then you know as much about sales, probably as your sales guys. And I think that having that background of operations helps you understand what your customers are about, the movement of the products, the movement of the goods, the importance of getting things done in a timely fashion. But it also helps you internally understand this is how much it costs us to do something. You know, it's a somebody tells me, hey, this should take you an hour. You know, from from the customer standpoint, I could say, No, that's that's really kind of a two, three hour gig. But then on the other side, internally, if somebody's telling me, Hey, this is taking us five hours. Now, I've done that, I know this really only takes an hour or two. And so I think you get a fair balance when you've been able to run through the operations, to be able to price things accordingly, which, you know, I think in any business development relationship, when you're working with your clients, price is obviously a key factor for everyone. And I think once you kind of work through that in an honest way, that's what helps build the relationship on the development side. And I think at the end of the day, that's what we're all looking for, is a good long term relationship. But for that to work, everyone's got to be fair, right? Everyone's got to have the same understanding of, yes, this does work. This doesn't work. I can't go too high. They can't go too low. So if you understand that, and you understand the pricing and the timing. And everything it takes then operationally, I think it helps you a ton as you move through the business development side. And so I would tell all the guys coming up through that wa who were just on the business development side of the sales side, you really need to spend time on the floor. You need to understand how your warehouse is set up to move it a good how long it takes for your operators in the warehouse to do certain tasks, if not all the tasks, which you know is probably tough for them, they might not have that time, but I think it's a key ingredient is you got to know what you're doing within your four walls to be able to price it correctly.
Mark Hiddleson 10:33
Yeah, that's nice. And knowing what you're committed because you talk about the most important thing is building lasting relationships, and it's basically about making commitments and keeping commitments. That's what I tell the teams. And then you're not going to be 100% on making every single commitment. And so when the times you don't, you better find creative ways to make up for it, and find ways where you can both win. Yeah, I saw on your website, I always, I like to go, I go, always go to the About page, like, oh, let's skip the front of all the advertising. But what I saw something on there that I love. I want to hear your definition of it. But it said, we succeed when you do. And I think you're talking about your your clients and your your partners, your employees, right? Are you? Yeah,
Jeremy Van Puffelen 11:18
definitely. I think, yeah, it's you have to have a good team in place. So our team, our employees, the people that we're working with on a daily basis, they have to enjoy what they're doing. And you know, we're all coming to work at the end of the day, right? And some of us love it more than others might love it, but you want it to be a good place for people to come and when our teams are successful, we know that's also driving results for our customers. And when our customers succeed, then we, in turn, also succeed across the board. It allows us to put back into our own team. It allows us to grow what we're working on, continuing developing the business. So if you you know, if you're constantly replacing business and replacing relationships, then there's a cost that goes with that right to sell and replace space and do all those things, and building that longevity in the relationships, where, again, going to that fair process, where it's an open dialog and a good relationship with our clients. Building that longevity and being fair allows them to succeed, but it also gives us that 10 year where we can continue to build our group internally and move people up through the process, make them better. It's pretty circular, and the better our team is, the better service we provide. More we can grow. So, yeah, it all works together. It's but I think that's really where it's at when, when our customers succeed, we succeed. When we succeed, our customers succeed. It's a it's really a relationships partnership, and everyone's got to do their part, because in the
Mark Hiddleson 12:56
in the consumer package, gives which it's interesting. The CPG I had, I've learned what CPG was when I started the podcast, even though my clients, like you, they're storing but though those brands, a lot of the stories that grow from a small brand to pretty big. So do you have some success stories where somebody started out because you're in, you know, it's third party warehousing and logistics, so somebody could have, you know, 100 pallets or 1000 pallets or more. You have any success stories where you really help somebody grow. And even because people can't sell into big places like Costco or Walmart unless they work with a partner like you, right? Is that I kind of understand the business like, like that.
Jeremy Van Puffelen 13:38
You know, I think at the end of the day, they have to have a logistics network that can provide services to their clients. They can still sell in to whoever they want, whether PRISM is a part of their network or not. We're not really getting involved in the sales channel like a distributor might, and we're not buying and reselling anything. So we support their sales efforts through making sure that the logistics are handled, hopefully flawlessly, right? I think we do that already the time. So if we're on time in full and it's a good solution for the people we're delivering to on their behalf, their customers and their customers are happy with that network. It it makes life easier for them and their sales people. We've definitely seen clients grow over the years. You know, sometimes it's starting off with 50 to 100 pallets, and yeah, we're seeing them grow, and they're landing new contracts, and they got a good reputation of being on time with deliveries. And you know, their logistics process is good, and we can support there, and that helps their growth. It helps their growth also from not having to worry about the logistics side, they can focus on selling and making, or making and selling. And then we've also seen a lot where just organic growth with clients, where they might start using us for a little bit, and they've got a much larger network than what we're handling for them. And just through good service and. And good communication, good relationships. We're able to continue building on the relationship that we have and maybe take on additional, you know, instead of just being overflow, they realize, Hey, you guys can ship to Costco, you can ship the Walmart. You guys want to handle some of our customer orders now, instead of just, you know, overflow and then bring it back to us, kind of thing. And we've grown a lot in that direction as well over the years. Nice.
Mark Hiddleson 15:23
So I'm dying to ask you about the the automatic guided vehicles, the aging. So tell us about how did that project get started? How did it evolve? I mean, share, share as much as you you can because that's something. I go to pro Matt every year, and I see the first year there was, like Kiva was 10 years ago. Now there's 30,
Jeremy Van Puffelen 15:50
yeah, it's growing quickly. It's kind of like the WMS systems, where 25 years ago, right? It's got seen that same evolution with the AGVs and some of the AI stuff. And, yeah, I, to be honest, I was when I was just getting started. And, you know, on the business development side, maybe even a little bit before that, I remember that we're probably going back, I don't know, 15 years. And, you know, I've been to a few shows, and remember telling my dad, hey, I really think that we need to have basically a virtual warehouse at some point in time. You know, I think that'd be really cool, where we get to a place where we're utilizing our talent and our people for whatever max effort we can, but it's limited touch, and our customers can see inside of our four walls and really see what's happening on a daily basis. You know, whether that's through video or whatever it may be. And he kind of, he kind of laughed at me, and, you know, rightfully so at that point in time, kind of pipe dream of aggressive young sales guy kind of thing, I guess. But as we were going through it, and we're starting to see some ATVs develop a little bit more about five years ago, and started digging into it, and really wanted to get to a place where we can continue to grow. And we weren't looking at it from the standpoint of replacing labor. It was, how do we maximize that labor? How do we continue to train the people that we have to run things and grow in the company. But as the company is growing, if we want to open up a new location, I you know, how do we do that with the crew that we have and the people that we know and have trained over the years? And how do we seed that operation, you know, with people that we know, get it off to a good start quickly? So it was a growth opportunity, I think, as much as anything, utilizing those ag vs and having that within the network, where it's a flexible process for us, where we can move those between facilities with the people that we have to see something new, allows us to hopefully grow a little bit quicker. We're 10 months into them being live. So you know, it's, I think it's been a good pilot for us. There's definitely some things we've learned in the process, and when we started it five years ago, had a very specific design of what we wanted the hevs to do. It was really just around eliminating travel time in the warehouse, so we were still relying on our own operators for loading, unloading trucks, some of the put away case pick and those kind of things, but eliminating that time from running from the back of the warehouse to the dock to pick up a pallet, to take it back to a put away location. So that was our first solve. And I think even in that five year gap to now, there's been a lot of improvements in what AGVs can do and some of the things. So we'll continue. But it's, it's a definitely helped us with that cutting out some labor, what I would say is relatively wasted labor, right? You're just driving a forklift back and forth. So there's no value add
Mark Hiddleson 18:53
there, like, if you've got somebody who can pick 600 cases an hour and be 99.9997 accurate and everything, things and this is not that. It's
Jeremy Van Puffelen 19:03
not that so and, yeah, it's just, it was a, it's a lost time leader, right? When you look at it, not just the travel time, but what happens in between, when people stop to talk, it's just a lost time leader, that travel time. So that was our first solve. It's worked out pretty well. We'll continue moving forward with how we're gonna how we're gonna approach it in the future. You know, there's other things we want to keep on doing.
Mark Hiddleson 19:27
So can I ask you some more specific questions? You can ask away. You can always say, no, okay, so it took five years, and I'm just kind of curious of that, like, even for me, as a business development in our business. What was that? So, five years, how long before you got the design, you know? So what were kind of the times like? There was a probably two the sound must have been two to three years design, and then once you implement it, because there's a lead time to all the systems and all that. So kind of, what was that critical path?
Jeremy Van Puffelen 19:57
Yeah, so five years ago, it was. Is the idea, do we want to start looking into this, and really, kind of the the grassroots of it, and how are we going to approach this? What do we want to solve if we look into this, and then, you know, having a few discussions within our executive team and saying, Yeah, I think that this is a good move, you know, going forward, I think it solves a few of these issues for us. So out planning our game plan, essentially for what we're going to do then, then it was, you know, four and a half years and or ago, started to look at who are the partners that are making something at this point in time that might fit the solution that we're looking for, and starting to kind of whittle down the partnerships that we would look at. From that standpoint, Raymond West has been a great partner for us for a lot of years, for a lot of things. And you know, just in talking to them about, hey, I'm starting to look at this, they weren't in on our list at first, and then they said, Hey, by the way, you know, we have a solve for that as well. If you guys want to take a look and throw our name in the hat just when you're going through it, we'd love to come out and take a look and walk through it with you. So put them in the mix. And I think we really only look at three companies four and a half years ago that had anything that we were really wanting to look at for what we were trying to solve, felt comfortable just in the relationship with the direction we headed with Raymond, and then, you know, six months of review with them, I guess maybe a little bit more than figuring out pricing and how we want to go through all that, and then the contracts and the kind of figuring out from a pricing standpoint, is this going to work, and what's the ROI going to be, and how long is it going to take, and all the fun stuff you'd fun stuff you do when you make a large investment. And large investment for us, it's a large investment, probably different for other companies, but small family business, it was a large investment for us, both in time, but also financing. I was like, this is something we're going to have to put a fair amount of effort into getting off the ground. So then it was getting through sign the contract, and then once we're getting through that, it was about an 18 month lead time to build the units. And then during that last, I want to say three months, the 18 months to the end of 2024 they're coming out, and they're doing the site visit, and they're walking through, and they get to do all the mapping and all those kind of things. And then kind of went live. And, you know, end of last year, beginning of this year, really. So it was really more of a two year look at where we're at and what's going on, and then about 18 month life cycle to get everything done and shipped out here, and then we've been on it for just about a year, so now pretty close to five years from, hey, this is a good idea to let's get it done. Let's implement let's let's figure it out.
Mark Hiddleson 22:53
I love that. That's thank you for going through too that was exactly the question. Sometimes you ask a question and somebody answers a different question, but that was exactly what I was asking. What I love about it, I like a lot of things about it. But so you chose your vendor. You know, it sounds like you spent a couple years just kind of dipping your till in the water, finding out who the players are, but you really didn't have any formal proposal or budget numbers, or was it when you chose your vendor? Was trust based relationship? I mean, Raymond, they're, they're kind of the competitor of ours. They they do what we do, but they focus a lot on the equipment. I mean, they're great their reputation, like crown and Raymond,
Jeremy Van Puffelen 23:32
we like them a lot. I so what
Mark Hiddleson 23:34
besides the relationship, or was it just the relationship? Were there other things? Because I like that, you chose the vendor, because it's a lot of there's a lot of there's a lot of work for you guys. It's a lot of work for a vendor just to get to proposal stages. So, like you really got deep into the weeds, you chose your vendor. What was the criteria? Besides, I mean, relationship to me and the company reputation is obvious. You know, I
Jeremy Van Puffelen 23:57
told you we had a pretty limited scope of who we were looking at. I think we're really only looking at three, and I won't, I'm not gonna give out any of the names, but you know, in getting through the three, one of them just didn't feel right. As far as you know, where they were at with the technology at that point in time. One of them was a relationship that I was actually pretty excited about, potentially helping them develop it, but it wasn't quite ready yet either. And then it from a relational aspect, as we were working through that and getting, you know, I would say, relatively close to taking a look at doing something, it just wasn't feeling like the right relationship. So kind of started backing out of that and having more conversations with Raymond. And when they said, Hey, we do have solved this, and looking at it and going through it with our team, felt like it would be a good, good Connect for us. They introduced us to the team. You know, that makes the hevs. We felt good about what they were doing and saying and, you know. Went back and we checked it out, flew out and watched the hevs in action in another location, and it felt good about what they were doing with them, and a little different than how we were applying what we were going to do. But I got to see it, and it really made sense. So, you know, it was the relationship side with Raymond definitely helped. Yeah, as we work with him on so many different projects across the board that it just, it's been a great relationship. I was very comfortable knowing that when we did this is not going to be something where all of a sudden our provider of this new project that we're working on, the relationship is going to fall apart in six months, and then we're stuck holding the bag, trying to figure out what we're going to do, so there's just a lot of confidence, both in the system and how we want to run it and the actual process, as well as the relationship with both companies, mirror Teck and
Mark Hiddleson 25:53
Raymond West, yeah, I was gonna have to I'll be advertising for my competitors on my own show.
Jeremy Van Puffelen 25:58
Sorry. All I can do is answer the questions you asked. Questions you asked.
Mark Hiddleson 26:03
I did I love it? I read the article on DC velocity. I was gonna ask you, is it anywhere else that was a nice piece, that Michele had told me you were working on it, but I saw that article. Is there anywhere else where people can check out learn more information about just that particular project, or PRISM?
Jeremy Van Puffelen 26:20
Yeah, they can always go to www, dot prismlogistics com, and that's P, R, I, S, M, logistics com, and we post those things out there. I think you can find it on LinkedIn, definitely, you know, I think any, yeah, anywhere where people are communicating business thoughts, it's probably out there, DC velocity, obviously, great, but yeah. And then it's out there in the worldwide, wood, somewhere, few places, but I'd go to prison, logistics, comm. We'd love to see the traffic,
Mark Hiddleson 26:54
yeah, yeah. And that'll be in our show notes. I'll always do a show notes of every like we mentioned, a book, or somebody will put a link. So I'm still debating about the rain. Everyone knows how to get a hold of Raymond. They're everywhere, and I think he chose a great partner. Because the thing is that it's what you're doing. You're replacing the job that the lift was doing. So they have all this background and knowledge of I mean, look, just your business, they're doing so many different cold store, I mean, they're big in cold stores. They're big in everything, so they've got the experience. And then, like you said, the background, they're not going to mess up a relationship by selling forklifts a year.
Jeremy Van Puffelen 27:30
When you look at just one thing there, like if you're looking at it also from what does this thing look like in five years or 10 years? Right? I don't have to have your Teck or the HEV team come out to fix the lifts, right? So it works within our current network moving forward, and with the other providers, you're looking at somebody else having to come in. So now you got maybe a Raymond Teck and then some other guy from another company, tech in the facility. And it just helped us again, at the comfort level, no one moving forward, we we had everything we
Mark Hiddleson 28:04
needed. Yeah, I was gonna ask you if there was crossover with the text, the text that work on the lifts can it isn't. So they have their own team. So
Jeremy Van Puffelen 28:11
they, they went through the process with us, right? And they got their team trained up on the the advs, like we did, and so they're fully capable of handling the humans for us now, which is
Mark Hiddleson 28:22
a benefit, nice, so it is a separate so this is one I wanted to ask. Is there any been any big pitfalls or mistakes that that you've learned from over the years? We want to share about anything or business, personal, but trying to do anything family. But I just, you know, a big mistake that you learned a lot from,
Jeremy Van Puffelen 28:50
gosh, man, I, you know, I've probably stepped in more than one pile over the years, for sure, biggest, biggest mistake, I you know, I would say, instead of a mistake, I think one of the things, and I've got a great team to help me here, but one of the things that I can tend to do is probably jump in head first and just, let's just go. Let's go. Let's go. And so I think just in general, for me, being able to slow down and really look at all the information to make a good decision is something that my team has helped me with over the years. You know, my dad definitely being one, but some good mentors in my life, or VP of Operations, Mike, Mike mail, he has been with us for, gosh, long time, 26 plus years, and then 10 years with my dad before that, at another company. So they've always been there. You know, Hey, it's okay not to put the rose cut or glasses on. Just take take a step back, take a look at what's going on around you and everything going on. So I. I think just that, more than anything, is just be sound in your decisions. Walk it through, take a look. Don't jump right into everything. I think that's one, yeah, well, we'll see we're young into the AGV process. It's it's working well, but it was one of those things, do we want to be on the leading edge, you know, and kind of get it going now, or do we want to wait five years until it's in industry a whole lot more and much more rampant with a bunch of different people, and be a little slower to get to market, but maybe a lower cost basis. Was it a mistake? I don't think so. But, you know, there's probably some lessons that we'll learn over the next year or two, but I'm still happy with the decision. So, yeah, lots of little things, but I've had a lot of warnings along the way to say, hey, why don't you back that up a little bit so I don't make too grandiose of a mistake, I guess.
Mark Hiddleson 31:01
So that's a great answer. It would be one of my answers. Somebody, people have asked me and I went to it was a mastermind or thing, a business retreat or something. And there were three categories. You could either be ready, aim, fire. But I'm fire, aim ready. It's like, let's fire. And then it's like, well, we better start aiming. And then, hey, maybe we should have gotten ready. Yeah. And so it's a good you know, when you're in business, like you said, it's part of it is, you know, especially we want new clients, new markets. Things are changing faster, so you do have to take some chances. And I love what you said about the support network. I don't have it. We're the first generation. I also want to say both my sons have worked for me. So I know it's easy to it's easy to work for you, dad.
Jeremy Van Puffelen 31:50
It's just, it's fantastic. It just
Mark Hiddleson 31:52
comes naturally. So there's some challenges there, but it's also you create. We talked a little bit before the call. I'm assuming it's a small company. There's a family culture to the whole business too. So what are you doing to so you're second generation like, so how are you passing that culture? Or, Hey, you got a network of support here. But if you do make mistakes, there's a safety net. Or, you know, don't freak out over we'll figure it out. How are you?
Jeremy Van Puffelen 32:21
Yeah, I don't think we, we're not gonna rake somebody over the coals, either family or non family in our organization, for making a mistake. We, you know, we definitely work on continuous improvement, and hopefully we don't, don't make sim sick twice, kind of thing. And but it's, it's their coaching opportunities. I've been coached I've again, I've made lots of small mistakes and little things along the way, and I've needed coaching and guidance all throughout my career, and still to this day, I get that from several people, which is important. So treating everyone within the organization the same, I think, is important. And so being able to coach them through and say, Yeah, this wasn't the right way to do it, but shift it we I think we build a culture around that where every single one of our operations has meeting every single week to go over anything that's happened in the previous week, things that are coming down the pipeline and ways that we can improve and people it's an open Conversation on one one of our calls right before this, and one of our managers said, Hey, I'm going to throw myself on the bus here. I should have done this and this and this, and it created this issue for us, you know. And we could have dealt with it a little bit differently, having a culture where people are feeling free to share the AI mess up a little bit over this past week, or whatever it was, and how do we fix this as a team? I think allows you to continue building success. People are going to make mistakes again. We all do. So yeah, we want to treat everyone like family. We got the third generation coming in. My son started working with us in January this year. So hopefully I've learned enough where I can pass along some some good things to him, and also make sure that the accountability is there in the right way. But you know, again, Mike mayor, our VP of Operations, he's been holding the accountable for a long time. We have our director of customer service, a lady named Kesa Smith. Her and I were on a production line together back in like 9998 She's grown up to be our director of customer service now, and we came, came up through it, and we both hit bumps along the way. I'm sure, you know, I'm sure she's got her own stories that are outside of what I would say. But, yeah, it's fostering an environment of growth. Accountability is important, and we hold people accountable, and we set an expectation, but it's not, I guess, to use your shoe Ready Aim method. We're not going to shoot you first, right? Let's, let's walk through it and figure out how we can make some changes, bring it back in and help people grow. Because we've all been there, we've all had to grow.
Mark Hiddleson 34:55
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're not making mistakes, you're not learning anything. Yeah. Not doing anything.
Jeremy Van Puffelen 35:01
It could be, yeah. I mean, you got to make a couple along the way. I think you don't want them to be catastrophic. But, yeah, I think if the culture is, I can't mess anything up all the time. That's a tough culture. Yeah, really is.
Mark Hiddleson 35:19
So one last question. I love to ask people favorite podcast and or favorite new tech that you're using, like an app or something. And I was just, I was on a group there were it was like 10 people. Was kind of a speed dating thing, and you couldn't say Google Chat, GPT or slack. And I was like, Wait a minute. I thought I was cutting edge for saying some easy but, but if there's any apps or new, you know, tools you're using, or even podcasts, I know a lot of people our age, they're not listening to podcasts. I mean, I wasn't five years ago, but now I'm using it for business development and learning and all kinds of different things. So favorite podcasts, gosh,
Jeremy Van Puffelen 36:01
favorite podcast or new text. You know, I I tend to while I'm driving, when we're on longer trips. My wife likes to listen to new heights, and so that, I think that's a great podcast, and I think it's fun to listen to. I love the Joe Rogan's podcast, so I think both those are good for me. I enjoy listening to them, but I'm not someone who's going to sit down and listen to a lot of podcasts if I have time to be honest, and there's something outside of work or that piques my interest, I like cooking, so I like to, you know, make something go home. And that's how I prefer to spend my my time. If I'm not sitting here doing things like this or trying to drive the business, give me a bottle of wine and let me make some homemade pasta or something. Figure out something new to create in the kitchen. I'd rather do something along those
Mark Hiddleson 36:47
lines. That is a dynamite answer. What kind of wine I'm in? Napa, so I never intended to be a win or one. In 30 years I've had to become one. What? Well, I like
Jeremy Van Puffelen 36:59
most wines. I, you know, did seasonal obviously, we not that we have a lot of seasons out here, but I think we have about two and a half of them. You know, I'm pretty close to you outside of Napa, but I love, I love Cabernets and Zins. Really. Like Chimney Rock is probably one of my favorite off the Silverado trail over there. I think they do a fantastic job. You know, Ron Bauer is always a good one, a good Chardonnay out here. It works out pretty well during the summertime. But, yeah, I'm not that picky. I guess I'll drink most of them.
Mark Hiddleson 37:31
Yeah, we're Napa Valley cab or Napa Valley cab. There's some good ones in pasa Robles. And then Sonoma. Sonoma actually has really good wine. But it's funny, you live here and you just get a and I would have never thought I could tell the difference, but we do again.
Jeremy Van Puffelen 37:47
I gotta say there's a so if you ever get a chance to get out to Danville, and I think we have one in Orinda, maybe as well, there's a place called La conda Ravello. And they this group from Italy. It opened up some restaurants out here. They do a great job, but they have a lot of Italian reds that my wife and I have actually really learned to enjoy. There's just a they drink a little different, maybe a little more earthy, but there's the next day. I think there's a little bit of a difference in how you feel. I don't know. They don't hang around quite as long, I guess. Yeah.
Mark Hiddleson 38:18
Well, that's what I have learned, that I would drink less and less over the years. Be careful. Well, that's awesome. And so on the cooking. That was a phenomenal answer. What do you have a favorite thing you like to cook? Or a genre of what do you like?
Jeremy Van Puffelen 38:33
Yeah, you know, it's so my wife got me some homemade pasta maker and stuff, you know, to for Christmas this year or last year. And I've been working on that. I work. I like to smoke meat. So a lot of meats, whatever it is outside, I like to be out there. I've been working on a gumbo recipe, I think, for the last six months, and make everyone try it and test it out and tweak it as much as I can. So Gumbo and jambalaya.
Mark Hiddleson 39:03
We just made that we had, we had some turkey. My wife accidentally bought these. We love these frozen turkey breasts. They're, like, boneless, frozen. And she found them on sale. She's like, well, these things are like, half the price. Well, she got them home, and we get them out of the freezer, and they're Cajun. And so she goes, I don't really like Cajun Turkey, but I love jambalaya, so she went, got online and found us. That's awesome. That is, you're smoking your own stuff. I
Jeremy Van Puffelen 39:28
Yeah, I smoke most of my own meats. And, yeah, I enjoy being out of smoking. You know, it's, I believe in the true smoke still. So getting wood, and actually, you know, cutting it up. And I think the triggers are probably a much more convenient, nice way to go and still get the flavor. But I enjoy like just a big old, dirty smoker that's you stick wood in and it gives you more of a reason to go out and check it with a glass of wine or a beer, versus the trigger, where you can set it and forget it. I mean, I think it's an excuse to go
Mark Hiddleson 39:57
outside. Yeah. So is yours on? What brand is your. Or did you make it out of no gallon?
Jeremy Van Puffelen 40:04
It's a, it's a pick guys, it's just a big, 60-inch. Yeah, great, inside and deep and, yeah, it's awesome. It's pretty plain. It's just a big box, awesome.
Mark Hiddleson 40:16
Well, this, that's a great Jeremy Van Puffelen, PRISM Logistics And it's, it's PRISM Logistics. What's the website?
Jeremy Van Puffelen 40:25
Again? www.prismlogistics.com, all
Mark Hiddleson 40:29
right, and we'll have that on the show notes too. But Jeremy, this has just been awesome. Thank you for sharing all your insights and stories, and I really appreciate you joining us here on The Tao of Pizza
Jeremy Van Puffelen 40:40
Well, I appreciate it good opportunity, and thanks for the time. All right, we'll check
Outro 40:44
thanks for listening to The Tao of Pizza Podcast. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.
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