Brain freight

It was hard to stay focused.

The important folks around the table were talking important things about how to greatly improve the way in which businesses and industries ship their stuff in and ship their stuff out of the Fort Smith/Van Buren area. And these were important folks; decision makers in Crawford and Sebastian counties, decision makers in Fort Smith and Van Buren, and business decision makers.

Almost two decades of talk and wishing and hoping and almost-action have swirled around this necessary idea of improving the freight transfer into and out of the Fort Smith region. And here and now in this steak restaurant in Van Buren some important folks were conducting some No-Fooling leadership to create a freight transfer environment in the Fort Smith region that might possibly be the envy of all but a handful of the more than 360 U.S. metro areas.

These people were eating big salads with grilled chicken, sipping tea and literally moving years of obfuscation to the attic so they could do what alleged past leaders wouldn’t do because of fear, ignorance, self-interest or a sickening combination thereof.

And unless turf-protecting dillweeds on either side of the Arkansas River win the day, it appears that within 10 years (possibly less) the Fort Smith/Van Buren area will possess a system that beneficially reduces the costs and headaches involved in shipping things out and shipping things in — preferably shipping more out than in.

The folks in the Memphis area did this about 30 years ago, and today you can’t shake a half-eaten pork rib without sprinkling dry rub on someone gainfully employed in a good-paying logistics job or freight management job or someone who knows someone who is paying the bills because of a job in the transportation sector.

Let’s stop here to admit that freight management is boring, boooring and booorrrrrrinng. The official Yawn Factor is off the charts. On a bottle of Advil PM it should note that the medication NOT be used if attending a discussion on regional intermodal/freight management for fear of overdose.

Let’s now consider that the Grade A Certified Boring-ness of a practical and innovative regional intermodal/freight management system is matched only by the Grade A Certified Importance-ness in the effort to A) protect and enhance jobs now in the region, B) improve our ability to recruit new jobs to the area, and C) add another important point in the argument to fund and construct Interstate 49 through western Arkansas.

We might in the near future add, with little fear of overstatement, this recently renewed effort to create a regional intermodal network to the Top 10 list of important things that have happened to the Fort Smith/Van Buren region — University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority, Lake Fort Smith expansion, Marshals Museum, retaining the 188th Fighter Wing, etc. — in the past 15 years. Handled correctly, this intermodal effort could be positively transformative.

Therefore, you’d think I’d be damn grateful to the point of complete satisfaction to witness this event; this breaking of the petty chains that bind; this potential discovery of a way out of the swamp. And I was grateful, to be sure, but it was hard to stay focused. There are those among us afflicted with an inability to stay focused on the right-fricking now because we can’t quit thinking about right-fricking tomorrow.

In the midst of this great intermodal leap forward, the imagination decided to go play with possibilities.

“What if,” the imagination rudely interrupted, “the energy and political will the movers and shakers are now using to better manage stuff within boxes was also used to better manage the stuff within brain boxes? Dontcha see? We could pursue a ‘Mentalmodal Management’ system that directs regional physical and fiscal resources to retain and recruit entrepreneurs and small businesses. We can ship in the smart people and keep more of our smart people from shipping out. Dontcha see? The same importance we denote to freight we could also denote to potentially lucrative capitalist ideas? Remember capitalism? We can grow our own high-tech, high-wage businesses! Dontcha see?”

It was hard, as noted earlier, to stay focused. But imagination had a point.

Maybe some day in a steak restaurant in Van Buren some important folks will conduct some No-Fooling leadership to create an idea transfer environment in the Fort Smith region that might possibly be the envy of all but a handful of the more than 360 U.S. metro areas.

It will require focus.