A 'giant' on the supply chain academic front

Dale Rogers describes himself as many things on his Twitter profile: an "old, slow, basketball player," a father of five, a grandfather, a husband, a professor of logistics and supply chain management at Arizona State University and an alum of both Everett High School in Lansing, Michigan, and Michigan State University.

He can now add “giant on the academic front.”

Rogers was honored for his lifetime impact on supply chain management as an academic at the 2022 Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) Academic Research Symposium (ARS) in September. He’s the fifth to receive the Academic “Giant” Award.

“I’m very grateful to have been picked for this award,” said Rogers. “It is a real honor to receive it from my peers in supply chain academia.”

With more than 180 companies in attendance, the CSCMP symposium was where industry professionals went to meet with respected individuals working across the field and build connections designed to help their businesses come out ahead. Attendants rubbed elbows with some of the supply chain industry’s most influential leaders, including Rogers, the ON Semiconductor Professor of Business in the Department of Supply Chain Management at ASU's W. P. Carey School of Business.

The CSCMP symposium uniquely focuses on education. Beyond its numerous educational sessions, spread out over the course of its three-and-a-half-day period, the academic research-focused Donald J. Bowersox Doctoral Symposium is where Rogers was presented with the Academic “Giant” Award. The symposium has been taking place since the 1990s and invites doctoral students from across the globe to submit their research on all topics related to supply chain management, logistics, transportation, marketing and much more.

AVNET Professor of Supply Chain Management Elliot Rabinovich, Professor of supply chain management and Bob Herberger Arizona Heritage Chair Scott Webster and Professor and Morrison Chair of Agribusiness Tim Richards received an award at the Donald J. Bowersox Doctoral Symposium for being on Lina Wang’s dissertation committee. Wang, who earned her PhD at W. P. Carey, won the Best Dissertation Award. She’s an assistant professor of supply chain management at the Smeal College of Business at the Pennsylvania State University.

Assistant Professor of supply chain management Mikaella Polyviou, along with former ASU PhD students Anibal Sodero and Zac Rogers, won the Journal of Business Logistics Best Reviewer Award.

“This is such a great time to be in supply chain academia,” Rogers told the doctoral students at the Academic Research Symposium. “You are coming into this field at a time when people know what it is. They know it’s hard to do and that it’s an important economic variable. That gives you a lot of opportunities to do a lot of different things.”

Significant achievements in the logistics and supply chain industry

In 2021, Rogers was the recipient of the CSCMP 2021 Distinguished Service Award, which is bestowed upon an individual for significant achievements in the logistics and supply chain management industry. Presented annually, the award was instituted in 1965 as a tribute to logistics pioneer John Drury Sheahan.

“This award means a lot to me,” Rogers said. “It was great recognition for our department and the work that is being done here. Previous award winners include leading practitioners and academics. I’m the first Sun Devil to ever win this award and I hope there are several more.”

Rogers, who came from Rutgers University as a professor of logistics and supply chain management, is the director of the Frontier Economies Logistics Lab and the co-director of the Internet Edge Supply Chain Lab at ASU’s W. P. Carey School. He is the principal investigator of the $15 million CARISCA Project — hence his @CariscaProf Twitter handle — and director of Global Projects for ILOS - Instituto de Logística e Supply Chain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In 2012, he became the first academic to receive the International Warehouse and Logistics Association Distinguished Service Award in its 130-year history. He is a board advisor to Flexe, Enterra Solutions and Droneventory, is a founding board member of the Global Supply Chain Resiliency Council and Reverse Logistics and Sustainability Council, and serves on the board of directors for the Organización Mundial de Ciudades y Plataformas Logísticas. 

He is published in the leading journals of the supply chain and logistics fields and has been the principal investigator on research grants from numerous organizations. He is also a senior editor at the Rutgers Business Journal, an area editor at Annals of Management Science, and an associate editor of the Journal of Business Logistics and the Journal of Supply Chain Management. 

Rogers has made more than 300 presentations to professional organizations and has been a faculty member in numerous executive education programs at universities in the United States, Africa, China, Europe and South America, as well as at major corporations and professional organizations. He has been a consultant to several companies and is the author of several books, including a new book about supply chain financing co-written with Rudi Leuschner at Rutgers Business School and Tom Choi at the W. P. Carey School.

Follow Rogers' Twitter for ASU and supply chain news, as well as the occasional basketball video.

And don’t let Rogers’ Twitter profile reference to his age and "slowness" fool you; he’s leading the creation and innovation of supply chain management and has a lot more to contribute to the industry.