RAND creates industry-guided supply chain think tank

RAND creates industry-guided supply chain think tank The RAND Corp. Wednesday said it is collaborating with sponsors Dow Chemical, the Port of Los Angeles and the UPS Foundation to create a research center to study solutions to key challenges confronting worldwide freight transportation.
   'The RAND Supply Chain Policy Center will examine the critical issues facing the transportation and global logistics industries as companies work to move goods by land, sea and air in an increasingly complex global economy,' said James A. Thomson, RAND President and chief executive officer.
   Martin Wachs will serve as director of the new RAND center, which will utilize the expertise of researchers based at RAND headquarters in Santa Monica, as well as offices in: Washington, D.C.; Pittsburgh; and Cambridge, U.K. Wachs is director of the RAND Transportation, Space and Technology Program.
   Prior to joining RAND last year, Wachs was professor of civil and environmental engineering and city and regional planning at the University of California, Berkeley. He was director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at Berkeley for six years. He previously spent 25 years at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he served three terms as chairman of the Department of Urban Planning.
   The RAND Supply Chain Center is a member-sponsored research initiative, with the executive committee of sponsors Dow Chemical Company, the Port of Los Angeles and the UPS Foundation directing the center's agenda.