TIA DFW Regional Conference

Brought to you by:

Anne Reinke
Transportation Intermediaries Association
President and CEO

Anne Reinke joins TIA from the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), where she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary – Congressional Affairs. She started her service at USDOT in April 2019, initially as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs, and transitioned to Congressional Affairs in November 2019. Prior to her time at USDOT, Anne spent 16 years at CSX Corporation in their Federal Affairs office, ultimately serving as the Vice President – Government Affairs, overseeing the Federal, State Government and Community Affairs Departments. Before joining CSX, she worked at the Association of American Railroads and High Speed Ground Transportation Association. Anne is a Washington, DC native, and graduated from the National Cathedral School. She received a B.A. from Rice University in Houston, TX, and a J.D. from the Wake Forest University School of Law in Winston-Salem, NC. She and her husband, Brett, have two sons and reside in Alexandria, VA.

Mayor Jeff Cheney
Frisco, Texas
Mayor

Native Texan Jeff Cheney, elected Mayor of Frisco, Texas, in May 2017 and reelected in November 2023, previously served on the Frisco City Council from 2007 to 2016. Under his leadership, Frisco has been recognized as the #1 Safest City in America (2022, 2023), #1 Fastest Growing City (2020), #1 Best Place to Live (2018), and #1 Most Recession-Resistant City (2020). Major public-private projects include the Omni PGA Frisco Resort and University of North Texas – Frisco Campus. Cheney, a University of Texas-Austin alumnus with Highest Honors in Accounting, co-founded The Cheney Group, a top realty firm. Married since 2001, he and his wife Dana have three children.

Dr. Brian Sauser
University of North Texas
Professor and Chair, Department of Supply Chain Management

Brian Sauser is a Professor at the University of North Texas (UNT) in the G. Brint Ryan College of Business. He currently serves as the Chair of the Department of Supply Chain Management. He formally served as the Program Coordinator of the Supply Chain Management PhD Program (2018-2023), Degree Architect of the BS in Industrial Distribution (2020-2022), founder and former Director of the Complex Logistics Systems Laboratory (2012-2022), and Director of the Jim McNatt Institute for Logistics Research (2016-2019). Before joining UNT, he held positions as an Assistant Professor with the School of Systems and Enterprises at Stevens Institute of Technology where is he was Director of the Systems Development and Maturity Laboratory; Project Specialist with ASRC Aerospace at NASA Kennedy Space Center; Program Administrator with the New Jersey – NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; and Laboratory Director with G.B. Tech Engineering at NASA Johnson Space Center.

Dr. Terry Pohlen
University of North Texas
Associate Dean, G. Brint Ryan College of Business

Terry Pohlen is a professor of logistics and the Senior Associate Dean, G. Brint Ryan College of Business, University of North Texas. He is also the Director of the Jim McNatt Institute for Logistics Research. Dr. Pohlen retired from the United States Air Force as Lieutenant Colonel with 20 years of experience in logistics. D CEO magazine identified him as one of the 500 most influential business people in Dallas-Fort Worth in 2015. Prior to joining UNT, he has served on the graduate faculty at the Air Force Institute of Technology, as an adjunct faculty member at The Ohio State University, and was on the faculty at the University of North Florida. Dr Pohlen received an MABA and a PhD in Business from The Ohio State University, an MS in Logistics from the Air Force Institute of Technology, and a BS in Marketing from Moorhead State University. His research focuses on the interrelationship between the economy and the transportation system, and the costing and financial management of logistics and supply chain management. Dr Pohlen is currently working on several freight related projects for the Texas Department of Transportation. He is the lead author of CSCMP’s The Handbook of Supply Chain Costing and is the co-author of Supply Chain Costing and Performance Measurement. His research has been published in the Journal of Business Logistics, International Journal of Logistics Management, International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, and the Transportation Journal.

Jordan Graft
Highway
Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Jordan is the Founder and CEO of Highway. Prior to Highway, Jordan served as the CEO of TriumphPay from 2018 – 2021 where he grew TriumphPay into the largest payer of freight invoices in the US and transitioned the concept from a reverse factoring business to the first payments network in transportation. Before joining TriumphPay, Jordan co-founded CrateBind, a Dallas-based IT consulting and software development company. He led a team of diverse and talented developers and designers to create custom software, apps, and websites across a variety of industries, including Healthcare, Finance, Transportation, and Oil & Gas. He is also self-taught in six programming languages. Jordan also served as an investment professional with TA Associates, a global private equity firm in Boston, Massachusetts as well as an investment analyst for J.P. Morgan in New York, New York. Throughout his time in finance, his roles ranged across the transaction spectrum, from deal sourcing to deal execution, closing over $9 billion in transaction volume. Jordan holds a BBA from Baylor University in Finance and Economics.

Tim Valdez
Triumph Factoring
President

Tim Valdez is the President of the Triumph Factoring Division. He is responsible for providing overall leadership in setting and executing Triumph’s strategic plan. With over 25 years of experience across multiple factoring companies, Mr. Valdez’s deep industry knowledge influences Triumph’s expansion to serve the factoring market. Mr. Valdez previously served as Chief Operating Officer and Factor Leader for TriumphPay. Before he joined the Triumph Financial enterprise, he served as Vice President of WEX Fleet One Factoring, where he managed the daily operations of the recourse and non-recourse transportation factoring portfolio, including the supervision of sales, operations, cash application, collections, underwriting, and credit. He joined WEX Fleet One Factoring in 2019 when the company acquired Pavestone Capital, a recourse factoring company that Mr. Valdez co-founded to serve small and middle-market transportation and commercial businesses. Before founding Pavestone Capital in 2012, Mr. Valdez served as Chief Lending Officer for Transportation Alliance Bank. Mr. Valdez served on the Advisory Board of the International Factoring Association from 2010 to 2012.

Craig Helmreich
Helmreich Law LLC
Founder and CEO

For more than 23 years, Craig has advised his clients on transportation contracts, cargo claims, freight charge disputes, transportation bankruptcies (risk mitigation when a shipper, broker or carrier goes bankrupt), as well as consulting on corporate structure, liability, and regulatory issues. After 21 years of practice at a large transportation law firm, Craig struck out and formed his own firm in 2021. Taking advantage of changing attitudes towards remote work arrangements, all attorneys and staff at Helmreich Law LLC work remote – providing services from wherever they are. Craig lives (and works) in Fishers, Indiana, with his wife Jeanne and their children Chloe and Gibson.

Michael Miller
Stephens’ Transportation & Logistics Group
Managing Director, Head of Transportation & Logistics Investment Banking Coverage

Mr. Miller is a Managing Director and head of Stephens’ Transportation & Logistics Group. Mr. Miller joined Stephens in 2000 and has been focused on the transportation and logistics sector for over twenty years. He has executed a variety of advisory services for both publicly traded and privately-owned transportation clients, including mergers and acquisitions, hostile defense, strategic alternatives reviews, and public and private capital markets transactions. Mr. Miller received his B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Arkansas.