The 5 Characteristics of Logistics: A Proven Method for Managing Changes in Your Life

PART I

WHERE IT ALL STARTED

1

A HISTORY OF MONTANA

Before I would go on to serve in the Montana Army National Guard, the state would be my home and the place I grew to love and admire. Montana is the place where my grandparents would emigrate to and call their home well before I was born. And while it’s now known as home to some of the most beautiful scenery in the country, the state of Montana wasn’t always as relaxed as it seems to be today. In fact, the region went through much more hostility than many may know.

Many images scattered throughout history books and the internet show large gatherings of men looking for work along shipping docks or lining city streets, their wives and children hungry and dirty, begging for someone to give the men in their life a chance to work. But there are very few images of rural areas and how they were affected. How small families surviving on large plots of land were severely impacted as well, maybe even more so than those living so close to major cities or shipping yards.

The reason? A picture of a struggling family had less of an emotional impact than a picture of a struggling city population. But Montana struggled. It got so bad in the state that half of its farmers had to abandon their land, which really says something because the state was thriving in the early 1900s.

Montana is the fourth-largest state in America, but you wouldn’t know it based on its population. California and Texas get all the hype for their size and being someone who has been assigned to military bases in both, it’s easy to see why. It’s the same reason that the Great Depression images of Montana were never taken — greater population equals more attention.

But we Montanans sort of like it that way. We enjoy the peace and quiet. Most of us have large plots of land and we create value with it. That was certainly the case at the turn of the century.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Montana was a thriving state. An abundance of land was available and the U.S. government needed people to farm on the land, so they began to give it away to those who came and settled in the state. And they did so in large quantities, giving 160 acres of land to each settler who came and resided there.

It was a bold move, but it allowed Montana to grow into a promising piece of land. At the turn of the century and into the early 1900s, the land was being used with promise. Lumber, wheat, and copper were in large demand and Montana was able to produce these goods. Especially copper, which was being produced in such high quantities between 1892 and 1903 that the Anaconda Mine in the city of Butte was the largest copper-producing mine in the world.

Montana’s economy and its people were doing well. There was vast farmland that was now owned by families farming on it, producing goods for the rest of the country. And then a drought came in 1917 and it changed everything. Farmlands were dried up and nothing could be produced. Homesteaders lost their crops, their homes, their farms, and any money they had saved. Between 1919 and 1925, Montana saw 70,000 people move away from their land. To make matters worse, an influenza pandemic in 1918 took the lives of 5,000 Montanans.

The state of Montana had a rough stretch during this time, but certain people were able to tough it out. Two families, the Floren family and the Kapperud family, were among this group. And I’m glad they were. Because, had they not, I wouldn’t be here to relay these stories and to share with you The 5 Characteristics of Logistics I have come to learn and mold into my own over the years.

Though the struggle was severe for both families — especially once the Great Depression hit in 1929 and economic support from the government was no longer an option — both were able to stay the course. And, in doing so, they were able to reap the rewards of acquiring additional land left behind by those who left.

2

THE ROOTS ARE PLANTED

A young Norwegian man named Jacob Floren made his way to the United States in the 1880s. He, as well as many others in the European and North Atlantic regions, found promise in the idea of The American Dream and decided to take a chance at pursuing it.

When he arrived at Ellis Island, he walked with the crowd of other Eastern Europeans and Scandinavians through a building called Great Hall. This was the processing station for all immigrants where physical and mental capacity tests needed to be conducted. He would walk up the great staircase of Great Hall, not knowing that doctors and police officers were looking for signs of physical trouble, ready to place a mark on the shirts of those who seemed to exhibit problems — trachoma, tuberculosis, and pregnancy being among the most common.

Jacob had no issues and passed through the physical and mental exams — the mental consisting of a questionnaire to see if the emigrating had intent on doing harm while in the country — and headed to Minnesota, where he would initially reside. After Minnesota, he would move to North Dakota, meet and marry his wife, Sophia, move to Utah and then to Montana where he would finally settle.

Little did he know, but shortly after arriving in Montana, he would utilize the first of The 5 Characteristics of Logistics. Although they weren’t created yet, he was using them — something in the Floren blood, maybe.

The characteristic he utilized was Anticipation, and he did so when he anticipated a need for resources from Milk River to be accessible to farmers in the center of the state. He anticipated that although Milk River ran across the top of the state