On this episode of the Where Stuff Comes From podcast we sit down with Shelley Huff to gain a frontline perspective on the Global trends shifting the United States away from global (China-centric) supply chains and back towards on-shore and USA focused manufacturing.

About Our Guest

Shelley Huff is a senior retail and supply chain executive with over fifteen years experience leading retail businesses, consulting small businesses and startups, and serving on retail education boards.  She is known for her passion for consumers and emerging trends in digital integration, building and leading high performing teams and delivering financial results.  She currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer for Serta Simmons Bedding, where she leads the direct-to-consumer business, digital marketing, manufacturing, sourcing and supply chain for SSB’s portfolio of brands. Prior to joining Serta Simmons Bedding, Shelley spent most of her career at Walmart as a global officer.  In her tenure at Walmart, Shelley held leadership positions including vice president of the Housewares Walmart’s U.S. division, VP of Operations for Walmart eCommerce, and as CEO of Hayneedle.com, a Walmart Company. 

About Where Stuff Comes From 

This podcast helps to answer the question of Where Stuff Comes From and breaks down what the heck is going on with our global stuff chains and how to create opportunity in the midst of value chain and macro chaos.

Learn more and subscribe at https://wherestuffcomesfrom.com/ 

Critical minerals are found in nearly every high-tech product we use today. For example, an iPhone is made of over 40 different elements found in dozens of different as-mined critical minerals (e.g. the rocks that come out of the ground). Right now the United States relies on our chief adversary, China, to supply nearly 100 of some of the most important critical minerals. Take for example, the rare earth metals, scandium, and graphite. In this episode I explore a key component of achieving American Minerals Independece: opening new mines for critical minerals. To do this, I sat down with Pini Althaus CEO of USA Rare Earths. Pini is a mining executive with decades of experience capitalizing and setting up new mining operations. USA Rare Earths is building an integrated mine to magnet rare earth supply chain located fully in the United States.

Critical Minerals Blog #1

Critical Minerals Blog #2 - Rare Earth Supply Chain Disruptions

USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries

Groundbreaking!: America's New Quest for Mineral Independence (Book)

Covid and Rare Earths

What are NEO Magnets?

Matthew Mcguahnehy GOLD Movie

Colorado School of Mines

Pini on LinkedIn, here.

USA Rare Earths on LinkedIn, here.

Right now, the most important geopolitical competition since World War II, is unfolding between China and the United States. As a result, we need to start to ask Where Does Our Stuff Come From? Asking this question and building an understanding of this great power competition is essential to safeguarding our most important innovation resource: our ability to actually produce stuff. In this episode, we explore some of the high-level strategic moves that are unfolding right under our noses in the ongoing cold-war between the United States and China, and the implications that these moves have for entrepreneurs, industrialists, and innovators. To do this, we talk to Namrata Goswami, an author, strategic analyst and consultant on Great Power Politics, Space Policy, Alternate Futures, and Frameworks of Conflict Negotiation and Resolution.

***Correction: During the conversation, we reference that private companies need to PAY to access the United States’s Global Positioning System. So, to be clear: GPS is completely free and maintained by the US space force (and formerly the Air Force Space Command). You can learn more about how GPS works on www.gps.gov.***

Resources & Links Mentioned:

Namrata On “Where are we with China?”

Namrata Goswami Ted

Starlink Beta Video

BeiDou and Belt and Road

US - Taiwan Relations

The Expanse TV Show

A Strategy of Technology (Book)

Moonrush (Book)

The Case For Mars (Book)

About Our Guest

Namrata on LinkedIn 

Namrata on Twitter 

Namrata’s books on Amazon  

About Where Stuff Comes From 

This podcast helps to answer the question of Where Stuff Comes From and breaks down what the heck is going on with our global stuff chains and how to create opportunity in the midst of value chain and macro chaos.

Subscribe for More https://wherestuffcomesfrom.com/ 

Lee Benson owned and led Able Aerospace – a company he grew from 3 to 500 employees with 15 consecutive years of 20 percent compounded average annual growth. 

After selling Able Aerospace for 9-figures to Textron Aviation, Lee committed himself to helping other leaders achieve similar results. HE founded ETW, where he help senior leadership teams work better together at improving their organization’s most important number. HIs main focus is to help leaders develop an intentional, high-performance culture that connects to financial performance. 

Lee Benson on Linkedin 

ETW website 

About Where Stuff Comes From 

This podcast helps to answer the question of Where Stuff Comes From and breaks down what the heck is going on with our global stuff chains and how to create opportunity in the midst of value chain and macro chaos.

Learn more and subscribe at https://wherestuffcomesfrom.com/ 

In this extremely timely episode, we sit down with Mike Howard, Chairman and CEO of Howard Midstream Energy Partners, to develop a deep understanding of where our energy comes from. Since we recorded this episode, the United States experienced a substantial cyberattack on of its largest fuel pipelines that should awaken the country and the world to the importance, criticality, and fragility of our energy stuff-chain. Scalable, reliable, resilient, and sustainable energy sources and infrastructure are critical to human flourishing, the modern high-tech economy, and our high-speed society. Throughout the conversation, we dive into what energy is, how oil and gas enable human flourishing, recent innovations in where we source our energy, and so much more.

Resources & Links Mentioned:

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels (Book)

How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom (Book)

Enlightenment Now (Book)

A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations (Book)

Energy and Civilization: A History (Book)

Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (Book)

The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations (Book)

Interactive map of pipelines in the United States

The Laws of Thermodynamics

About Our Guest:

Howard Energy Partners on LinkedIn 

Howard Energy Partners Website

Welcome to Where Stuff Comes From! 

This podcast is not only timely but pertinent to anyone who works in American industry, owns their own business, or interacts with the global supply chain in any way. 

This first episode is a Meditation on Where Stuff Comes From and will serve as the thesis for the show and this project where we will break down Where Stuff Comes From, what the heck is going on with our global stuff chains, and how to create opportunity in the midst of value chain and macro chaos.

Learn more and subscribe at https://wherestuffcomesfrom.com/