Is a Cashless Society on the Horizon? with Kirk von Seelen

I had the benefit of working for an absolutely fantastic treasurer who was, you know, a brilliant number 1, 2. He knew exactly what he wanted and there was no ambiguity about it. So he set very high standards, expected them to be met in a timeframe that was, you know, fair but compressed. And we just got after it. I mean, and if I, if I think about how that compared to Old Dominion, which was in fairness, a smaller and not as agile and nimble entity, and again, a little bit more of an old fashioned sort of utility versus a growing industrial, the contrast couldn't be more clear. But we were averaging four or five acquisitions per year. And so you'd literally get done with one and you move on to another. And they ranged in size from, know, very small, relatively speaking, to very large. And so it was an exciting place to work. I mean, I came home as energized in the afternoon as I often felt going in in the morning. So the energy level just was high and remained high. So yeah, it was, it was, it was a fantastic environment to work in. It's very easy to say that we're becoming cashless. And certainly there are, there are inroads that are being made. I mean, you've got certain restaurants that accept no cash. And that's the sort of the public perception. And I know that when our senior executives are talking to investors, this comes up and so they meet it head on. They lead with statistics that show the cash and circulation. Cash transactions rise each year at about the level of GDP growth even here in the United States. So the United States is certainly a very big market for the company, but we are international, as you've said, and in places like South America, it is largely cash transactions. We have a huge presence in Brazil and Argentina and other places. So, you know, these are issues, as our CEO says in these meetings, the people who are asking these questions, you know, you're the 1 percenters, yes, you may not be using cash as much as everybody else is, but there are a lot of people out there that are still operating on a cash basis. And the city of Philadelphia, for instance, has recently passed a law that says that, you know, restaurants, retailers have to take cash because they've found, like Sweden is backing off of their position that it was discriminatory against the old, the poor, tourists, things of that nature. So this idea that we are becoming cashless is fanciful, but not really true and is not borne out by the facts. The way I've always looked at treasury is really two ways, bifurcated, if you will. There are things that we have to do every day. Cash has to be collected, it has to be reconciled, reported invested or lines reduced or drawn upon, as I like to think of that. That's the amino acids of, of Treasury. It's the most basic form of life and it's really the right place for somebody when they're coming in to start their life, to understand how a company effectively breathes. Every day money comes in, money comes out, but at the end of the day, you better have more money than what you started with. The other is what I'll describe broadly as project oriented. Into that falls all manner of things, ma, refinancing, strategic initiatives. And that to me is the most interesting part. And I've always. I've had a mantra ever since I had the opportunity to lead people of better, faster, cheaper. And I want to be clear about that. I don't think that consuming the lowest price is always the right idea. I want to be able to consume something that is the right price, the right value. But if there's a way for us to do something better, faster or cheaper for our customers, and our customers are senior management and the business, period, that's who we serve, that's our sole reason for existence. And I need to be in a position where, when my boss calls me and says, where are we on this? I need to be able to tell him.