 | The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for biographies .(April 2015) |
James Giermanski | |
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| Commands held | Director, Office of Naval Intelligence |
| Other work | Specialist in supply chain security and container shipping programs |
James Giermanski is a specialist in supply chain security and container shipping programs of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He is a former U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations (Col. ret.) and a former FBI agent.
Giermanski is an expert focused on security operations in the global supply chain, [1] who is concerned with respective contributions of governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders to this worldwide concern. [2] [3] Global Supply Chain Security explores the potential impact of port-related catastrophic events in the United States and their effects worldwide, concentrating, in particular, on the United States' contribution to global container security. [4]
A former military officer, and FBI agent, Giermanski is a frequent commentator on container security issues and weapons defense matters, [5] particularly such as concerns border and customs work on supply chain security. Giermanski taught at Texas A&M University, serving as Regents Professor and as an adjunct graduate faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He was Director of Transportation and Logistics Studies, Center for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade at Texas A&M International University. [6]
Giermanski serves a visiting scholar at the Air Force Doctrine Development and Education Center, an Air Force think tank at Maxwell Air Force Base.[ citation needed ]
Laredo is a city in and the county seat of Webb County, Texas, United States, on the north bank of the Rio Grande in South Texas, across from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Laredo has the distinction of flying seven flags.
A maquiladora, or maquila, is a word that refers to factories that are largely duty free and tariff-free. These factories take raw materials and assemble, manufacture, or process them and export the finished product. These factories and systems are present throughout Latin America, including Mexico, Paraguay, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Maquiladoras date back to 1964, when the Mexican government introduced the Programa de Industrialización Fronteriza. Specific programs and laws have made Mexico's maquila industry grow rapidly.
The Lower Rio Grande Valley, commonly known as the Rio Grande Valley or locally as the Valley or RGV, is a region spanning the border of Texas and Mexico located in a floodplain of the Rio Grande near its mouth. The region includes the southernmost tip of South Texas and a portion of northern Tamaulipas, Mexico. It consists of the Brownsville, Harlingen, Weslaco, Pharr, McAllen, Edinburg, Mission, San Juan, and Rio Grande City metropolitan areas in the United States and the Matamoros, Río Bravo, and Reynosa metropolitan areas in Mexico. The area is generally bilingual in English and Spanish, with a fair amount of Spanglish due to the region's diverse history and transborder agglomerations It is home to some of the poorest cities in the nation, as well as many unincorporated, persistent poverty communities called colonias. A large seasonal influx occurs of "winter Texans" — people who come down from the north for the winter and then return north before summer arrives.
The Container Security Initiative (CSI) a.k.a. the 24-Hour Rule was launched in 2002 by the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), an agency of the Department of Homeland Security. Its purpose was to increase security for container cargo shipped to the United States. As the CBP puts it, the intent is to "extend [the] zone of security outward so that American borders are the last line of defense, not the first."
South Texas is a region of the U.S. state of Texas that lies roughly south of—and includes—San Antonio. The southern and western boundary is the Rio Grande, and to the east it is the Gulf of Mexico. The population of this region is about 4.96 million according to the 2017 census estimates. The southern portion of this region is often referred to as the Rio Grande Valley. The eastern portion along the Gulf of Mexico is also referred to as the Coastal Bend.
Enrique Roberto Cuellar is an American attorney and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Texas's 28th congressional district since 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he is considered one of the most conservative representatives in the Democratic caucus. His district extends from the Rio Grande to San Antonio's suburbs. As of 2022, he was also the last Democrat to have held a statewide office in Texas.
The Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) was a proposal for a transportation network in the U.S. State of Texas that was conceived to be composed of a new kind of transportation modality known as supercorridors. The TTC was initially proposed in 2001 and after considerable controversy was discontinued by 2010 in the planning and early construction stages.
Nuevo Laredo is a city in the Municipality of Nuevo Laredo in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The city lies on the banks of the Rio Grande, across from Laredo, United States. The 2010 census population of the city was 373,725. Nuevo Laredo is part of the Laredo-Nuevo Laredo Metropolitan Area with a population of 636,516. The municipality has an area of 1,334.02 km2 (515.07 sq mi). Both the city and the municipality rank as the third largest in the state.
Supply chain security activities aim to enhance the security of the supply chain or value chain, the transport and logistics systems for the world's cargo and to "facilitate legitimate trade". Their objective is to combine traditional practices of supply-chain management with the security requirements driven by threats such as terrorism, piracy, and theft.
Port security is part of a broader definition concerning maritime security. It refers to the defense, law and treaty enforcement, and counterterrorism activities that fall within the port and maritime domain. It includes the protection of the seaports themselves and the protection and inspection of the cargo moving through the ports. Security risks related to ports often focus on either the physical security of the port, or security risks within the maritime supply chain.
Drayage is the transport of goods over a short distance in the shipping and logistics industries. Drayage is often part of a longer overall move, such as from a ship to a warehouse. Some research defines it specifically as "a truck pickup from or delivery to a seaport, border point, inland port, or intermodal terminal with both the trip origin and destination in the same urban area". Port drayage is the term used when describing short hauls from ports and other areas to nearby locations. It can also refer to the movement of goods within large buildings such as convention centers. Drayage is a key aspect of the transfer of shipments to and from other means of transportation. The term drayage is also used for the fee paid for such services.
The North America's Corridor Coalition (NASCO) is a non-profit organization that seeks to develop an international multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade Corridor, which it claims will improve trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.
The World Trade International Bridge is one of four international bridges located in the cities of Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, that connect the United States and Mexico over the Rio Grande. It is owned and operated by City of Laredo and the Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes. It is also known as Laredo International Bridge 4.
Loop 20, also known as the Bob Bullock Loop and Cuatro Vientos Road, is a highway loop that runs to the north and east of the city of Laredo, Texas. Loop 20 extends from the World Trade International Bridge at its northern point to Mangana-Hein Road at its southern point. The current route varies in construction from a 2-lane road to a freeway with frontage roads.
Interstate 69 (I-69) is an Interstate Highway that is in the process of being built in the US state of Texas. It is part of a longer I-69 extension known as the NAFTA superhighway, that, when completed, will connect Canada to Mexico. In Texas, it will connect Tenaha and I-69 in Louisiana at the Louisiana border through the eastern part of the state and along the Texas Gulf Coast to Victoria, where it will split into three branches: I-69E to Brownsville, I-69C to Pharr, and I-69W to Laredo. The first segment of I-69 in Texas was opened in 2011 near Corpus Christi. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) approved an additional 58 miles (93 km) of US 77 from Brownsville to the Willacy–Kenedy county line for designation as I-69, which was to be signed as I-69E upon concurrence from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). FHWA approval for this segment was announced on May 29, 2013. By March 2015, a 74.9-mile (120.5 km) section of US 59 had been completed and designated as I-69 through Greater Houston. As of 2022, short segments near the southern terminuses of the three branch routes have also all been completed. These branches are planned to be connected.
The North American Union (NAU) is a theoretical economic and political continental union of Canada, Mexico and the United States, the three largest and most populous countries in North America. The concept is loosely based on the European Union, occasionally including a common currency called the amero or the North American Dollar. A union of the North American continent, sometimes extending to Central and South America, has been the subject of academic concepts for over a century, as well as becoming a common trope in science fiction. One reason for the difficulty in realizing the concept is that individual developments in each region have failed to prioritize a larger union. Some form of union has been discussed or proposed in academic, business, and political circles for decades. However, government officials from all three nations say there are no plans to create a North American Union and that no agreement to do so has been proposed, much less signed. The formation of a North American Union has been the subject of various conspiracy theories.
The NAFTA superhighway is a term sometimes used informally to refer to certain existing and proposed highways intended to link Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Although the term has not been used publicly by governments in an official policy context, there are some dissident beliefs about this appellation that are associated with nationalist conspiracy theories regarding alleged secret plans to undermine U.S. sovereignty. Development of these routes is supported by the North American SuperCorridor Coalition as part of a NASCO Corridor. These include Interstate 35 from Laredo, Texas to the Canadian border that downgrades to a non-freeway route ending at Thunder Bay, Ontario, and Interstate 29, a spur that also downgrades to a regular highway at the border and continues to Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Interstate 2 (I-2) is a partially completed Interstate Highway running through the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. It begins at the intersection of US Highway 83 (US 83) and Business US 83 in Peñitas and heads eastward before terminating at I-69E/US 77/US 83 in Harlingen. For its entire length, I-2 runs concurrently with US 83. I-2 also parallels Mexican Federal Highway 2 (Fed. 2), another major east–west route that traces the Mexico–US border along the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. When completed, the western terminus will be the city of Laredo. The route is one of the more recently designated Interstate Highways; it was signed as an Interstate in 2013. Its construction is part of an expansion of the Interstate System into southern Texas that includes the three branches of I-69. It currently intersects I-69E and I-69C and will, when complete to Laredo, intersect I-69W as well. This complex of Interstate Highways does not yet connect to the rest of the system.
Kathryn Denise Rucker Krepp is a lawyer, who formerly served as the Chief Counsel for U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) which operated under the United States Department of Transportation.
APL Logistics Ltd. (APLL) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kintetsu World Express, Inc. (KWE), a Japan-based freight forwarding and transportation company. As a global supply chain specialist, APL Logistics trades in more than 60 countries, serving the automotive, consumer, industrials, and retail verticals. Headquartered in Singapore and USA, APL Logistics has locations across the globe.
