Supply & Demand Chain Executive, the only publication covering the entire global supply chain, named three of Spinnaker SCA’s executives as Lifetime Achievement recipients. John Sharkey, Chief Executive Officer, George Fowler, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Planning and Omnichannel, and Joel Garcia, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Execution, are the winners of this year’s Pros to Know Lifetime Achievement award, which recognizes outstanding executives whose accomplishments offer a roadmap for other leaders looking to leverage supply chain for competitive advantage.

As Spinnaker SCA’s Chief Executive Officer, John Sharkey has led the successful merger of Spinnaker and SCApath to create a full-service consulting organization with over 50 active clients, YoY growth of almost 40%, strong management consulting and systems implementation across supply chain planning and execution systems. He also led Spinnaker SCA’s acquisition of supply chain consulting firm Accelogix in 2023. John’s focus is on developing Spinnaker SCA’s end-to-end supply chain capabilities with a balanced focus on business and technology expertise. His career has been spent leading major supply chain transformations for manufacturing, distribution, and retail clients. An expert in supply chain technology-enabled business transformation, he is a hands-on participant in these initiatives steering overall strategy with clients’ executive teams.

George Fowler, Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President of Planning and Omnichannel, has made significant contributions to the supply chain industry during his esteemed 30-year career. He has led supply chain transformations for many of the world’s most notable companies and established one of the industry’s leading Advanced Planning solutions consulting practices. Fowler has helped to improve the agility and responsiveness of many of the world’s most critical supply chains including CPG, Food and Beverage, Automotive, Retail, and Healthcare. An expert in Integrated Business Planning, Fowler played an instrumental role in helping companies respond to the global need to provide medical testing for disease detection and prevention during the recent global pandemic.

Joel Garcia, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Execution, has extensive experience enabling people and technology processes to help establish policies and metrics for each client he works with to optimize their retail replenishment, distribution, and fulfillment operations. During Joel’s 25-year career he has become a leading expert in Distribution Center operations and an expert in advising clients in the best use of technology, labor, space, and automation resources to better meet the demands of their internal and external customers. While Joel has spent a significant portion of his career on developing consulting practices focused on implementing distribution systems such as WMS, he has turned his attention over the last 4 years to helping customers better understand how advanced automation solutions such as goods-to-person and autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), warehouse execution systems (WES/WCS), warehouse orchestration systems, digital twins, and data science and analytics can help them manage the ever increasing variability in the labor force. 

“I believe that we have seen tremendous innovation in the last 5 years as it pertains to technology inside the 4-walls. We have seen many new technologies introduced and we are seeing mature technologies such as WMS and WES expand out into each other’s traditional capabilities. WMS vendors are adding WES capabilities and WES vendors are adding WMS capabilities,” says Garcia. “Our customers get value from us advising them on the best fit, approach, and architecture to effectively select and deploy these solutions to orchestrate work, labor and automation with these new tools.”  

Joel acts as an advisor and an architect, helping organizations understand their order profiles and demand patterns. With Joel’s extensive expertise in the industry, he’s ensured the success of his colleagues and clients alike.  

“Many of today’s supply chain pros are more than just leaders within their space; they’re innovators, decision makers, pioneers of change and growth. They’ve spent the last year (and more) creating safer, more efficient supply chains,” says Marina Mayer, editor-in-chief of Food Logistics and Supply & Demand Chain Executive. “New this year, we broke the award down into four distinct categories: Top Warehousing Stars; Top Procurement Stars; Rising Stars; and Lifetime Achievement. These winners continue to go above and beyond to overcome challenges, advance supply chain management and make the impossible, possible.”