Tanner Ryan’s interest in supply management was born from a dream of being a civil engineer. His enthusiasm led to five semesters of CAD (computer-aided drawing) classes in high school. He wondered how the materials needed for these large-scale engineering projects made it to the job site; from there, his big-picture thinking continued to grow. Ryan’s curiosity led to bachelor’s and master’s degrees in supply chain management and, later, a position with Shell Exploration and Production Company. Upon his hiring, he entered the Shell Graduate Program, a three-year leadership and talent development curriculum.
His first assignment was in Anchorage, Alaska, where he supported Shell’s demobilization efforts. He took initiative to relieve the business of US$2.5 million in Arctic operations materials. Following his stint in Anchorage, Ryan was sent to New Orleans to work on Shell’s Gulf of Mexico operations as a logistics process analyst. Ryan hit several career milestones in New Orleans, highlighted by the development of a model to account for vessel, truck and material costs based on demand and constraints across the Gulf. Serving as main analyst on two RFPs for contracts worth more than $20 million each, he identified ideal locations and suppliers for Shell, using the center-of-gravity and load-distance analyses. The model is now used for decisions across the business. Ryan
recently relocated to his native Colorado to serve as a trucking coordinator in the Rocky Mountain region for Shell Trading (US) Company.
Finding ways to give back to the community has always been important to Ryan. As a teenager, he spent three summers in China growing a small business. His most recent work was with Second Harvest, where he created marketing materials, volunteer processes and helped realign the organization’s work space. He considers brewing beer to be his creative outlet — a hobby that began in college. Ryan says he never brews the same thing twice. He was nominated by Gregg Macaluso of the University of Colorado.
Article taken from Supply Chain 30 Under 30 Publication