Contact: Rich Higgins
Shrewsbury, Massachusetts
“Teachers, Teams & Tugboats” recounts career spanning mergers, a bankruptcy, cancer treatment, and the informal mentors who shaped it all
Massachusetts 4/29/2026. Rich Higgins, 71, has published a nonfiction memoir titled Teachers, Teams & Tugboats, documenting his 40 year career in global supply chain logistics. The book covers ocean freight contracting, rail operations, distribution network design, and international sourcing across retail companies in footwear, toys, and general merchandise.
Higgins entered the industry after college in the late 1970s, starting with a regional LTL trucking carrier in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He went on to hold transportation and logistics leadership positions at several major retailers, including roles overseeing networks of five to seven distribution centers, international freight operations across China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and contract negotiations for ocean, rail, truckload, and small parcel services.
The book is organized around seven senior executives whom Higgins credits as the most significant influences on his career. He refers to them as “tugboats,” borrowing the analogy from the small vessels that guide large container ships into port. Among the figures he profiles: a retail logistics director named Bob, who hired him into his first management role and personally taught him to use a company issued Apple computer when the technology was still new; Charlie, a former schoolteacher turned SVP, who told Higgins that a manager’s real job is to figure out what motivates underperformers rather than simply replacing them; and Greg, an SVP of HR who held a job open for two months while Higgins tried to make a cross country relocation work, then welcomed him back without conditions when it fell through.
Higgins also writes about a colleague named Tom who drove an extra 50 miles each way, every day for 30 days, to get Higgins to work after a DUI cost him his license at age 31. Tom refused compensation of any kind.
The memoir addresses personal subjects alongside the professional narrative. Higgins describes relocating his family for a job and watching his teenage daughters struggle with the move, a period a friend described to him as the “Planet Neptune Years.” He writes about turning down a senior logistics position at a multibillion dollar footwear retailer because his father was dying, a decision that allowed him to spend the last night of his father’s life with him. He also recounts a period when trucking contract changes in New Jersey resulted in personal threats that led his company to assign him a full time armed bodyguard for ten days.
The book includes chapters on executives Higgins calls “pirates,” his term for leaders who fired employees before holidays to avoid paying them, took kickbacks from vendors, or managed through intimidation. He writes that one such executive was removed from his office in handcuffs.
On the industry side, Higgins details specific operational work, including eliminating several million dollars in rail detention fees within two months at a Florida retailer, renegotiating ocean freight contracts that reduced per container costs by $1,000 to over $3,000, and reducing origin consolidation fees by 85 percent at a toy company. He received the Chairman’s Award at one company for these contributions.
Higgins underwent 44 radiation treatments for cancer and has completed the full 26.2 mile Boston Marathon course 17 times as part of the Jimmy Fund Walk, raising money for Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He is a former board member of CONECT (Coalition of New England Companies for Trade) and the Florida Trucking Association, and has spoken at industry conferences including RILA and the Trans Pacific Maritime Conference. He was featured in Supply Chain World magazine in 2014.
He lives in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, with his wife Becky and is completing his final logistics consulting project.
Book Information
Title: Teachers, Teams & Tugboats
Author: Rich Higgins
Genre: Nonfiction / Memoir
Rich Higgins is available for interviews.
For Any Media Inquiries, Please Contact Sia Stone
Email: sia@parkerpublishers.com
Phone no: +1 (689) 304-8480
