Bio for William J. (Bill) DeWitt, Ph.D.
Teaching Professor, Robert H. Smith School of Business
University of Maryland, College Park
Bill DeWitt currently is a full-time Teaching Professor in the Logistics, Business and Public Policy Department of the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. After earning an MBA at the University of Tennessee in 1972, he worked for Burlington Northern Railroad from 1972 until 1995 in operations, strategic planning, and marketing, with his most recent assignment as vice president of marketing and sales for the $501 million forest products business unit. Bill's doctoral research is on transportation education in supply chain management and he has published several articles on GIS and transportation/logistics. He has also published articles in the Transportation Journal, Logistics Technology International, the Defense Transportation Journal, the Council of Logistics Management Conference Proceedings, and the American Society of Traffic and Transportation Proceedings. He has co-authored the Transportation Research Board's (TRB) committee reports on "Policy Options for Intermodal Freight Transportation" and "Landside Access to U.S. Ports."
He has lectured and presented at the Council of Logistics Management annual conferences, including serving as Track Chair for GIS and Logistics, Northwestern University Transportation Center executive education, the Association of American Geographers annual meeting, the Business Geographics conference, the Canadian Industrial Transportation League, and moderated panels at the Intermodal Association of North America conferences. Bill serves on two TRB committees, the Transportation Education and Training Committee, and the Intermodal Freight Transport Committee. He is a member of the Council of Logistics Management, a certified member of the American Society of Transportation and Logistics, the Transportation Research Forum, the Association of American Geographers and the Lexington Transportation History Group. He served for three years on the board of directors of Burlington Northern Motor Carriers, and is on the University of Tennessee Geography Department Advisory Board.
While working on his doctorate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, from 1995 to 1998 he also was the primary instructor for approximately 600 students in transportation courses and served as founding Managing Director of the Supply Chain Forum, a research structure and approach that raised over $1million under his leadership during the three years he was director. He left Tennessee in 1999 to accept the Teaching Professor position at Maryland. His doctoral degree was received in May 2000.
He was born in Auburn, New York on August 16, 1946. He graduated from public high school in Auburn and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Allegheny College. After service in the U. S. Navy, he entered the University of Tennessee in 1971 and received a Master of Business Administration degree in transportation and logistics in August 1972.
