Former students, faculty and industry leaders paid tribute to retiring Waters Professor and longtime executive director of Auburn University’s Center for Supply Chain Innovation (CSCI), Brian Gibson, at a dinner May 1 following the conclusion of the center’s Fusion 2025 symposium. Gibson’s last day with CSCI and the Harbert College of Business will be June 30.

Glenn Richey, Harbert Eminent Scholar in supply chain management and research director at the center, emceed the dinner tribute, allowing several of Gibson’s friends and colleagues to share stories of his influence and friendship.

Among them was Harbert College of Business Dean Jennifer Mueller-Phillips, who presented Gibson with his Emeritus Professor certificate signed by Auburn President Christopher Roberts.

“Dr. Brian Gibson has made a profound and lasting impact on Auburn University through his extensive contributions in teaching, research and industry engagement, particularly in the field of supply chain management,” she said. “Since joining the faculty in 1999, he has played a pivotal role in expanding and elevating the supply chain management program and the Harbert College of Business.

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“Brian Gibson is one of the key faculty members who have helped grow the program from a modest logistics major with around 25 students to a supply chain management major with well over 525 students."

Jennifer Mueller-Phillips, Harbert dean

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“His efforts in organizing more than 40 career fairs and shepherding thousands of supply chain interns have led to one of the strongest full-time job placement rates for Auburn graduates in the Harbert College, significantly enhancing the department’s reputation and its students’ professional success,” Mueller-Phillips said.

She cited numerous accomplishments attributed to Gibson, including his success in building the reputation of Harbert within the corporate world.

“Brian, we don’t quite know what we’re going to do without you yet,” she said, “but, you’re welcome back anytime.”

A personal connection

Earlier in the day during the symposium, several of Gibson’s former students who have become corporate leaders in their professional careers, offered praise and appreciation for his influence and interest in them.

Kellie Fisher, director of business development for DHL Supply Chain, graduated from Auburn’s supply chain management program in May 2015.

She met Gibson her freshman year, having entered school knowing she wanted to be in supply chain management. Gibson already was at work trying to build the program, which at that time “was quite small...and not a lot of women, either.”

“By the time I graduated, it was a very big, growing program,” Fisher said. “People were really interested in supply chain. I credit that a lot to Brian and Marcia (Gibson’s wife, who served 10 years as professional experiences coordinator) for revamping the program.”

His influence reached far beyond the classroom, she said.

“For me, he had a lot of credibility from the start. He clearly had a role in the industry. He helped a lot with the textbooks, which at the time I thought was really neat and augmented that credibility. You could tell he knew a lot about the industry itself outside our Auburn bubble. I found that very inspiring,” Fisher said.

Gibson championed the establishment of a required internship for supply chain management majors, “and that made a big change as far as the trajectory of my career. He brought a lot of great, refreshing ideas, and he had that credibility and background to earn trust to get people to buy in.

“He helped advise me when I was deciding who I wanted to work for after college,” she said. “He’s just one of those pivotal people you ask for advice in certain situations. And you honor their advice. He’ll always be a big career influence on me and someone I really admire and am grateful for.

“He’s a very people-oriented person who looks out for other people.”

Alumnus Thomas Snowden, senior supply chain manager for Ferguson Enterprises, was a student with Gibson in 2002.

“He was a great influence on my career, and really in getting me interested in supply chain,” he said.  “Brian was so good at taking complex concepts and really making them engaging. We did some really difficult things, but it was fun. And so, I’ve become quite a problem-solver in my career, and I attribute it all to those classes and how engaging it was.”

Snowden feels Auburn’s program has grown so that now “it is attracting and producing some of the best talent that I’ve seen in supply chain,” which also stokes the interest of companies looking to recruit top talent, he said. “I think what they’ve built here, somebody will be able to stand on the shoulders of giants.”

From no name to THE name in supply chain management

Alumnus Denson White is the chief commercial officer of APM Terminals-Los Angeles, which is the largest single footprint container facility in the western hemisphere. 

According to White, he was selected to be the student leader of the transportation and business school organization in 1999 when Gibson arrived at Auburn. “There weren’t many of us [in the program],” he said.

The program did not yet have supply chain management in its name, “so that was one of the first things they did,” he said.

“Dr. Gibson came in and helped mold what was happening. I was part of this transportation group, and we were probably one of the first student group-professor relationships,” but after Gibson helped launch new job fairs, internships and other programs to promote student-corporate connections, “people began demanding to be here to recruit.”

“Even from the beginning, it wasn’t about what he’s doing and what the school is doing,” White said. “It was about, ‘how do we make the student better? How do we prepare the student for success?’”

Believing in education and hard work

That personal interest in his students, he said, will remain a large part of Gibson’s legacy at Auburn.

“Brian Gibson is a workaholic,” emcee Richey said during the evening dinner. “One of the best traits about Brian and Joe, is that they truly have the students’ best interests at heart,” he said of Gibson and Hanna. “Brian doesn’t have the word ‘no’ in his vocabulary when it comes to helping...It’s always about the passion Brian has for his students,” even when sometimes he was affectionally known as “Mr. Salty.”

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"I have enjoyed my 26-year Auburn journey, especially the role of helping prepare supply chain students for great career success.”

Brian Gibson

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Gibson earned his undergraduate degree at Central Michigan University, his MBA at Wayne State University, and his PhD at the University of Tennessee.

He has taught supply chain management courses in Auburn’s undergraduate, graduate and executive MBA programs, and he is the developer of innovative distance learning programs for students and supply chain professionals. Actively engaged with industry leaders, Gibson served on the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals board of directors for nine years and held the chairman of the board role in 2021.

Gibson is co-authors of two leading textbooks and has received numerous teaching, research and service awards. He was named a Fulbright Scholar in 2021 and spent a semester at the Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland.

“Working in the Auburn Harbert College of Business has allowed me to pursue a unique academic path with multiple roles,” Gibson notes. “Thanks to the support of multiple deans, department chairs, faculty colleagues, and supply chain professionals, I helped develop a student-focused supply chain major and establish CSCI, an industry-aligned research center. I have enjoyed my 26-year Auburn journey, especially the role of helping prepare supply chain students for great career success.”

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Learn more about the Auburn University Center for Supply Chain Innovation. 

Support the education and research efforts of CSCI, including student internships, travel to industry conferences and other experiential learning activities.