Sameness can be reassuring. But Maurice Nick, a supply planning manager at Stanley Black & Decker, prefers the disruption of new ideas. "I grow tired of situations quickly," he says. "Without having different insights, different perspectives and different people around me, I get weary in what I'm doing."

Thomas Corsi’s faculty office has that homey look of someone who has really settled in. Decorations include framed watercolors of trainyards that his father painted, a University of Maryland logo an aunt cross-stitched, and sports posters from his hometown Cleveland teams. One poster shows the starting lineup of the 1949 Indians, “the year I was born,” Corsi says. Then there is the collection of miniature semi-tractor trailers and freight trains, fitting for a guy who has made his career studying the trucking industry, logistics and supply chains.