TRUCK2018 - Day 1 - 1550 - Skip Yeakel

Skip’s career in truck engineering spans more than 55 years. He has supported multiple government industry academia contracts from the US DOT Intelligent Vehicle Initiative to the recent three truck platooning demos with FHWA. He has spoken at numerous government industry academia meetings and events and has been an SAE member for 55 years during which time he served in many roles including multi-year Chairman of its Truck and Bus ITS Committee and Chairman of the Philadelphia Section. He was a two term Chairman of the Board of the Truck Manufacturers Association and served on the American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) Board of Directors.  He chaired ATA’s Technology and Engineering Policy Committee and still serves as an active member, along with being an active member of its Automated Truck Sub-Committee. He served on a panel to address automated trucks and platooning during the Road to Zero Coalition Meeting at which newly confirmed FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez keynoted with leading agency speakers from FHWA, NHTSA, NTSB, NSC, and other such public and private RTZ partners. Skip was instrumental in sculpting several wireless truck inspection demos (dubbed Trusted Truck™) with the National Transportation Research Center, Inc. and a tractor w triple trailer stability follow-on with NTRCI and Battelle. Skip has served on the DOT HWA ITS JPO sponsored Transportation Safety Advancement Group for the past decade and serves on its Executive Committee as its Outreach Officer. As such he orchestrated an Emergency Responder demo at Penn State to show how DSRC could mitigate truck crashes in emergency and work zone sites. That endeavor, in concert with a parallel SwRI demo, was videotaped and supported by PennDOT Secretary Leslie Richards, NOCoE, and TSAG. Skip has spoken to CACC + platooning and other such automated and connected truck technologies at the annual TRB meeting that he attended for the IVI long ago and for the TSAG in recent years. He remains an active advocate for ATA, TSAG, Volvo, and general commercial vehicle issues.