Andrew King is the director of operations for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association Foundation, Inc. (OOFI). In this role, he conducts industry research and analysis, including freight market research. He also develops, deploys and administers educational programs such as OOIDA’s Truck to Success.

King has served as a subject matter expert and co-author providing various information and input to state and federal agencies as well as industry research groups. He also authors OOFI’s monthly freight market report and has worked at OOFI for 15 years.

Arielle Herman is an Economist at the US DOT Volpe Center, with an academic background in applied data science (MA) and economic development (MPA) at Columbia University QMSS and SIPA. In her time at the Volpe center, she has worked with a variety of transportation modes on a variety of economic analysis and safety projects. Most recently, she contributed to the first Boston Safe Fleet Transition Plan.

Blake Grolmus is the vice president of government relations for the Iowa Motor Trucking Association. In past roles he worked with Raun Trucking, where he led the Safety Services and Compliance teams, and Target, where he held various progressive supply chain roles.  

Grolmus grew up in a small business family and earned undergraduate degrees in Finance, Real Estate and Marketing from the University of Northern Iowa.  

He is a member of the American Trucking Associations’ Safety Policy Committee, Hazardous Materials Policy Committee, Safety Management Council and is a member of the 2024-25 LEAD ATA leadership development program. He is also an active member of the Iowa Motor Truck Association, the LEAD IMTA Council and Iowa Council of Safety Management. He currently serves as a member of his local city council and volunteers time with outdoor conservation and youth sports organizations. 

Curt Macysyn is the executive director of the National School Transportation Association and the Minnesota School Bus Operators Association. He has spoken publicly on issues such as zero-emission vehicles, school bus driver shortages, CDL licensing and public health mandates. Macysyn co-founded the Student Transportation Aligned for Return to School (STARTS) Task Force in 2020 and serves on the Electric School Bus Advisory Committee for the World Resources Institute.

Through his 30-year career in association management, he has served in various executive leadership positions, including a term as executive director of the New Jersey Child Care Association, as well as holding the title of director of government relations of the New Jersey School Boards Association. Macysyn received his Bachelor's in Political Science from Rutgers University - New Brunswick.

Darrin Grondel, Ed.D., is the senior vice president of traffic safety at Responsibility.org and the National Alliance to Stop Impaired Driving (NASID). He has 30 years of traffic safety experience as the former director of the Washington Traffic Safety Commission and as commander with the Washington State Patrol. 

In his current role, Grondel spearheads national efforts focused on drunk and impaired driving. One initiative is his leadership in the development of NASID, a national coalition of subject matter experts dedicated to combating impaired driving with aims to improve the DUI system across all stages. 

Grondel is a member of many traffic safety communities and prominent committees. He holds an Educational Doctorate in Organizational Leadership from the University of Massachusetts Global, a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from The Evergreen State College, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Brigham Young University. Additionally, he is a graduate of Northwestern University’s School of Police Staff and Command. 

David A. Noyce, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, F.ITE is the Dr. Arthur F. Hawnn Professor of Transportation Engineering and Executive Associate Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin - Madison (UW-Madison). He previously completed two terms as Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He also holds a joint appointment in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at UW-Madison.  

Noyce received his bachelor's and master's degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UW-Madison, and received his Ph.D. degree in Civil (Transportation) Engineering from Texas A&M University. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Wisconsin and has over 40 years of experience in transportation engineering including appointments in state government, industry and academia. He created and leads the Wisconsin TOPS Laboratory and also leads the Wisconsin Transportation Center. 

Eric Fitzsimmons received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in civil engineering, with a transportation engineering focus, from Iowa State University. He joined the civil engineering department at Kansas State University in 2014 and is currently a member of three Transportation Research Board standing committees, as well as a panel member on multiple NCHRP and BTSCRP projects.

Additionally, he is a handling editor for the Journal of the Transportation Research Board. Fitzsimmons serves as director for both the Kansas Transportation Engineering Conference and Traffic Assistance Services for Kansas (TASK), and is a member of the Kansas Local Technical Assistance Program (KLTAP) board of directors.

Guillermo Basulto-Elias, Ph.D., is a research scientist at the Institute for Transportation at Iowa State University. He has experience in statistical computing, data visualization, generalized linear mixed effects models, nonparametric statistics, machine learning and stochastic processes. 

In recent years, Basulto-Elias has worked on nonparametric models of data with measurement error and forensic statistics, which include footwear analysis, models for speaker recognition and design and supervision of shoe prints forensic database. More recently, he has worked on software development for generating reports of crashes, and statistical models for traffic data, including linear mixed effects models, hierarchical Bayesian models and functional data analysis. 

Jonathan Wood, Ph.D., is a faculty affiliate with the Center for Transportation Research and Education and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering (CCEE) at Iowa State University. His areas of research expertise are focused in both theoretical and practical applications in transportation safety, real-world impacts of driver assistance technologies (DAT) and other vehicle technologies, connected and autonomous vehicle systems and human factors.  

Wood also specializes in policy and regulatory rule-making considerations. Prior to Iowa State, he worked for Ford Motor Company as a safety researcher/data scientist, Wayne State University as an adjunct assistant professor, the City of Livonia as traffic commissioner and as an assistant professor at South Dakota State University. He received his bachelor’s and master’s from the University of Utah, and his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University. 

Ken Riddle is currently serving as the Director for the Office of Registration for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) within the Department of Transportation and has been with FMCSA for 10 years.  

Prior to this, he was commissioned in the Army as a second lieutenant of Armor in 1985 from The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. From 1985 to 2015, he served at just about every echelon in the United States Army, achieving the rank of Colonel and commanding at the Company, Battalion, and Brigade levels. His assignments included 3 overseas tours and combat deployments to Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. His civilian education includes a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from The Citadel, a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Syracuse University and a Master of Science Degree in National Security Strategy from the National War College. 

William “Lewie” Pugh is the executive vice president of Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, an organization he joined back in 2004. He began his trucking career in 1992 as a motor transport operator for the U.S. Army Reserve. He joined the commercial trucking ranks as a company driver in 1994 and by 1996 he was an owner-operator. 

In his 25 years he accumulated more than 2.5 million safe, accident-free miles behind the wheel. He worked with Landstar Ranger for 13 years under his company name, Bum Steer Trucking, but parked his truck in 2017 to work full-time for OOIDA. By 2018 he was elected OOIDA’s executive vice president. 

Pugh has received Landstar’s Star of Quality Award, the Million Miles Safe Drivers Award, been named in the Top 20 Contractor’s for Mercer and was inducted into the MATS Hall of Fame in 2023. He regularly travels to DC to testify in Congressional hearings and meet with lawmakers about issues affecting small-business truckers, and attends numerous Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) meetings as an industry representative. 

Linda Hill, M.D., is a professor, founding faculty member and associate dean of the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health. She is the medical director of the UCSD Training, Research and Education for Driving Safety (treds.ucsd.edu). Her transportation research work focuses on the prevention of risky driving behaviors, older driver safety and medical conditions, medications and driving. She was the founding medical director of the Exercise and Physical Activity Resource Center at UCSD. She is the Immediate Past Program Director of the UCSD/SDSU General Preventive Medicine Residency.  

San Diego Family Care, a Federal 330 Community Health Center, is the site of her clinical activities, as Medical Director 1980 to 2001, and Senior Staff Physician since 2001. Dr. Hill is engaged in prevention research and teaching with current and past support from the NIH, the California Office of Traffic Safety, Robert Wood Johnson, American Cancer Society, and Health Services Resource Administration, Federal Motor Carriers Service Association, Caltrans, California Department of Cannabis Control and AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. 

Mat Leo is the principal manager of research and market intelligence at C.H. Robinson. In this role he provides data-driven, action-oriented thought leadership to empower clients in making informed decisions and crafting effective growth strategies. As a key resource for market insights, Leo creates materials for diverse audiences and oversees academic research projects in supply chain logistics, fostering university partnerships and advisory collaborations. He has been with C.H. Robinson for 15 years, and his work equips clients with the insights needed to navigate today’s complex logistics landscape confidently and strategically. Leo received his MBA in Marketing and Bachelor's in Spanish from the University of Central Missouri.

Richard Dobson is a research scientist III and physical sciences group lead at Michigan Tech Research Institute. He has 15 years of experience with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing analysis for transportation and environmental applications, as well as 10 years of experience with UAS.  

Dobson has extensive experience in applying remote sensing techniques, including 3D photogrammetry, thermal and multispectral imaging to developing automated condition assessment of transportation assets and environmental assessment. He earned his bachelor’s in Earth Science and master’s in Environmental Science from the University of Michigan. 

Sarah Hacker is a research program manager and Data Analyst at TREDS, the University of California – San Diego’s Transportation Research and Education for Driving Safety Center. In this role she supports numerous projects and is responsible for ensuring compliance with research objectives, research study design and statistical support. She has an extensive background in research and expertise in study design, recruitment, data collection and analysis.  

Hacker's research interests include the study and mitigation of impaired, drowsy and distracted driving as well as understanding the human factors of driving behavior and safety.  

Prior to working at TREDS, she began her research in transportation at the University of Iowa and partnered with the National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) on driving behavior and driving simulator studies. She obtained her bachelor’s in Psychology from University of California - Riverside and completed master’s coursework in Cognitive Psychology and Statistics from the University of Nebraska – Omaha. 

Steve Rush is the founder Carbon Express, Inc. Prior to entering the trucking world, Rush worked as a radio operator for the Air Force, where he directed traffic between the aircraft and Air Traffic Control. In his early trucking career he hauled U.S. mail, refrigerated LTL and eventually tank trucks. In 1969 he became an owner-operator and went on to found Carbon Express in 1983. Rush is a current member of the American Trucking Association (ATA) board, and is a past chairman of the National Tanker Truck Association (NTTC).

Steve Viscelli, Ph.D., is an economic sociologist who studies work and labor markets in goods movement. He is a Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania and a Faculty Fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. 

In 2016, he published “The Big Rig: Trucking and the Decline of the American Dream”, which explains how deregulation of trucking and the rise of independent contracting turned trucking from one of the best blue-collar jobs in the US into one of the toughest. Since that time, he has worked on a wide range of research and policy initiatives at the State and Federal levels to improve training, pay and working conditions for truck drivers. His recent research has focused on self-driving trucks, the truck driver labor supply and how training and compensation affect safety. 

In 2023 and 2024 Dr. Viscelli served as a member of the USDOT’s Truck Leasing Task Force. He currently serves as an advisor to the Truck Safety Coalition. 

Todd Spencer is the president and CEO of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA). His career began in 1974 as an employee-driver, and two years later when he purchased a truck, he became an owner-operator trucker leased to a motor carrier. In 1978 he was elected to the Association's Board of Directors.  

By 1981 he sold his two trucks and joined OOIDA as communications director and editor of their magazine, Land Line. Spencer was elected executive vice president in 1992 and held the position for 26 years, until he was elected president in 2018. 

He has testified before various committees in the U.S. Congress on trucking issues and served on various committees of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) as an industry representative. Additionally, he serves as an industry advisor to the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), where he a member of the advisory committee. 

Tom Crawford has served as president and CEO of the Missouri Trucking Association (MoTA) since 2006. He came to MoTA with experience working in and around state government for prominent statewide associations, and has experience representing and advocating for folks in long term and medical care, agriculture and general business owners during his legal and lobbying career.  

Although he began his state government career as an attorney, his trucking experience started much earlier with the family-owned trucking company. With the expired statute of limitations, he can admit to driving big rigs from an early age and helping his dad and grandad deliver gasoline across southwest Missouri. 

Crawford received his law degree from the University of Missouri, a bachelor's in Accounting from Missouri State University and holds a Class A CDL driver's license with NPT endorsements and is a current holder of TWIC credentials. He and his wife, Melissa, reside in Columbia and have five children ranging in ages from 34 to 28. 

Zach Heard joined the Illinois State Police in 2006 and was assigned to Southwestern Illinois, which covers the Saint Louis metropolitan area and Interstates 55, 64 and 70. He developed an interest in criminal interdiction in 2009 and joined a full-time criminal interdiction team in 2011. In 2013 he became an instructor for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Drug Interdiction Assistance Program, the El Paso Intelligence Center and the Illinois State Police Academy. He was selected for the Illinois State Police Statewide Criminal Interdiction Team in 2018. 

Heard has been involved in numerous high-profile criminal interdiction cases, including efforts to combat child exploitation and human trafficking. He has worked with adult victims of sex trafficking in Illinois and helped secure the federal grant that funded the Central Illinois Human Trafficking Task Force, where he has served as lead law enforcement instructor since 2021. 

Chuck DeWeese is the president of Connecting Clients Consulting, LLC. He provides strategic consulting services in traffic safety, including initiatives targeting impaired driving, distracted driving, Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety, younger drivers, speed, pedestrian and bike safety, automated vehicles, traffic enforcement issues and risky driving behaviors. He is currently on contract with Responsibility.org and speaks at conferences across the country on the benefits of roadside oral fluid screening. 

DeWeese has 30 years of experience in federal and state government, including 17 years as a Special Agent and Field Office Supervisor with the FMCSA. Additionally, he served as the Assistant Commissioner of the New York State Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee from 2007-2022 and was the Governor’s State Highway Safety Office director and administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) grant program. 

Cesar Andriola is a graduate research assistant in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He holds a BS in Civil Engineering and an MS in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, as well as an MS in Computer Sciences from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

His research focuses on supporting AV development through a human-centered approach. Specifically, he investigates human interaction with AVs from external (human drivers), internal (AV users) and remote (remote operation) perspectives.