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Seven fleet professionals have been selected as finalists for the 2026 Fleet Visionary Award, which recognizes emerging leaders who are helping shape the future of fleet through innovation, operational excellence, and forward-thinking leadership.

Presented by Automotive Fleet and sponsored by Merchants Fleet, the Fleet Visionary Award honors fleet professionals with 10 years or less of fleet industry experience who have demonstrated measurable results, introduced new ideas, and made meaningful contributions to their organizations and the fleet profession.

This year’s finalists represent organizations across transportation, healthcare, manufacturing, field service, pharmaceuticals, and commercial fleet operations. Their accomplishments include improving fleet safety, advancing electrification, modernizing operations, expanding fleet capacity, and developing innovative approaches to driver engagement and workforce development.

Joseph Lewis, Marimor Industries

Joseph Lewis, CAFM, is transportation manager for Marimor Industries, where he oversees transportation and fleet operations supporting employment and community services for individuals with developmental disabilities. During his eight years in fleet management, Lewis has implemented telematics-based safety initiatives that contributed to significant reductions in at-fault and overall vehicle accidents. He also developed an AI-assisted fleet safety music project designed to reinforce defensive driving concepts and has focused on expanding telematics, performance analytics, and standardized fleet processes to improve operational performance.

Kyler Vargas, Premier Truck Rental

Kyler Vargas serves as director of logistics for Premier Truck Rental, where he leads transportation, safety, compliance, and logistics operations. Since joining the company, he has overseen the implementation of its first transportation management system, improving routing, shipment visibility, and on-time delivery performance. Vargas has also introduced initiatives focused on safety training, regulatory compliance, equipment utilization, and workforce development, including the company’s first fleet and logistics internship program.

Matt Bolf, Siemens Corporation

Matt Bolf is U.S. fleet program manager for mobility services at Siemens Corporation, where he supports the company’s goal of transitioning its U.S. fleet to 100% electric vehicles by 2030. Before joining Siemens, he managed fleet operations for Rentokil North America, overseeing a 20,000-vehicle fleet across multiple vehicle classes. Bolf brings experience in fleet operations, compliance, capital planning, and process improvement while helping develop strategies to support large-scale fleet electrification.

Tyler Teter, Safelite

Tyler Teter is assistant vice president of fleet at Safelite, overseeing a fleet of more than 7,000 vehicles. During his six years in fleet, he has led initiatives that integrate telematics, camera technology, and operational analytics to improve fleet utilization and productivity. His work has helped identify opportunities to reduce idle time, improve vehicle utilization, address fuel fraud, and redesign mobile service vehicle upfits. These efforts have supported Safelite’s ability to expand mobile service capacity while improving operational efficiency.

Meghan Murray, Teva Pharmaceuticals

Meghan Murray is North America fleet operations senior analyst at Teva Pharmaceuticals, where she has supported significant fleet growth during her first three years in the industry. She has helped redesign onboarding and offboarding processes, improve fleet administration, and support the company’s transition to a new fleet management provider. Murray is pursuing her Certified Automotive Fleet Manager designation and participates in industry mentorship and professional development programs while helping strengthen operational processes and driver support across Teva’s expanding North American fleet.

MacKenzie Mones

MacKenzie Mones, Fleet, Travel & Expense Business Partner at ITG Brands, has helped transform the company’s fleet into a nationally recognized program in fewer than five years. She led a fleet management company transition while overseeing 30% fleet growth, implementing analytics-driven processes that achieved 95-99% compliance across key fleet metrics. Under her leadership, ITG Brands transitioned 70% of its fleet to hybrid vehicles, improving fuel efficiency by 18% and reducing emissions per mile by 14.8%. Her focus on safety, sustainability, driver engagement, and operational discipline earned ITG Brands a No. 6 ranking on NAFA’s 2026 100 Best Fleets.

Jamie McKay, Aptive Pest Control

Jamie McKay is senior manager of fleet at Aptive Pest Control and became the company’s first in-house fleet manager in 2020. Since then, she has led the expansion of the fleet from approximately 600 to more than 2,400 vehicles while implementing initiatives focused on deployment speed, fleet optimization, telematics, vehicle standardization, and supplier partnerships. Her efforts have helped modernize fleet operations, improve vehicle readiness, and align fleet strategy with the company’s continued growth.

The recipient of the 2026 Fleet Visionary Award will be announced during the AFLA Corporate Fleet Conference, taking place Sept. 27-30 in Las Vegas.

The Fleet Visionary name, logo, brand, and all associated branding materials are legally owned and operated by Bobit Business Media Inc. (BBM), and BBM’s wholly owned Automotive Fleet brand. Permission for any commercial use must be obtained in writing by Bobit Business Media Inc. For further information, please refer to BBM’s Terms of Use which can be found at: http://www.bobit.com/terms-of-use

Related: 9 Fleet Leaders Nominated for the 2026 Fleet Manager of the Year Award

A look at how a 2007 enforcement initiative became one of the most consequential weeks on the fleet safety calendar, and what it means for your drivers in 2026.

Every July, thousands of fleet drivers across the United States, Canada and Mexico find themselves under a slightly brighter spotlight. It’s not a new regulation. It’s not a DOT audit. It’s Operation Safe Driver Week, a campaign that’s been quietly shaping driver behavior, and fleet safety culture along with it, for nearly two decades.

For 2026, the week runs July 12–18, and this year’s focus area is reckless, careless or dangerous driving, a deliberately broad category that gives officers latitude to cite everything from aggressive lane changes to inattentive driving, in addition to the usual suspects of speeding, distraction and following distance.

For fleet managers, understanding where this campaign came from, and why it still matters, is as important as knowing the dates.

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How It Started

Operation Safe Driver Week traces back to 2007, when the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) launched the broader Operation Safe Driver Program in partnership with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The reasoning behind it was vehicles don’t cause most crashes. People do.

CVSA data attributes roughly 94% of crashes to driver behavior, not mechanical failure or road conditions. That number is the entire premise of the program. While CVSA’s other flagship initiatives, International Roadcheck and Brake Safety Week, are built around inspecting the vehicle, Operation Safe Driver was built around watching the human behind the wheel.

The annual “Week” component became the visible, public-facing centerpiece of that year-round program: a concentrated stretch where law enforcement agencies across three countries coordinate enforcement and outreach around a shared theme, then report the results back to CVSA for analysis.

Why the Numbers Keep the Campaign Relevant

The case for taking this week seriously isn’t abstract. In 2025, officers issued more than 5,000 warnings and nearly 2,500 tickets across commercial and passenger vehicles during the campaign, and speeding was, once again, the single most cited violation.

That tracks with the broader national picture. Speeding has been a factor in roughly 29% of all U.S. traffic fatalities in recent years, and CVSA points to it as the most frequent driver-related crash factor for both commercial and passenger vehicle operators. Distracted driving isn’t far behind: NHTSA attributed over 3,200 U.S. deaths to distraction in a recent year alone.

For a fleet, those aren’t just safety statistics, they’re the exact violations that show up on a driver’s CSA score and a carrier’s Safety Measurement System data. A citation issued during Operation Safe Driver Week doesn’t disappear when the campaign ends; it follows the driver, and the fleet, well past July.

What This Means for Fleet Drivers — Not Just Truckers

One detail fleet managers sometimes miss: this campaign was never built exclusively for commercial drivers. Unlike Roadcheck or Brake Safety Week, Operation Safe Driver Week targets all drivers on the road, company cars, service vans, pickup trucks and passenger fleet vehicles included. If your fleet includes anything beyond Class 8 trucks, this week applies to every one of those drivers too.

That’s a useful message for drivers who might assume enforcement campaigns are “a trucking thing.” It isn’t. It’s a roadway thing.

Four Habits Worth Reinforcing This Week — and Every Week

1. Obey posted speed limits. Speeding remains the most frequently cited violation during safety blitzes, and it’s also the most preventable. A few minutes saved rarely justifies the risk, or the citation.

2. Eliminate distractions before you start driving. Set the GPS, adjust the climate controls and put the phone on Do Not Disturb before the vehicle is in motion. For CMV drivers, FMCSA regulations already prohibit texting and require hands-free phone use, Operation Safe Driver Week just increases the odds that violation gets caught.

3. Buckle up, every time. Seat belt compliance is one of the most heavily tracked metrics during the campaign, for both commercial and passenger vehicle drivers. It’s also one of the simplest habits to get right.

4. Give yourself room. Following distance recommendations scale with vehicle size and conditions, commercial vehicles need significantly more stopping distance, especially in wet weather or around construction zones. A few extra car-lengths of space is a small price for a much larger margin of safety.

The Bigger Picture

CVSA has been clear that the goal of Operation Safe Driver Week isn’t to catch drivers off guard, it’s to create enough visible enforcement, in a concentrated window, that safer habits start to stick year-round. Research cited by the Alliance suggests that direct interactions with law enforcement measurably shift driver behavior, which is the entire logic behind running this as an annual event rather than a one-time push.

For fleets, that’s the real opportunity in Operation Safe Driver Week: not just avoiding a citation during one particular week, but using the campaign as a natural, recurring checkpoint to reinforce the habits, speed discipline, distraction management, seat belt use, safe following distance, that protect drivers, the public and the company’s safety record all year long.

Telematics, ADAS and enforcement campaigns all play a role in reducing crashes, but they work best alongside sound judgment behind the wheel, not in place of it. The most important safety feature in the vehicle is the driver.

Sources: Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

Keep Reading! From Silos to Solutions: Relationship Management for Safer Fleets

Inspiration Mobility Group announced the acquisition of select assets of Electrada, a fuel solutions provider for commercial fleet electrification, which has operated since 2021. Electrada’s team, project pipeline, charging depot development, intellectual property assets, and energy management software will become part of Inspiration Energy, which is Inspiration’s charging infrastructure and energy management business.

Over the past six years, Electrada has built and operated fleet electrification infrastructure across the United States, serving public agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and institutions through its 360 CaaS, FleetFlex, and FleetFlip models. Across more than 375 depots, the company has delivered more than 99% electric fuel uptime and powered more than 10 million clean miles annually, enabling commercial fleets ranging from passenger vehicles to Class 8 tractor-trailers to exit fossil fuel dependency.

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“Inspiration is the natural home for what Electrada has built,” said Kevin Kushman, CEO of Electrada. “We’ve always measured success by customer outcomes, not infrastructure deployed, and Inspiration holds that same standard. Electrada’s depth in utility coordination, distributed power, and depot energy management means fleet operators aren’t just getting charging infrastructure; they’re getting an energy program architected to structurally reduce and stabilize their fuel costs. The acquisition brings together Electrada’s proven team, processes, and technology with Inspiration Energy’s ability to build, own, and manage depot real estate and charging infrastructure, giving fleet operators a fully capitalized, site-to-socket solution from the decision to electrify through daily electric fuel operations.”

The acquisition reinforces the full electric fuel lifecycle: precision depot design and utility coordination, distributed power, optimized energy management, and ongoing operations, offered as a CaaS program to eliminate upfront infrastructure risk. Leasing vehicles and providing fleet services to corporate fleets across the U.S., Inspiration will leverage Electrada’s capabilities to further grow its presence with heavy-duty commercial vehicles, distribution fleets, and the autonomous vehicle market.

“At a moment when fuel price spikes have already disrupted fleet budgets and operational planning, the value proposition for electrification has never been clearer,” said Josh Green, founder and CEO of Inspiration Mobility Group. “Electrada has excelled at doing something genuinely difficult: delivering reliable electric fuel at optimized, predictable cost across millions of fleet miles for some of the most operationally complex fleets in the country. Inspiration’s mission has always been to make electric transportation the obvious economic choice for commercial fleets, not just the responsible one. This acquisition strengthens our ability to deliver that outcome, at scale, giving customers one turnkey partner from the decision about where, when, and how to electrify, to the deployment of vehicles and charging, and lastly to daily fleet and electric fuel operations.”

Keep Reading! WEX Unveils Fleet Card Unifying Fueling and Public EV Charging Payments

A conversation with a maintenance expert reveals the two most common summer maintenance pains and how to prevent them.

The summer months and their humid temperatures are officially in full swing, which means summer maintenance is, too. Vehicle heat failures are predictable, and yet many fleets still suffer from preventable downtime. The most commonly overlooked vulnerability, according to maintenance manager Jenny Baker from Mike Albert, is cooling systems and “Batteries! Summer heat is extremely hard on batteries, so they should be inspected before the hot weather hits.”

Heat accelerates battery degradation, increasing the likelihood of no-start situations that can take vehicles out of service unexpectedly. Testing batteries before temperatures rise can help fleets avoid costly roadside service calls.

Cooling and AC Systems

Beyond batteries, two vehicle systems are particularly vulnerable during the summer months: the air conditioning and engine cooling systems.

“Two vehicle systems that take a hard hit in the summer are the AC system and the engine cooling system,” Baker said. 

Spring preventative maintenance can help address both of these issues before they occur.

“AC systems should be checked in the spring for both overall performance and freon levels, so that any issues are caught well before the heat of summer creates an urgent problem.”

Cooling systems deserve the same level of attention.

Vehicle coolant should also be checked in the spring, with particular attention to leaks and to verifying that the thermostat is operating correctly.

Neglecting these inspections can lead to one of the most common summer-related breakdowns: overheating. Combined with battery failures, overheating events account for many of the service disruptions fleets experience during hot weather.

“The two most common summer breakdowns that could have been prevented are no-starts caused by battery failure and overheating from neglected cooling systems,” she said. 

The Small Maintenance Investments that Deliver

When it comes to preventive maintenance, fleets often focus on inspections, but other practices can also play an important role in reducing downtime.

More frequent oil changes can deliver some of the greatest ROI for fleets during the summer season because oil breaks down faster in warmer weather, Baker said. 

More frequent service intervals also create opportunities to identify developing issues before they become costly repairs.

“By getting oil changes more often during the warmer months and pairing them with the proper inspections each time, fleet managers can reduce unplanned downtime,” she said. 

Telematics’ Role in Preventing Summer Breakdowns

Technology can help fleets move beyond scheduled maintenance and toward a more proactive approach. Telematics and maintenance platforms provide valuable insight into vehicle health and performance trends, particularly during periods of extreme heat.

“Telematics and maintenance data are powerful tools for getting ahead of summer-related vehicle issues before they result in a breakdown.”

By monitoring key indicators, fleet managers can identify problems before drivers become stranded.

Staying Consistent

Ultimately, the fleets that avoid recurring summer downtime tend to share one characteristic: consistency.

When asked to give fleet managers one piece of advice to improve summer fleet readiness this year, she was direct. 

Baker’s response: “Be consistent and formalize that consistency into a weather readiness policy.”

That policy should outline the preventive measures needed to keep vehicles operating reliably throughout the season. The policy should specifically include more frequent oil changes during summer months, scheduled inspections for AC systems, battery testing, and cooling system checks.

The payoff extends beyond reliability.

“Lower overall costs are both the goal and the result of doing summer readiness the right way,” Baker said.

For fleet managers, summer maintenance is less about reacting to heat-related failures and more about preventing them through planning and inspection.,

About Jenny Baker: With over 30 years of dedicated experience in the automotive industry, Jenny Baker-Ford brings expertise to her role as Maintenance Manager at Mike Albert. Since joining the company in April 2019, she has leveraged her extensive knowledge of vehicle service requirements across multiple manufacturers to develop tailored maintenance strategies that minimize downtime and optimize fleet performance.

Throughout her career, Jenny has maintained a commitment to professional development and industry certifications. As an ASE Certified professional, she brings technical credibility to her leadership role. Her skill set encompasses project management, continuous improvement methodologies, and comprehensive knowledge of automotive products and services.

Prior to joining Mike Albert, Jenny held service and warranty roles at Lexus and Toyota dealerships and at Busam Automotive.

Related: Spring Cleaning: 5 Tips to Prep Your Fleet for Warmer Weather