Sean M. Lyden

In 2016, when Mariela Perez and her husband visited the exhibits while attending a national fleet managers conference, very few equipment vendors knew who she was: the head of the fleet department at Duke Energy, one of the largest electric utilities in the U.S. So, you can imagine the awkward surprise for many of those […]

If you’re like many utility fleet leaders right now, you’re bracing for a significant brain drain in your organization as experienced technicians and other key people in the fleet department get ready to retire in the next few years, with fewer younger workers in the pipeline to take their place. So, how can you get […]

As a utility fleet professional, you’re well-versed in ANSI’s requirement for annual dielectric inspections on aerial equipment to verify the nonconductivity of electricity through the boom. These inspections help you and your team identify and fix potential issues before they can cause injury or downtime. But if you have bucket trucks, digger derricks and other […]

Michele Davis has loved cars for as long as she can remember. So, when her father bought her a 1968 Chevy Camaro for her 16th birthday, “I lost my mind,” she recalled. “I didn’t expect anything like that. I mean, I just wanted a car to drive to school, go to work, see all my […]

You know the label on a vehicle’s sideview mirror that reads, “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear”? Perhaps something similar could be said about autonomous vehicles (AVs): They’re closer than we expect. Now, most industry experts agree that full SAE Level 5 driverless vehicles – which can drive themselves anywhere, at any speed, […]

When operating heavy lifting equipment, like forklifts and cranes, there should be no one underneath the lifted load. But there is one exception to that rule: automotive lifts. “The automotive lift industry is the only one where operators are encouraged to go underneath a lifted load,” said R.W. “Bob” O’Gorman, president of the Automotive Lift […]

In his classic bestseller, “Thriving on Chaos,” management expert Tom Peters put it best when he wrote, “Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence – only in constant improvement and constant change.” Perhaps the same could be said about excellent fleets, where you never ultimately arrive at a destination called “excellence.” Instead, you remain on a […]

Ask utility fleet professionals about their biggest challenge, and many will say that it’s recruiting – and keeping – good, young mechanics. That’s because you have to compete with OEMs, local truck centers and other types of fleets for access to a shrinking pool of highly skilled mechanics. So, how do you gain an edge […]