26th Annual Freight and Logistics Symposium: Zero-Emission Freight Vehicles—Go Big or Go Incremental?

José Samperio is the vice president and general manager of North America On-Highway at Cummins Inc. His Cummins career began at the Jamestown Engine Plant as a product engineer, a service engineer, and in distribution service shop operations. Samperio spent time in Beijing, China, as a leader launching new products, followed by a role as general manager for Cummins Power Systems business in Latin America located in Sao Paulo, Brazil. He also served as the engine business strategy leader, where his work was vital in helping craft the long-term vision for the Cummins powertrain business, with a heavy focus on technology roadmaps. 

Samperio has been instrumental in reenergizing Cummins relationships with private truck carriers, forming an excellent customer council and building a cross-functional organization to support the evolving needs of sales operational excellence, as well as alternative fuel and digital strategies. He serves on the board of directors for North American Council for Freight Efficiency and the board of governors for the National Private Truck Council Institute. He also serves on the American Transportation Research Institute’s Research Advisory Committee and the American Trucking Associations’ Technology and Engineering Policy Committee.

Karen Bridges is an attorney and public policy professional currently working as a research specialist with the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. She supports the work of assistant professor Elise Harrington, whose research examines public engagement with emerging energy technologies and local energy and environmental policy processes. 

Bridges has a law degree from the University of Montana School of Law and a Global Energy MBA from the Warwick Business School in the UK. She has worked in the US Senate and as a nonprofit public policy advocate.

Allen Doyel leads sustainability strategy at BNSF Railroad. In this role, Doyel is focused on corporate strategy related to emissions reductions and partnering with the commercial team on sustainable freight solutions for shippers. He also works with the commercial team on circular business opportunities with shippers.

Dan Murray has more than 30 years of experience in a broad range of transportation fields, including trucking research and economics, transportation safety technologies, and autonomous vehicles. As senior vice president for the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), Murray is responsible for managing ATRI’s transportation research, testing, and evaluation and for leading multiple national activities, including the USDOT-sponsored Freight Mobility Initiative. His efforts have led to transportation research awards from ITE, ITS America, and the University of Minnesota, among others.

Jim Mullen has nearly 20 years of broad executive experience in the trucking industry and is the founding principal of Mullen Consulting, LLC. Mullen represents motor carriers, trade associations, and autonomous vehicle stakeholders on various transportation-related matters. He is also the executive director of the Clean Freight Coalition, a coalition of stakeholders in the trucking industry with the mission to advocate for sound public policies regarding the transition to zero emission trucks.

Mullen held the position of chief administrative and legal officer for a publicly traded company that develops the technology for autonomous trucks from 2020-2022. From 2018-2020, he served as acting administrator and chief counsel of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Prior to the FMCSA appointment, Mullen was a lobbyist in Washington, DC, for various stakeholders in the transportation and trade industries. And for over a decade from 2005-2016, Jim was the general counsel at Werner Enterprises. He started his professional career as a trial lawyer in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1993.

Mike Roeth is the executive director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency and the trucking lead for the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has worked in the commercial vehicle industry for more than 35 years, and his specialty is brokering green truck collaborative technologies into the real world at scale.

Roeth served on the second National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, Medicine Committee on Reducing Fuel Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles, is a Department of Energy merit reviewer, and served as chairman of the board for the Truck Manufacturers Association. 

Tim Sexton serves as the assistant commissioner of sustainability, planning, and program management at the Minnesota Department of Transportation, where he provides executive oversight for sustainable transportation, modal planning, research and innovation, asset management, and programming Minnesota’s capital transportation program budget.  He previously served as the first state DOT chief sustainability officer and directed transit, active transportation, and environmental policy and programs in Minnesota and Washington.  

Sexton currently chairs the Transportation Research Board’s Sustainability section, serves on the steering committee for AASHTO’s Committee of Transportation System Security and Resilience and the AASHTO/USDOT Center for Environmental Excellence, and is US delegate and English-speaking secretary to the World Road Association.

Ari Silkey began his Amazon career in 2016 by creating a Minneapolis-based tech team for middle mile transportation. Today, he is the GM of North American Surface Transportation, overseeing a network of more than 50,000 trailers hauling customer orders throughout the US. 

Driving innovation in operational logistics, Silkey created Amazon’s GPS tracking solution and the Amazon Relay app for truck drivers. He serves on the board of Minneapolis’ Downtown Council and on the Executive Committee of the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota. 

Joshua Stanislowski is the director of energy systems development at the Energy and Environmental Research Center, University of North Dakota. In this role, he leads a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers focused on research, development, and commercialization of innovative energy technologies as they relate to coal utilization and emissions, carbon management, and alternative fuels and renewable energy. Prior to his current position, he served as a principal process engineer in the Energy Systems Development group at the EERC. He holds MS and BS degrees in chemical engineering from the University of North Dakota. 

Stanislowski’s principal areas of interest and expertise include coal and biomass gasification systems with an emphasis on novel syngas cooling, cleanup, and separation technologies. He has worked extensively with hydrogen separation membrane systems and liquid fuels catalysis. He is proficient in process modeling and systems engineering, including techno-economic studies using Aspen Plus software. He has significant experience with process engineering, process controls, and project management.