6 Nominees Named for 2008 Fleet Executive of the Year

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Gary Anton

Company: Illinois Tool Works Inc. (ITW)

Title: Vice President Strategic Sourcing & IT

Total Vehicles: 3,800 (200 U.S.; 3,600 global)

Staff Supervised: 25

Years in Fleet: 8

Replacement Policy: Three years/70,000 miles

Part of the strategic sourcing team, Anton recognized and implemented an action plan that provides ITW cost and administrative savings through consolidating and standardizing its U.S. fleet of more than 200 vehicles.

He was instrumental in consolidating several fleet administrator positions to one fleet management company. Previously, ITW business units contracted independently with numerous lease companies and local dealers to handle their fleet needs.

Anton made sure the fleet team — including ITW and its fleet management company representatives — remained focused and continued to move ahead. He secured the support of ITW's senior management team, through soliciting input and discussing the overall benefits of a consolidated program, which enabled a smooth transition for fleet.

With Anton's support, the ITW fleet program reduced its suppliers from 26 to one, negotiated an enhanced agreement for volume discounts, enrolled 97 percent of fleet in a management program, established a corporate policy, created a fleet Intranet site, implemented a corporate accident management program, and identified annual savings of more than $3.5 million.

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James Jin Company: Merck & Co.

Title: Sourcing Manager

Total Vehicles: 22,000

Staff Supervised: 1

Years in Fleet: 4

Replacement Policy: Three years/65,000 miles  

 

Jin joined Merck & Co., a global pharmaceutical company based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., in July 2005 as global fleet sourcing manager. Jin instituted the Supplier Value Management (SVM) program — a program designed to establish and optimize key supplier relationships — with fleet suppliers in 2006. The SVM program is a part of Merck's Sourcing Management Process (SMP), which was implemented in 2004. Through a rigorous spend analysis and market study, Jin developed a strategy to leverage Merck's fleet spend across the entire Americas region. The strategy paid off in the company's contract negotiation and yielded significant cost reductions for the company.

In 2007, he led the sourcing project of Merck's fleet program in Japan, thoroughly analyzed market conditions and the supply chain, and developed a strategy to leverage Merck's experience globally. Jin has delivered significant savings to the company through negotiation and efficiency improvement.

By continuing to lead fleet sourcing activity across the world, Jin has created a center of expertise that benefits all company regions through coaching and best practice sharing.

[PAGEBREAK]Don Schaefer

Company: USG Corp.

Title: Director, Safety & Fleet Operations

Total Vehicles: 1,400

Staff Supervised: 6

Years in Fleet: 8

Replacement Policy: Sedans and SUVs – 36 months/50,000 miles; Pickups – 48 months/80,000 miles 

Schaefer is responsible for safety, including regulatory compliance at all USG operations worldwide, along with business continuity, passenger vehicles, and light-duty trucks.

He has maintained overall driver satisfaction while reducing fleet costs and has achieved an overall fleet cost reduction since 2006 of about $900,000 in spite of increased fuel costs. This was accomplished by a selection of smaller more fuel-efficient vehicles that still met company business needs.

He has successfully integrated more than 100 new drivers through acquisition from their existing vehicle leases to the company fleet program.

He increased the percentage of vehicles sold to employees to 46 percent (from June 2007 to March 2008) with the remaining vehicles sold at auction or wholesale.

With the help of a newly redesigned Intranet site, Schaefer improved employee communication. The updated site provides comprehensive information to all new or newly assigned drivers on fleet policies and procedures, including answers to common questions, instructions on how to properly report vehicle collisions/incidents, how to order a new vehicle along with current vehicle selectors, and more.

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Pete Silva

Company: PepsiCo

Title: Director, Fleet Procurement

Total Vehicles: 48,000

Staff Supervised: 7

Years in Fleet: 10

Replacement Policy: Three years/75,000 miles

 

Silva’s 25-year career with Frito Lay/PepsiCo has led him to the position of director of fleet procurement. Silva is in charge of negotiating agreements with truck, car, fuel, and maintenance providers, and is responsible for fleet agreements for all PepsiCo entities, including Frito Lay, Tropicana, Naked Juice, Anchor Bottlers, and a number of independent Pepsi bottlers. The U.S. fleet size totals more than 45,000 units.

PepsiCo tested hybrids in 2005, and with senior leadership support and direction, the company opted to convert its company car fleet to hybrids. Silva developed new fleet/business policies and strong vendor relationships to promote a smooth transition.

In 2007, PepsiCo tripled the number of hybrids in its sales fleets, decreasing the overall emissions by approximately 10-12 percent per vehicle.

Silva supported the Frito Lay North America divisions’ delivery truck redesign from conventional step vans to commercial cutaway vans, providing significant capital savings ($30 million) over the past two years.

He also facilitated the implementation of new technology in the PepsiCo Tropicana division, eliminating refrigeration units on its refrigerated delivery trucks and reducing fuel usage and emissions while maintaining product integrity.

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Mike St. Clair

Company: ServiceMaster

Title: Vice President, Fleet

Total Vehicles: 17,737

Staff Supervised: 28

Years in Fleet: 20

Replacement Policy: Varies by vehicle specs

Over the past four years, St. Clair has built a dynamic team and successfully implemented a comprehensive fleet management strategy with an emphasis on delivering value to ServiceMaster’s businesses through a customer-focused, "right vehicle, right place, right time, at the right price" approach. This strategy resulted in a ROI of 128 percent over the period of 2002-2007.

The ServiceMaster fleet team achievements in 2007 are the result of a significant journey that started in 2002 when the company began centralizing the fleet management operation. The current organization consists of nine business units with more than 17,000 vehicles.

St. Clair instituted an enterprise-wide fuel purchasing program, staged multiple chassis-sourcing events, and created a vehicle specification rationalization, including engineering and design as well as supplier sourcing and consolidation.

Other fleet initiatives St. Clair directed reduced fleet inventory, increased warranty recovery, achieved a customer satisfaction rating of 94 percent in 2007, achieved 94 percent on-time vehicle delivery, completed the implementation of Cetaris’ Web Fleet Assistant (fleet asset and maintenance management system) in 2007 to more than 800 branch locations, and achieved a total average resale value of 100-percent Black Book on the sale of 2,299 vehicles.

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Scott Surrell

Company: Aramark

Title: Corporate Vice President Fleet Services

Total Vehicles: 11,000

Staff Supervised: 12

Years in Fleet: 30

Replacement Policy: Three years/100,000 miles; Light trucks, vans, etc., up to 10 years

Surrell started his career in the auto-truck business in 1977 as a fuel/washer with Hertz Truck Rental. In 1985, Surrell joined what is now Aramark as assistant fleet manager. Surrell’s leadership in motivating staff and partners impacts annual expenditures of more than $50 million.

Aramark has leases with multiple leasing companies and has a dozen companies under its umbrella with varying vehicle needs. Surrell’s department manages the majority of fleet operations in-house, i.e. maintenance (utilizing national accounts and dealers), accidents, vehicle specifications (partnering with manufacturers, upfitters, and leasing companies), and remarketing.

He manages multiple fleet companies and strategic sourcing and project management for diverse operations.

Responsible for asset and inventory control, Surrell oversees a fleet of more than 14,000 vehicles in several hundred locations. He manages the oversight and policy development for safety and accident management, vehicle acquisition and assignment, and data integrity, and he has implemented DOT compliance programs.

Surrell has a notable track record of negotiating cost savings in the areas of vehicle specifications and selection, remarketing, maintenance, accidents, fuel, warranty, and vendors. He orchestrated strategies and managed the transition of fleet from outsourcing services to in-house and/or direct with partners. He established a call center and a system for authorization approvals.

Surrell has revised fleet policies for all divisions, resulting in a basic corporate policy. He established vehicle selector levels for management cars and developed specification and ordering procedures for operational vehicles and created fleet programs with and for clients.