Locomation hires industry safety veteran Kenner as Vice President of Safety

Locomation, the world’s first technology platform to offer human-guided autonomous truck convoying, today announced the hiring of automotive industry veteran Steve Kenner to serve as Vice President of Safety. In this role, Kenner will be responsible for Locomation’s overall product and organizational safety.

“We’re thrilled to have such a well known expert in safety engineering join our team,” said Dr. Çetin Meriçli, Locomation’s co-founder and CEO. “There is no one else who better understands how to build automotive products and manage risk at a very large scale than Steve.”

Most recently, Kenner was Director of Safety Standards at Aurora, where he led a team of engineers, data scientists, and policy experts to identify, develop, and apply safety standards, industry best practices, and safety metrics for the safe development and deployment of self-driving systems. He also served as Director of Product Safety Engineering at Uber Advanced Technologies Group. In that role, Steve led efforts to validate Uber ATG’s technology which included functional safety, software safety, and fault management.

Previously, Steve was the Director of Product Integrity at Apple Special Projects Group where he was responsible for safety and regulatory compliance. Prior to Apple, Steve was the Global Director of the Automotive Safety Office (ASO) at Ford Motor Company, working on Corporate Vehicle Safety Policy & Rulemaking; Vehicle Safety Governance & Risk Assessment; Traffic Safety Data Analysis; Vehicle Safety Government Reporting; Product Litigation Technical Support; and, Global Product Safety Investigations. While at ASO, Steve served on the boards of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America and the Transportation Improvement Association of Michigan. Additionally, Steve was appointed to two terms on the Intelligent Transportation Systems Program Advisory Committee by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation.

Steve has over 35 years of experience in automotive engineering and worked for General Motors and Chrysler before joining Ford. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Kettering University and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

“I believe Locomation’s approach to human-guided autonomous convoys is the most practical and safest path for initial deployment of  autonomous vehicles.  This approach will provide near-term value while laying the foundation for solo full autonomy in the future,” Kenner said. “I’m very pleased to be joining this talented team at an exciting time in Locomation’s history.”