Off-Highway Engineering - February 6, 2014 - 40

Q&A
Eaton CTO assumes SAE
VP post
Thomas R. Stover, Chief Technology Officer for Eaton Corp.'s vehicle operations, recently began his term as SAE International's
2014-2016 Vice President-Commercial Vehicle. The 22-year member of SAE International, who joined Eaton in 2002 after 25 years
with Cummins Engine Co., will be charged with providing leadership and continuity for the society's commercial vehicle initiative
and for ensuring that industry needs are integrated into the standards, events, and educational programs. In his current role at
Eaton, Stover is responsible for technology, innovation, and engineering excellence for the Vehicle Group worldwide. SAE
Magazines Assistant Editor Matthew Monaghan recently spoke
with Stover about his new role with SAE and the current state of
the industry.
As a longtime member of SAE, what have you gained
from your experience, and what do you tell young people
is the value of SAE?
Personally, it's a sense of connectivity with the industry. It's allowed
me to keep up with developments, provided forums for interchange of ideas and information, and it's provided me with a network of professional associates. I'm continually surprised by how
valuable that's been to me, both in terms of my development as an
engineer and in my professional life as an engineering leader. What
I tell young engineers is that in order for them to really find their
full potential, they need a way to influence events beyond the
boundaries of their own organization. Professional organizations
like SAE are an ideal way to do that, whether it's through standards
development, committee work, organizing sessions, or being part
of local section organizations. Engineers that understand that and
take that to heart are the ones that really do begin to influence not
only externally but internally as well.
SAE's Commercial Vehicle sector encompasses both the
on- and off-highway segments. Do the trends in those
industries often align?
There are a lot of common elements. When I look at the history of
the commercial vehicle industry as it relates to engineering over
the past 30-40 years, it's been driven by the march on criteria
pollutants, NOx and particulate matter. Lately, the same has been
true of the off-highway industry with the advent of Tier 1, 2, 3,
and 4 off-road emissions in the U.S. Many of the same technologies have been applied. One of the things that's new now is the
advent of fuel-economy regulations in the U.S. in the commercial
vehicle industry. What's going to define the challenge for the next
20-30 years is how do we improve fuel efficiency and reduce
greenhouse gas production in the commercial vehicle space.
Ultimately, I think that's going to translate into the off-road space
as well, even though that's not really being broadly discussed at
this point.
What can SAE do to help find solutions to the fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas challenges?
We certainly want SAE to be an asset to the industry, but I think
SAE has to find the right way to participate as those regulations,
40 February 6, 2014

Thomas R. Stover, shown at the SAE 2013 Commercial Vehicle Engineering
Congress, succeeds Bharat Vedak, Vice President, TCI and Deliver Customer
Value, Deere & Co., as SAE Vice President of Commercial Vehicle. Vedak
served in that post from 2011-13.

procedures, and processes unfold. Some of the things that are certainly possible are things like standards for aerodynamic testing for
heavy-duty trucks, for example. That's a key piece of the fuel-economy regulation. It's a very complex and demanding test environment, and it's an area that really calls for the development of standards. There are a number of other activities that relate to new
testing approaches and new ways of complying with the regulation
that I think SAE could definitely play a key role.
Innovation plays a key role in your position as Chief
Technology Officer. What are the keys to fostering that
innovation among your staff at Eaton?
We really define our space in the market by our ability to innovate
and provide differentiated solutions for our customers. In the
Vehicle Group, we take a very strategic approach to innovation. We
have a dedicated team of advanced development engineers that
are charged with creating a certain growth potential each year. We
have dedicated innovation events where we bring together large
cross-functional groups of people, and that process has been consistently producing growth potential on the order of 10% every
year. The fact that we put focus on it, support it, and talk about it at
the leadership level gives it a lot of visibility in the organization and
it energizes the entire engineering organization to know that the
business leadership is behind the work and supporting it and actively helping it move toward realization.
What can SAE International do to help foster innovation in
the commercial vehicle industry at large?
SAE does a number of things in the commercial vehicle space to
foster innovation. The North American International Powertrain
Conference, the ComVEC conference, there are a number of things
that allow professionals, technical leaders, and business leaders to
share ideas. That's a pretty important thing. The more we have a
chance to at least understand the big ideas, the macro trends that
are driving the industry, the more chance we have to kind of drive
the right kind of activities within our own organization.
Matthew Monaghan

Off-Highway Engineering

Off-Highway Engineering - February 6, 2014

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