Fleet maintenance best practices from executive overachiever David Forgie

Fleet Maintenance selected an Overachiever for six different categories based on reader nominations. This is the winner of the David Forgie. You can view the Technician category, the Trainer category, and the Supervisor category, the Mobile Technician category, and the Support category here.

It’s not a common climb to the C-suite, but Dave Forgie worked his way up to VP of maintenance for midsized carrier Leonard’s Express without any college experience. When he came into the industry 25 years ago, he was a welder by trade. He worked his way up to fleet maintenance manager and started at Leonard’s as a shop manager in 2019. He was promoted to director in 2021.

In that time, he’s proven degrees aren’t the only way to measure mastery of a subject.

“Dave is a source of what I would say is near limitless knowledge,” explained Elizabeth Wyre, Leonard’s New Castle, Delaware, shop manager, who nominated Forgie. “Whenever any of my out-of-state counterparts have issues, Dave always helps get to the root of the issue. It could be shop related, operations related, or even personal. He goes above and beyond to make sure his teams have the tools for successes.”

Wyre said he even once dropped what he was doing to teach her the basics of MIG welding. Moments like these actually save Forgie time in the long run, he said.

“It helps your job become easier when the people beneath you feel empowered to make the decisions,” said Forgie, who was promoted to VP last summer. “Don’t be scared to make a decision. If you’re wrong, you’re wrong. We’ll fix it, and we’ll know for next time.”

This is a lesson he learned from one of his past mentors.

“He was a ballbuster and a mean SOB at times, but I’ll tell you what, he is the best boss I’ve ever had,” Forgie asserted. “He empowered me, he empowered others, and he just wanted to see people succeed.”

Wyre agreed that Forgie “empowers his staff to learn, grow, and work on personal development.”

Ultimately, this also benefits Leonard’s, which has been recognized for three straight years by CarriersEdge as a “Best Fleets to Drive For.”

Leonard’s Express VP of maintenance David Forgie says leadership is knowing when to handle situations with “kid gloves”and when to address issues more directly.

“I want [our employees] to be able to enjoy life and be happy with what they do every day,” he said.

He recalled that some of his former bosses “never wanted to see people underneath them succeed” because that could put their position in jeopardy. This meant limiting their training.

“I try to do the exact opposite,” Forgie said.

Forgie has benefited from decades of on-the-job training and strongly advocates for continuous education in the shop. OEs such as Bendix, Meritor, and Hendrickson will come into the Farmington, New York, and Idaho locations to provide hands-on training. And he encourages maintenance personnel to take online certification classes.

Additionally, he leans heavily on OE experts, such as his Cummins contact who always advises him on key metrics to watch.

To become a better leader, he’s also learned to watch for certain signs within himself. Forgie explained that about five years ago, Leonard’s brought in an expert to train everyone on emotional intelligence. At first, Forgie was skeptical and had “zero buy-in,” but he admitted the six-month class “changed my life—not just work but also home life.”

It taught him that in moments of frustration, he should take a step back and consider the 30,000-ft. view. This may include walking around the shop and coming back with a new approach, and that not everyone should be managed the same way.

“You might have to put kid gloves on one person where another likes that more direct conversation,” he said.

Focus on efficiency

One way to keep everyone happy is by optimizing efficiency and workload. This was aided by a recent rightsizing that decreased the fleet count 15% to about 700 Class 8 tractors—Kenworth T-680s and Freightliner Cascadias, Forgie said.

The fleet also leverages an AI-routing software and tractor and trailer aero kits to make sure fuel isn’t wasted. Leonard’s also employs an mpg analyst to watch for any weekly decreases in fuel efficiency.

“People say pennies don’t matter, but when you’re doing millions of miles across the fleet, those pennies add up a lot,” Forgie said.

Keeping unplanned downtime to a minimum also saves money, so predictive maintenance is big at the family-owned company. Forgie said Cummins Insight and Detroit Connect data provide predictive data.

“We get a report daily of any suspected future failures, for example if a NOx sensor is being a little weird,” he said. That alert may advise attention in the next 90 days, or 30 for more severe issues, he added.

“It’s helped immensely,” Forgie said.

Leonard’s fleet has an average age of under two years, and the company offloads them before they hit 500,000 miles to avoid more costly repairs. But that lifecycle changeout puts the fleet in a precarious position, as it will need new trucks right around 2026, when the entire industry will be buying up trucks to avoid the incoming EPA low-NOx rule for heavy-duty trucks.

But Forgie and his team of 40 techs spread out over five maintenance shops are prepared. They’ve modified their preventive maintenance schedule to include inspections at the 20,000 mile “A” PM to catch possible issues. At the 60,000-mile “B” PM, the fleet’s diagnosticians connect to the OEM engine software to check for quality of regens.