Lessons Learned and Future-Proofing Strategies for Public Fleets with Facundo Tassara

If there’s one thing Facundo Tassara knows, it’s the people behind the fleets. It comes with the territory — a former government fleet manager turned head of customer success at Revvo, Tassara is all about what, and more specifically, who drives the industry. 

Recently, Tassara was brought on as the new fleet success ambassador with RTA: The Fleet Success Company where he’ll continue to work with fleet customers across the industry. 

The Journey into Fleet and Creating Valuable Connections

“I got into fleet management much like so many others, by accident!” Tassara noted. “I needed a part-time job in college…and strongly suggested to my father, owner of a mechanic shop, that he should hire me to help out in the front office.”

Eventually, 12 years later, Tassara found himself on the receiving end of a Masters in Public Administration before entering the workforce as fleet manager for the city of Ormond Beach, Florida.

After about seven years in fleet management, he spent eight years at a mobility tech start-up, and then helping a couple of early-stage startups bring their technology to market and adapt it to fleet management.

“What I experienced firsthand as a fleet manager is still the thing that interests me most about fleet management – the connection of fleet management to the mission of the organization and the quality of life to the citizens of the community,” he explained. 

Lessons Learned That Will Carry Over Into a New Role

Tassara believes the biggest lesson he has learned through his past work experience is overcoming the pursuit of perfection. For him, it’s about starting with something that is “good enough” and meant to be improved upon, delivering better and faster results with the intended outcomes. 

“This is important in a start-up environment where speed is important,” he added. “Working in tech start-ups almost always implies creating a new process or product.”

It was in these roles, that Tassara spent several hours visualizing the end product before starting to design based on what he had visualized. The design could be created in something as simple as a whiteboard or PowerPoint…but this process would usually jump-start the task at hand.

And Tassara plans to take what he has learned into the new role. RTA is a fleet software company focusing on government fleets and investing in fleet operational knowledge to help customers succeed. This in part means hiring people with fleet management experience, like Tassara.

“For my part, I’ll help bring the voice of government fleets to product development from a real-world application point of view,” Tassara explained. “I will also work within the industry to build relationships that strengthen RTA’s ability to serve customers.”

From a customer perspective, he’ll be helping public fleets succeed by helping them document their internal KPIs and benchmarks, building internal processes, and meeting their operational goals. 

“The job is about more than software, it’s about helping public fleets be more successful.”

Facing Present-Day Challenges Within the Public Sector 

According to Tassara, some of the biggest challenges that fleets face today are also things that can be used to their advantage. 

“As I transitioned out of government fleet about eight years ago, the technician shortage was a challenge, and it’s still a challenge today,” he stated. “Also, data overload and integrity issues often delayed critical decisions that needed to be made for the benefit of the organization.”

Fast forward a few years and Tassara is looking at the potential new technology can have for fleets when it relates to problems in fleet management. For example, real-time tire monitoring not only monitors tire health, but also helps fleets reduce PM times by automating most of the tire check process.

“Now assume you can reduce your PMs by 10 minutes each and you do that hundreds of times per month,” Tassara explained. “This would have a significant impact in allowing technicians to focus on more specialized work – all by partially automating tire checks. In addition, as tasks become partially or fully automated and technicians become more efficient, technician shortage within an organization could improve. Like in this example, it’s about solving a problem, implementing a solution, and measuring the outcomes.”

Finding Resources and Planning Ahead in the New Year

Tassara advises fleets to use any tool that can help them safely automate parts of their day-to-day operations. He noted that tech startups taught him to look for automation any time a task is being done over and over again. This can be on the shop floor, the parts room, or front office.

“I am a firm believer that fleet technicians should never be fully replaced, but the technology is out there to make technicians better, more effective, and more efficient,” he added. 

When it comes to preparing for what’s coming down the fleet pipeline, Tassara noted it’s something that’s not surprising to most fleet managers: electric vehicles. 

“More companies are being spun up every day offering everything a fleet could need regarding EVs, including funding, EVs as a service, batteries, chargers, site evaluation, and installs,” he explained. 

Tassara encouraged fleets to rely on organizations to let them demonstrate why EVs do or don’t make sense in their fleets and how they stack up to the duties of a fleet.

“I admire EVs, but when I put my fleet manager hat back on, I am certain EVs are not one-size-fits-all,” he stated. “That can be hard to demonstrate against someone’s all-green agenda.”

However, Tassara believes that as fleets continue to replace vehicles, alternative fuel or not, significantly reducing their carbon footprint is very much achievable. Furthermore, he adds that as a bonus to just renewing a fleet, safety goes up tremendously not only for the driver but the community through on-board radar and crash avoidance technology.

“As we look down the road regarding safety, vehicle-to-everything, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication will be a game changer,” Tassara stated. “This sort of communication between vehicles and infrastructure will allow vehicles to see around corners, vehicles, and more further reducing serious accidents while increasing pedestrian safety.”

Originally posted on Government Fleet