Heavy Duty Trucking’s Fleet Innovators for 2025 are five executives leading the industry in technology adoption, process improvement, safety, sustainability, and more.

Since 2006, the editors at Heavy Duty Trucking have honored a small group of trucking executives each year, chosen for specific innovations and/or for fostering an overall culture that encourages innovative thinking.

These outstanding leaders work for a wide variety of heavy-duty trucking companies. They encompass operations such as drayage, truckload, less than truckload, intermodal, dedicated, fuel and oil products, local/yard management, and logistics.

And because innovation isn’t a factor of size, these companies operate fleets ranging from fewer than 100 tractors to 19,000.

HDT’s 2025 Truck Fleet Innovators are embracing new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, safety technologies, and zero-emission vehicles, and figuring out how to make them work to improve their operations — to make their companies safer, more efficient, more profitable, more sustainable, and a better place to work.

The 2025 HDT Truck Fleet Innovators are:

• Rudy Diaz, Founder/CEO/President, Hight Logistics, Long Beach, California

• Brent Ellis, VP of Business Systems and Processes, Decker Truck Line, Fort Dodge, Iowa

• Ryan Kocher, Director of Emerging Equipment Technology, Knight-Swift Transportation, Phoenix, Arizona

• Jerrin Martin, Vice President of Operations, North Division, Lazer Logistics, Alpharetta, Georgia

• David Murphy, Director of Safety, Keystops LLC, Franklin, Kentucky

The 2025 Truck Fleet Innovators will be HDT’s guests at Heavy Duty Trucking Exchange in Scottsdale, Arizona, Sept. 3-5. They will receive their awards in a ceremony and participate in a panel discussion moderated by Heavy Duty Trucking’s editors.