Energizing the Fleet Industry: A New Generation's Perspective with Brett Ashley Bridges Artwork

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Energizing the Fleet Industry: A New Generation's Perspective with Brett Ashley Bridges

January 15, 2025 • Ridecell

In this Mile Marker Podcast episode, we speak with Brett Ashley Bridges, Director of Communications and Client Services at BBL Fleet. Brett shares her journey into the fleet industry, highlighting the unique community, mentorship, and support for newcomers. She discusses the challenges fleet clients face, such as time and resource constraints, and the increasing demand for data-driven insights and AI tools to streamline fleet management. Brett emphasizes the importance of work-life harmony, a concept that blends professional efficiency with personal well-being, and encourages the industry to attract younger generations by promoting flexible work structures and mentorship opportunities.

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Energizing the Fleet Industry: A New Generation's Perspective with Brett Ashley Bridges

Angela Simoes: Welcome everyone to another episode of the Mile Market podcast. I'm Angela Samos, your host, and I'm here with Brett Ashley Bridges, director of Communications and client services for BBL Fleet. Welcome, Brett.

Brett Ashley Bridges: Thank you for having me.

Angela Simoes: So I'm really excited. I feel like you're the new face of the new generation of fleet, right?

Brett Ashley Bridges: Yes.

Angela Simoes: I think when most people think of, oh, you work in fleet and they picture a guy, an old guy, and you are not an old guy. So tell us a little bit about how did you get into this career and your role and what do you do?

Brett Ashley Bridges: Sure. So I actually fell into fleet like a lot of other people did when I was moving back to Pittsburgh. Got connected with someone who was friends with our owner and she said, Hey, I have this great person who might be a good fit for you. So we did a couple of round of interviews and I knew absolutely nothing about Fleet, but they decided to take a chance on me and I was willing to learn and use the skills that I had from other project management positions and it's worked out well. So here I am in my almost fifth year and I manage our implementations for onboarding new clients, but also some transitions for existing clients who may want to add services or be thinking about other ways that they could improve on their fleets.

Angela Simoes: And so what have you enjoyed about being in the fleet industry and how do you feel like the fleet industry could attract more young people in the next generation as we have a whole slew of retirees that are going to retire pretty soon?

Brett Ashley Bridges: Yeah, I think what I enjoy the most is you can draw upon a lot of different experiences. So whether you're someone who's more analytical or maybe you're someone who's more on the hands-on side, there's always somewhere where a person could fit in fleet. There's always a great support for any areas of interest, and I think that's something that's very unique to our industry. So if you want to be mentored up or if you're looking for different opportunities, there's a lot of different avenues out there that could help you to support or explore that, which I haven't seen in a lot of other places. And I really appreciate.

Angela Simoes: I think we were talking just briefly before we started recording and you were saying that compared to some other industries, the fleet industry is actually quite welcoming, which is wonderful to hear. Can you talk a little bit about that just in terms of, so we're here at ala, right? Recording live at ala. So being here at conferences like ALA and meeting other people, talk a little bit about how the fleet industry is unique in that aspect.

Brett Ashley Bridges: There's a huge celebration for all of the first time attendees, and actually it was really inspiring to see just how many people are new attendees every year. They're standing up in the room so that we can identify them. And there's a big push for those veterans to look for those stickers that say first time attendee, just to reach out and let everyone know they can be of a resource or I'm a buddy or a mentor who can take you around and introduce you to people. So I think that's something that you don't always see and I really appreciate that, especially for newer people, even second and third year, if you're not going to as many shows or maybe you're not familiar with this group of people, you can just see it in any of the spaces that we're in. You can sit down and strike up a

Angela Simoes: Conversation. And so I know last year you won the President's award for Alas, so congratulations for that. And you are also the chair for the communications task force now. So tell us a little bit about what that entails and what your task force is working

Brett Ashley Bridges: On. So last year we kind of realigned the mission for AF a to focus on fleet and mobility professionals and just making sure that we're the hub for connection and learning and different opportunities. And so really the communications task was trying to help to drive that goal and making sure that we're making people aware of industry trends, what's happening, what are we seeing that could potentially impact fleet managers or any mobility professionals. But we also love to collaborate with the other task forces as well. So the education task force launched Fleet 1 0 1 today, so we're going to be really excited to highlight that in our next newsletter that comes out.

Angela Simoes: Excellent. And what are some of the trends that you're seeing, or maybe just from A BBL fleet from your company standpoint, what are some of the things that your customers are asking about or challenges they're dealing with or some of the things that your team is focused on?

Brett Ashley Bridges: I think a big challenge for a lot of fleet professionals today is that everybody is struggling with the lack of time

And a lack of budgeting resources as well. So everybody is trying to do more with less. So I feel like a lot of the clients who we're working with are really reaching out to have that consultative portion added to their services, something that we always try to do with our clients, but they're really leaning into our knowledge and our expertise now to say, Hey, how do I go about replacement cycling or what's the best way to be the most efficient for our maintenance? So they're really looking for that support, and I think that's something that a lot of vendors can lean into definitely.

Angela Simoes: Are they looking for advice on new tools to use? So how can I automate this? How can I get through all these communications more efficiently? Those kinds of things.

Brett Ashley Bridges: Yeah, no. One of the good things about the visibility a lot of the fleets have today is that they have a ton of data that they can analyze, but of course with that time constraint, what do you look into? How do you make it actionable? And so I think they're really trying to make sure that they have consolidated information and then they know how to look at that data and say, okay, these are the core issues that I'm going to focus on now versus getting inundated with what it is they're seeing.

Angela Simoes: And one of our previous conversations today, generative AI came up and the fact that even just from a summarize this report or give me some ideas on this to help the administrative process. Are you or your team exploring that? Do you have customers asking you about how do I use this generative AI thing, right? Yeah. How can it help me be more efficient because I have all these emails to go through and I have all this data to go through, and there's just not enough hours in the day. So I'm curious if that question comes up at all or if you're seeing people use generative ai.

Brett Ashley Bridges: It does for us. I know we have some things in the work, so I don't want to just spoil that for our, but it's definitely something that we're trying to see how we can take the information that we provide our clients and we can help them to type in a question and that helps to spit out an answer or what's going to help them be the best and make the best decisions about their fleet is really going to help drive that. But then know that there's a lot of interest in that AI portion of how do you really make that work? What does it mean? How do you implement it? So we're working with a lot of our clients to see how that could be a fit for them.

Angela Simoes: Awesome. So since we are here at ala and you've been to a number of ALA conferences already, what are you hoping to get out of the three days here in San Antonio?

Brett Ashley Bridges: Yeah, I love just absorbing, there's a lot of information that comes out. So even as fleet professionals ourselves, I think we can get inundated with information too.

So nice to have dedicated time where we can sit and talk about what's at the forefront. So I know we're talking about EV vehicles and a lot of those are coming up for their first replacement cycle. So there's a lot of data about dispelling myths on how efficient EV vehicles are, what is the actual cost of having an EV vehicle? So really excited to see what has come out of the findings for those who have had a whole cycle of ev. Also seeing AI and how that's going to play in part in fleet moving forward and just learning from those who have already done it. A lot of people who are trailblazers for that information and so really want to take the time to absorb that and to dissect that information with those who are here too.

Angela Simoes: Yeah, there's a lot of pilot programs happening and you're kind of like, let's let some of those other folks make the mistakes and kick the tires, if you will. Right? Yep. And then are you kind hoping that others that are attending the conference that they will have any specific takeaways from your perspective?

Brett Ashley Bridges: Yeah, I know sitting in the WFAM session this morning too is really inspiring. One of the takeaways that they were talking about is really making sure that you're investing in bringing up that next group of people. So talking about there will be those who retire and how do we make sure that we have a pipeline of professionals who are ready to move in and feel supported. And I think that's something that we can all take back, not just in the fleet industry, but just in our own communities as well. So I'm really excited to take that back. And also investing in our communities, what are we doing with our time outside of being fleet professionals? Definitely being mindful about how we spend our time. I think it's easy to go home and want to disconnect, but what are powerful ways we

Angela Simoes: Can still be impactful? It's a perfect lead into my next question, which is something that we've been asking all of our guests here at afla, which is we sit in front of a computer all day, we're very much in the tech world. So how do you achieve work-life balance or according to the keynote from today work-life harmony, if you will, anything specific that you do to achieve that?

Brett Ashley Bridges: And I'd love the idea of work-life harmony. I don't think I've ever heard that person

Angela Simoes: Before. I've never heard it either. Yeah.

Brett Ashley Bridges: So I really appreciate that for me, because I am on back-to-back meetings a lot of days, a lot of my activities try to do nothing with technology whatsoever. So this year I've been trying to really explore activities I've not delved into. So I have taken tennis lessons Oh nice. Trying to learn how to play golf, take bar classes. So it's really exciting to do those things because you can connect with others, you can be outside, and we're not so connected to that phone that follows us everywhere.

Angela Simoes: So this next question ties a bit to the work-life harmony situation question, but also the attracting new generation. Or do you think that it's possible in the fleet industry as fleet professionals to implement something? I dunno if it's like a program or a technology or something that helps fleet professionals have work-life balance and then that in turn could serve as a recruitment tool for the upcoming generation. Because

Lots of studies have shown, or surveys have shown that the newer generations, they care about companies that are socially responsible and they don't want to work 14 hour days and they want to have the work-life balance and maybe they probably want to work from home or maybe they want the option to come in and engage with fellow coworkers. So I'm just curious, are there tools that we think that we just can sort of naturally be implemented in the fleet industry? Whether that's, again, getting through emails more efficiently or assessment reports doing those more efficiently? I don't know, but I'm curious if there's been any discussion like that in your task force meetings or if you have your own thoughts on what we could achieve there.

Brett Ashley Bridges: Sure. I think it starts with an awareness of the industry

First. I know it was funny because one of the panelists said, someone asked them, did they grow up wanting to do fleet? And someone's actually asked me that and I was like, no, I didn't know that this was career path before five years ago. So I think it's a great opportunity for any of the industry associations to get connected with the colleges and trade schools because I think just making the next generation aware that this could be a career path is going to be great. And then getting them connected to the mentor to show this is the path that I took and this is how I have that harmony in my life between personal and professional, just so that they can see what works for them and then they could see what maybe doesn't work for them, because it's going to be different for everyone. So

Angela Simoes: No, that's great. Just often think also going back to the generative AI thing, I often wonder how efficiently people will be able to use it in order to get through their tasks faster in a day and then they can go to tennis lessons earlier or more frequently. You know what I mean? So things like that because I mean, I love sitting behind a computer, said no one ever,

Brett Ashley Bridges: Right? Yeah, exactly. And I think it's interesting to explore, to see, we talk about AI in terms of how do we manage fleets, but how is it AI and how do we manage what it is that we do every day to make that automation so that we can spend more time on maybe areas that we've really wanted to touch on that this time didn't allow. So it's going to be exciting to see how that impacts us on the provider side as well.

Angela Simoes: Right, very much so. Well, this has been a lovely conversation. Thank you so much, Brett. I really appreciate it and wish you continued success and we hope to see more people like you in the fleet industry, young energy with new ideas. And not to say that old people can't have ideas, but you know what I mean. We need young energy to bring some good, I dunno, just to the industry, but it has been great. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank

Brett Ashley Bridges: You so much. I appreciate it.