Young Automotive Professionals Conference

The SAE Detroit Section hosted their annual Young Automotive Professionals Conference again this past summer. The pool of attendees included SAE student chapter members along with recently graduated engineers who had just entered the workforce. The facility host this year was Ford Motor Company as the event was at the Ford Proving Grounds in Dearborn, MI. The morning was focused on several industry speakers from companies such as Ford, GM, Toyota, and the smaller electric car company Tesla. Each speaker provided their view of the industry along with providing answers to some questions from the audience. The real highlight of the event, in my opinion, was the Ride & Drive event that took place in the afternoon. Various types of road courses featuring different Ford vehicles were set up for the participants. I was able to drive new Ford vehicles such as the Ford Flex, Fusion, Lincoln MKS and MKX, Mazda Tribute Hybrid, and 2009 F-150 among others. Driving courses included the Belgian blocks and parabolics. The best stage had to be the particular stage where a participant rode along side a Ford professional driver in a Mustang, pushing the vehicle to the limits. All said and done, the event was extremely worth the drive out to Dearborn on a Saturday. I would highly recommend this annual event to any young SAE member, as it is a great opportunity to drive some new vehicles and gain some wisdom from senior industry leaders.

Robert Cudini
MSAE External Vice President