CALGARY, ALBERTA — One of North America’s most respected transportation safety specialists, Gary Catapano, has joined MAGTEC to help promote SafeSpeed—the intelligent vehicle management system that limits the maximum speed to posted speed limits and allows customers to remotely disable moving vehicles safely in emergencies.
“Gary’s unique and long-standing perspective on safety and safer travel will be an enormous benefit to our company and all of our stakeholders, especially passengers,” Bob Morisset, president and CEO, MAGTEC Products Inc. “We know Gary’s unrelenting pursuit of safety, excellence and saving lives will go such a long way toward helping our customers reach their goals of reducing risks and helping drivers and passengers get home safely each day.”
Catapano has been named MAGTEC’s chief strategy & safety advisor, a new position for the Calgary-based company. During Catapano’s 25-year career as a transportation safety professional, he has held senior executive safety positions at large passenger transportation companies, including his most recent post as First Student’s senior vice president of safety, a position he held for 14 years. At First Student, he led safety decisions for school bus operations that impacted more than 55,000 school buses transporting students across North America every day. Catapano also served as the senior safety advisor and chair of the First Group America’s Safety Council, which provided safety guidance and review of First Transit as well as First Student, Greyhound, and First Vehicle Services—companies operating more than 70,000 school bus, motor coach and transit buses.
Catapano says he joined MAGTEC because he believes in the higher purpose of SafeSpeed, the company’s speed-limiting technology.
“Speeding is one of the major causes of serious crashes and fatalities on our highways. In all of my years of work as a highway safety professional, I searched for a product like this,” says Catapano. “It is truly the Holy Grail of safety technology for preventing speeding, and it helps companies to operate safely and demonstrate care for the lives of their employees, passengers and everyone else on the road.”
Catapano also brings to MAGTEC a passion for sharing his safety expertise beyond the corporate world. He served as chair of the National Safety Councils Transportation Safety Division and on its board of safety delegates. He also served the National School Transportation Association for five consecutive terms as chair of the Safety and Security Committee. In addition, he has shared his safety and security experience and expertise with, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Agency, Transportation Security Agency, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration helping to guide decision-making for transportation safety policy.
MAGTEC began developing and manufacturing commercial intelligent vehicle control systems to help prevent Jeep theft during Operation Desert Storm, and has since designed systems used to prevent vehicle and cargo theft, speeding and more for fleets that transport everything from high-value pharmaceuticals to oil and gas. The company is now focusing on promoting the use of its speed-limiting technology on school and transit buses, motorcoach, and commercial trucking.
“Protecting passengers, drivers and other highway users is what our products are all about, so we’re excited to have Gary build awareness about how SafeSpeed can help make transportation safer,” says Morisset.
SafeSpeed harnesses advanced proprietary technology to automatically and proactively limit bus and truck speeds according to posted speed limits in real time, and it’s the only device of its kind. The technology also helps mitigate the risks of speeding-related crashes when drivers suffer from medical issues, and also allows fleet managers to remotely disable moving vehicles in the event of hijackings.
ABOUT MAGTEC
MAGTEC specializes in developing and manufacturing commercial intelligent vehicle control systems that help prevent theft, reduce speeding and enhance safety compliance for all classes of vehicles, including heavy equipment industries. One of its newest intelligent speed-limiting technology products, SafeSpeed, is a patented solution that automatically limits vehicle speeds to posted speed limits in real time. MAGTEC’S headquarters are in Calgary, Alberta, and the company operates two wholly owned subsidiaries, MAGTEC Products (USA), Inc. and MAGTEC Asia, Inc. https://magtec.com/
