DETROIT - David Vasquez, previous director of fleet maintenance for Lake County, was recently recognized as a recipient of the NAFA/Bell Canada 2010 Larry Goill Memorial Quality Fleet Management Idea Awards for developing a solution to reduce use of take-home vehicles.

Vasquez is currently manager of fleet operations for SECO Energy.

In his previous role at Lake County in Sumpterville, Fla., Vasquez recognized a large number of county vehicles were assigned as take-home vehicles without proper justification - a situation that negatively impacted the county's fleet budget. Vasquez developed a simplified process to justify vehicle assignments based on the percentage of commuting use versus business use.

His vehicle justification model, based on NAFA's Lifecycle Cost Analysis, calculates vehicle assignment based on the actual costs, defining cost of ownership by year, month, and mile. The model has several user-adjustable parameters, including months in service and targeted mileage, and compares those figures against the anticipated monthly usage and mileage. In addition, the model breaks down the annual and lifetime costs of business use versus commuting use and compares the cost of a County-supplied vehicle against the IRS reimbursement rate. Most importantly, the model has a decision-making formula that clearly states whether or not assignment of a county vehicle is more economical than employee reimbursement and whether or not an assignment can be justified based on anticipated mileage and business need. 

Vasquez started out using the model to justify requests for new vehicle assignments, but ended up using it to highlight and reduce commuting use. Judges for this year's Goill Awards commented that his idea was a great example of a simple, low-cost solution that provided great savings and better efficiency, according to NAFA.

The Goill Award is presented each year to fleet managers whose innovative ideas have improved productivity or resulted in bottom-line savings for their employers. Bob Adamsky, fleet manager for Del-Air Heating and Air Conditioning, also received the award this year.