Friends with Benefits

Pat Ryan has around 50 years of experience with a number of major OEMs and their suppliers.

Since late 2024, he has been the National Fleet Training and Handover Manager at Isuzu Australia where he plays an important role in ensuring operators get the most value in terms of safety and efficiency from their trucks.

Prime Mover: Why is the handover and training important?
Pat Ryan: Providing an effective handover of modern trucks can sometimes be time consuming for the fleet, but this does pay back effectively in how the driver can interact with a modern truck and ensure its safe operation. We also ensure they have the knowledge to drive the truck efficiently. I like to get people excited about a new truck and after introducing them to the product I tell them, “You love the product, you’re excited about it, now we need to drive it properly”. Driving a modern truck is vastly different than driving a truck even as little as five years ago. Many of the new active and passive safety features need to be properly explained and demonstrated so the owners and the fleets are comfortable and confident with their decision to buy a new modern truck.

PM: Do you only work with drivers?
PR: For a few years I’ve also been working with sales cadets. I sometimes notice that salespeople are ‘wallet focused’. I urge the new breed of salespeople to be ‘customer focused’ because when you’re customer focused the wallet will look after itself. I love helping young people get into this industry, but I want them to be a proper business partner not just in the good times but, more importantly, in the tough times as well. I want them to be something different, something better — I want them to be a customer-driven sales professional.

PM: Is the technology the next big challenge for a role such as yours’?
PR: It isn’t for me because I love new technology. I just need to keep on top of gathering the information. Isuzu has a lot of people who can train others, and I am close to these people from whom I can obtain information straight from the source. I might come up with some random questions for them, but they’re not actually all from me, but from customers or even someone who’s thinking about buying a new truck and are transitioning to that sort of technology because their own customers deem they want it.

PM: Why the interest in technology?
PR: For me, it is a constant learning curve of what information I can find, often by drilling people for that information so I can answer others’ unusual questions and for my own information. Any new technology is interesting to me. I’ve never been afraid of new technology or whatever is the ‘next big thing’. People who resist new technology get left behind.

PM: Are drivers still the most influential factor in truck operations?
PR: I have a saying that a driver will make something new work spectacularly, but also a driver can make it fail just as spectacularly. It’s all up to the drivers and taking on board what I suggest is what decides whether something will work or if it won’t. When drivers listen, the system works really well.

PM: Will the increase in electric vehicles require a different mindset for drivers?
PR: Most modern cars have a readout for distance-to-empty which is based on the most recent driving style. Electric vehicles have a live projected distance reading which is a really important thing on an electric truck to pay attention to, because driving style can significantly extend the projected distance or chop it in half because the driver is not heeding the advice on how to best drive an electric vehicle.

PM: With Isuzu transitioning to a completely new range during 2025, does the focus change for handover and driver training?
PR: For me, the biggest thing at the moment and I’ve been really concentrating on this, is getting people to understand the safety in the Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS) because I dislike people jumping into a truck and turning every safety system off. I want them to keep them on because if they don’t, they’ll continue to hate the system because they’re not understanding them. I’ll come and help them understand the systems better to keep them switched on. I like to say that “one day it may save your arse and if it’s switched off it can’t do that”. So, leave it on, learn to understand why it’s cranky with you and then work your way around it. Whenever there is an alarm noise in a truck it’s the truck telling you to do something so let’s have a look at what it is, whether it’s lane departure warning or travelling too close to the vehicle in front. I’ve had drivers ask, how do they turn something off, and my response is you don’t need to turn it off because it’s actually telling you you’re doing something wrong or you can do it a little better. I’ve had people with plenty of experience come back to me saying, “your ADAS system has coached me to be a better driver”. I’ve used that quote a lot.

PM: You’re an ADAS advocate?
PR: ADAS, for me, is the most important thing and the reason I’m focusing on it now is the new Isuzu models have a much more comprehensive system than the previous generation. The people who may have been cranky with it before are going to be even crankier with it now, so I want them to understand it. The sales guys are sometimes the hardest to get onside because they’re the ones to cop the grief from the driver or the owner through comments such as, “You’ve sold me this truck and all it does it beep and yell at me.” With drivers, I tell them: “I’m going to be your new best friend because I’m here to train you to operate this better than anyone else”.