Dr. Dean Bushey

Dr. Dean Bushey is the senior vice president of sustainability for TravelCenters of 
America (TA). He has over 30 years of business, academic, and military leadership 
experience in energy, transportation infrastructure, and mobility as a business leader, 
computer scientist, educator, pilot, and autonomous systems expert

In his current role, Dean leads and directs eTA, a new business unit dedicated to 
delivering sustainable and alternative energy to the marketplace with a focus on 
partnering with the public sector, private companies, and customers to facilitate the 
greening of the transportation industry. Additionally, he is charged with developing TA's 
environmental, social, and governance strategy. Finally, Dean is responsible for 
providing leadership to the broader organization to ensure it adapts to changes and 
opportunities relating to EVs, hydrogen fuel systems, and other alternative energy 
sources to ensure TA occupies a leading role in this transition toward non-fossil fuels in 
the passenger and truck transportation industries.
Dr. Bushey is a nationally recognized expert in autonomous, connected, electric, and 
shared transportation systems across air, rail, freight, trucking, and shared system 
modalities. He has leadership experience in autonomous vehicles, served as a senior 
consultant to several large municipalities on their intelligent and connected 
transportation systems, and was instrumental in shaping the Department of Defense's 
worldwide autonomous and connected advanced flight systems.
Before joining TA, Dean served as the vice president of Hitachi's North American 
Environmental Business Division, where he was responsible for commercial 
development and business strategy across multiple verticals, emphasizing 
sustainability, environmental solutions, EVs, and alternative energy. He was also the 
general manager of Voyage, a self-driving car startup that deployed self-driving vehicles 
to The Villages in Florida.
Before that, Dean served as a professor of computer science and the director of the 
Advanced Mobility Institute at Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland, Florida, as 
well as a professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. He also served 
as a senior management consultant to a nuclear engineering firm in Richmond, Virginia. 
In 2013, he retired from the U.S. Air Force after 25 years of service, as a full colonel, 
where he had extensive transportation, unmanned systems, aviation, and leadership 
experience. During his distinguished career, he led international collations in 
autonomous systems and joint flight operations. He is a command pilot with over 4,500 
hours of aircraft command flight experience, including instructor pilot qualifications and 
experience in seven different aircraft. 
A 1988 U.S. Air Force Academy graduate, Dean also holds a master's degree and 
Ph.D. in computer science from Clemson University.