GREENSBORO, NC — Ed Saxman, an engineer and product manager with 44 years of experience at Mack Trucks and Volvo Trucks retired at the end of April.

“I was crazy about trucks since I was a kid and I joined Mack right out of college,” Saxman told Today’s Trucking.

The year was 1970. Saxman had just graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh and got his job at an OEM around the same time that the Clean Air Act was passed.

His first job was engine design.

“The absolute single best device to improve emissions was the air-to-air chassis cooling,” Saxman said. “My first employer was Mack Trucks and I was on the design team that brought to life the first air-to-air charge air-cooled engine in the history of diesel trucks.”

He worked with Mack for 13 years, then switched to Volvo for the next 31.

“Volvo happened to be the first with an air-to-air charge-air-cooler in the United States that was mounted on the radiator. That was in 1978 with the F7 model. It was a simple ‘radiator in front of the radiator,’ if you will. That design reduced the air down to 110 into the engine,” Saxman recalls.

In 2012, Saxman accepted the Technical Achievement Award from the Truck Writers of North America for Volvo’s efforts in increasing fuel efficiency through engine “downspeeding.” 

His last assignment at Volvo Trucks was as product marketing manager for alternative fuel trucks. That included developing fuel handling systems to burn inexpensive dimethyl ether, or DME, in Volvo compression-ignition diesels. 

“It’s comin’,” he said of the fuel, which can be made from biomass that otherwise has to be discarded. A DME engine doesn’t need spark plugs or high-pressure fuel injection but does need a more powerful fuel pump. “It burns more fuel but the cost per mile will be less.”