NTEA – The Association for the Work Truck Industry recently appointed Susan Dehne as senior director of technical services, a newly created role.

She brings approximately 30 years of OEM engineering and management experience and will lead the Technical Services Department as the association continues to expand those offerings on behalf of its membership and the industry as a whole.

“Adding Susan to the team positions us to continue growing the Technical Services Department,” said NTEA Executive Director Steve Carey. “With her impressive background in OEM engineering, she brings a unique strategic perspective which will benefit the membership and industry.”

During her career, Dehne has held various leadership positions at Ford Motor Company and Chrysler. At both companies, she led teams in the creation and implementation of vehicle and system processes and designed new organizations.

While at Ford, she gained insight into multi-stage commercial vehicles, supporting the Econoline van platform. She also served as chief nameplate engineer for the Super Duty vehicle line and was responsible for the production launch of 6.0- and 7.3-liter Power Stroke diesel engines into the Econoline and F-Series. In addition, Dehne led product development teams in delivery of the Sport Trac and Explorer vehicle programs and guided Ford’s in-sourcing of seat engineering design and development.

She continued to build on her automotive expertise while serving as director of advance vehicle engineering at Chrysler. In this role, she was responsible for vehicle packaging, studio engineering, human machine interface and ergonomics, and advance engineering studies.

Dehne earned a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and a master’s in business administration at the University of Michigan.