Leadership

Prior to joining ITE, Steve served 15 years as a Senior Vice President and the National ITS/CAV Practice Leader with the global consulting firm WSP, where he helped coordinate ITS projects and resources for a wide variety of clients and disciplines, while also continuing to lend his state-of-the-practice expertise to project work. His ITS and transportation background spanned a variety of technical and policy program areas, including infrastructure related ITS deployment; connected and automated vehicle systems development; coordination of incident management and transportation management centers; travel information business models; and legislative outreach activities.

Kuciemba utilizes his diverse set of knowledge-building experiences including with ITS America, Maryland DOT, General Motors, and a private travel information company. 

Steve holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan.

Director Ajegba has held significant positions during his more than 31-year career with the department, including Metro Region Engineer, University Region Engineer, and Metro Region’s Oakland Transportation Service Center Manager. During his seven years in the University Region, Ajegba oversaw the planning, design and building of several major projects, including the US-23 Flex Route, a project nominated for the America’s Transportation Award and landing among the top 12 national finalists. Other notable projects include the I-94 improvements project in Ann Arbor/Jackson, the I-96/US-23 interchange, and the I-75 freeway project. 

Director Ajegba established MDOT’s Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Transportation Diversity Recruitment Program (TDRP) in 2013, with approximately 300 students participating to date. The program is a partnership between MDOT, the Federal Highway Association and Michigan colleges and universities, offering valuable on-the-job training to minority undergraduate students pursuing degrees in engineering. The goal of TDRP is to expose underrepresented groups of college students to engineering and transportation-related career opportunities through professional development, technical work experience, networking, and income to assist with college expenses. 

Ajegba holds a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Prairie View A&M University and a Master’s Degree in Construction Engineering from the University of Michigan. He is a licensed professional engineer in the state of Michigan.

Ajegba is a member of the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO) and serves on the following boards: The Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), AASHTO Council on Public Transportation (serves as Chair), ITS America, Mcity, the University of Michigan Civil and Environmental Engineering Friends Association (serves as Board Chair), the Engineering Society of Detroit, and the Mackinac Bridge Authority.

John has played a key role in planning GM’s advanced technology in the areas of active safety, driver assist, automated driving, and connected vehicle safety which has resulted in the deployment of many Active Safety features, Vehicle-to-Vehicle safety communications, Super Cruise, Rear Seat Reminder, and the Buckle-to-Drive feature to increase seat belt use.

John also leads key safety aspects of GM’s autonomous driving work around developing industry safety standards and pursuing regulatory solutions that can safely accommodate automated driving systems of the future. He holds a Bachelor of Engineering from Kettering University, and a Master of Engineering from Purdue University.  

Before joining the ASO Team in 2020, Diaz held various positions in Product Development (PD) for nearly 15 years. His most recent role in PD was as Systems Engineering Chief Engineer responsible for developing a team in Europe and North America to lead the efficient integration of vehicle components in the dash area for various carlines. In 2017, he was Global Cross-Functional Integration Manager for the Ford Escape/Kuga leading the delivery and integration of body exterior, interior, chassis and electrical systems of the vehicle globally, including the launch of the product in three different plants around the world (North America, Europe and China). Prior to that, starting in 2015 he led Ford’s Asia Pacific PD Exterior Systems teams in Australia, China and India. Under his lead, the team was responsible for developing exterior systems components for various regional and global products.

From 2011 through 2015, Diaz was the Body Exterior Manager at Ford of Mexico, responsible for the delivery of the structural components, exterior systems, crashworthiness performance and exterior Integration of various carlines including Fusion, MKZ, Expedition and Navigator.

Earlier in his career, Diaz worked as a Safety and Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) supervisor and engineer in different Ford locations (Mexico, Brazil and Dearborn, MI) responsible for the development of the crashworthiness performance as well as other analytical attributes including aerodynamics, cooling, heat management, durability and noise & vibration for various carlines like Fiesta, Lincoln MKC among others.

Diaz joined Ford in Mexico in 2005 as a Product Development CAE Engineer after three years working for General Motors in Mexico. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico and a Master of Science in Engineering and Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Her passion for child passenger safety has grown into leadership and advocacy with positions on the National Child Passenger Safety Board, the Manufacturers Alliance for Child Passenger Safety, the Society of Automotive Engineers Children’s Restraint Systems Committee, and the Safe Kids Children in Autonomous Vehicles Consortium, in addition to serving as a national spokesperson for Buckle Up for Life. She is also the co-creator of Toyota for Families, a digital toolkit supporting proper child seat installation. Ms. Pelky holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. For recreation, she is an aspiring aerialist and recently started learning to play ice hockey.