LTU President Virinder Moudgil (L) and ServoTech Engineering President Hamid Servati unveil the logos on one of the trucks donated by Westport Advanced Engineering.
Westport, a natural gas engine and vehicle engineering company, has donated a bi-fuel Ford F-250 truck that can run on either gasoline or compressed natural gas to Lawrence Technological University (LTU). The bi-fuel truck will also serve dual purposes – student research in LTU’s alternative fuels program and snow removal on campus.
Westport also provided LTU another F-250, two F-150s and an F-450, which will also be used for campus maintenance.
Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Westport engineers some of the world’s most advanced natural gas engines and vehicles. It works with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) worldwide from design through production, creating products to meet the growing demand for vehicle technology that reduce both emissions and fuel costs.
Hamid Servati, vice president of Westport and president of Belleville-based ServoTech Engineering, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Westport, formally donated the vehicles to LTU at an Oct. 8 ceremony.
“In the past 80 years LTU has done a great job of producing some of the best engineers and innovators with a great impact on the success of automotive industries among others,” Servati said. “We at Westport are delighted to be playing a small part in helping further those advances for a better economy and society.”
Servati is also a member of the board of advisors for LTU’s College of Management. At ServoTech, he is responsible for technologies and solutions for fuel economy improvements, alternative fuel technologies, exhaust emissions controls, and reduction of product development cycles via simulation and automations.
Associate Professor Robert Fletcher, director of the alternative energy program in LTU’s A. Leon Linton Department of Mechanical Engineering, said the bi-fuel truck would provide his students with opportunities to compare the two fuel systems.
“Having this truck will provide engineering students with the opportunity to study energy efficiency and systems optimization,” Fletcher said. “By going back and forth, they will be able to really understand the differences between the two systems.”
Lawrence Technological University, www.ltu.edu, is a private university founded in 1932 that offers more than 100 programs through the doctoral level in its Colleges of Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Engineering, and Management. PayScale lists Lawrence Tech among the nation’s top 100 universities for the salaries of its graduates, and highest in the Detroit metropolitan area. Lawrence Tech is also listed in the top tier of Midwestern universities by U.S. News and World Report and the Princeton Review. Students benefit from small class sizes and experienced faculty who provide a real-world, hands-on, “theory and practice” education with an emphasis on leadership. Activities on Lawrence Tech’s 102-acre campus include over 60 student clubs and organizations and a growing roster of NAIA varsity sports.
