John “Jay” Rogers is President, CEO and Co-Founder of Local Motors, a next-generation car company that is changing the way cars are designed, built and owned. Local Motors is the first automotive co-creation community, and the first company to produce an open source vehicle, the Rally Fighter. In 2011, Local Motors facilitated the co-creation of a military vehicle for DARPA called the XC2V.

This industry is in Jay’s blood; his grandfather owned the legendary Indian Motorcycle Company. He grew up loving cars, and came to develop Local Motors by way of Princeton University, US Marine Corps and Harvard Business School.

Local Motors

From playing Hot Wheels and Dinky Toys with childhood friends to adulthood and the excitement of seeing a vehicle project hit the road after months of teamwork, Aurel lives to share his passion with other designers and car enthusiasts. After graduating from the Institut Supérieur de Design in France, he joined the newly born Local Motors community in 2008 in order to exchange, compete and grow skills with like-minded people from all over the world. A few months later, he got the opportunity to join the Local Motors team in the U.S. to pursue the design development effort of the Rally Fighter in collaboration with the community. His American life experience, complementary to his European background reinforces his conviction that cultural dimension must play the main role in any design approach.

Aurélien François

Chris Cocalis is the President and Founder of Pivot Cycles and BH Bike’s USA. Both companies are well known for their cutting edge suspension and road bike designs. Mr. Cocalis has been involved in designing and manufacturing high end, cutting edge bicycles for over 25 years and has numerous awards and patents for his designs.

Pivot Cycles

As a young man, Victor Garcia was fascinated by all modes of transportation. That fascination led him to study transportation design at Art Center College of Design.

That strong design foundation has given him an opportunity to fulfill his dream of designing a myriad of transportation products. He conceptually designed cars for Mazda, aircrafts for Airbus, yachts for Carver, buses for MCI, semi- trucks for Kenworth and many more. He continues to be inspired by transportation as witnessed by his recent first place winning design, the XC2V Flypmode military vehicle, organized by Local Motors and DARPA. Victor continues his quest for transportation evolution within the heavy truck industry and now works for Peterbilt Motors as a Senior Industrial Designer.

Victor Garcia