Jay Rogers—a "Modern-Day Henry Ford"—to Keynote SEMA Product Development Conference

	Jay Rogers, Local Motors

Some say Jay Rogers is a modern-day Henry Ford who will dramatically change the landscape of the car industry. His cars are designed by an open-source community that works together to develop vehicles and build them locally—with customer participation. His company, Local Motors, is manufacturing these vehicles in micro factories, essentially challenging the paradigm of highly centralized manufacturing, dealerships and service locations.

Agree or disagree with the method, one thing is certain—Rogers is an innovator who is challenging the status quo.

Rogers will give the opening keynote at the SEMA Product Development Conference: Race to Innovate, February 7, at SEMA's Diamond Bar, California, Headquarters. He will talk about some of Local Motors' approaches to product development and how open-source, co-creation communities work. He will highlight how manufacturers can learn from their customers to generate truly innovative product ideas.

Following Rogers' keynote, several other subject-matter experts will be on hand to highlight technology and tools that are rapidly changing the way products are conceived and delivered to market, from online open- innovation models to product-creation software, and surface scanning tools to additive manufacturing equipment. Attendees will have the chance to meet face-to-face with representatives of companies that supply some of these tools and resources.

Conference participants will also have the opportunity to measure the new ’13 Ford Ranger T6 (a one-ton pickup sold throughout the world but not in the United States or Canada), as well as the ’12 Toyota HiLux. This Measuring Session provides an opportunity for you to create export-ready product for these vehicles.

Join us February 7, for a one-day educational conference and Measuring Session.

Register today or call 909-978-6655 with questions.

Learn. Measure. Innovate.

About Jay Rogers: John “Jay” Rogers is president, CEO and co-founder of Local Motors—a next-generation United States-based car company that is changing the way cars are designed, built and owned.

A car guy through-and-through, Rogers grew up a student of the industry. His grandfather owned the Indian Motorcycle Co. and was the first Cummins engine distributor in the United States. Rogers is a graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School (Baker Scholar). His career has taken him from a startup in China to Ewing & Partners, where he became a chartered financial analyst (CFA) to McKinsey & Co., and the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served for six years as an infantry company commander.

Founded just five years ago, Local Motors is already home to more than 60,000 car design concepts, 25,000 community members, more than 40 full-time employees, one production vehicle—the Rally Fighter—and one prototype vehicle—the XC2v—co-created for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Rogers' story, and the Local Motors story of American innovation and co-creation, has been shared on numerous national and international television and radio programs, on the pages of the world’s most well-respected technology and automotive publications and via dozens of speaking engagements around the world.

Rogers lives in Phoenix with his wife and four young boys.