Nate Baguio has been working in the transportation industry for over 30 years. His career has taken him from behind the wheel of a school bus to launching the largest deployment of heavy-duty electric vehicles in North America.
Currently, he is working to electrify the transportation industry as Senior Vice President of Commercial Development for one of the nation’s leading EV manufacturers, The Lion Electric Co. Since joining Lion in 2018, he has helped position Lion as the leader in electric school bus deployments across North America. Baguio is leading the Commercial Development team in warming markets in target states across the United States, advocating stakeholders and policy makers to fund more money into the EV industry, and helping Lion attain more of the available funding for both Lion’s bus and truck lines. His work has contributed to Lion’s exponential growth in the market and position as a policy leader in the EV industry.
In 1990, he started in the student transportation industry managing operations for Ryder Student Transportation Services. In this position, he had overall responsibility for the startup and deployment of school bus operations across the State of California. His time in operations was highlighted by the management of over 330 employees and the management of over 300 school bus routes for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Baguio spent time working on various transit projects in Los Angeles County. He was part of the team that opened segment three of the Redline subway to 500,000 riders on opening weekend and worked to complete an $800-Million, 14-mile segment of light rail from Los Angeles to Pasadena (first segment of the Metro Gold Line). He was part of the team that designed and implemented a comprehensive safety project along the Metro Blue Line corridor in response to 16 fatalities in a single year. The first year of project implementation had an immediate impact with zero fatalities that year.
He returned to school transportation in 2005 as Senior Director of Business Development for First Student, Inc., the largest school bus operator in North America. In this role, he worked with school districts across the country to renew their contracted service or start new contracted school bus service. He led efforts that resulted in new contracted service across the U.S. and placed over 1,000 new school buses in service of various types and from most of the major OEMs for these new contracts.
Baguio is proud to not only provide a healthy breathing environment to students, drivers, technicians, and communities, but to also help educate the industry on the favorable economics of operating zero emission, electric medium and heavy-duty vehicles. He is determined to impact as many people across North America as possible to join in the fight for environmental justice and help create a cleaner, safer world.