Torc hires chief information security officer

Blacksburg-based self-driving truck company Torc Robotics, a subsidiary of Daimler Truck, hired Summer Craze Fowler as chief information security officer, the company announced Tuesday.

Fowler joins Torc after serving as senior vice president of cybersecurity and IT at Boston-based driverless vehicle company Motional and leading teams at Johns Hopkins University’s applied physics laboratory and Carnegie Mellon University. Before that, she was chief information and responsibility officer at Argo AI, an autonomous vehicle company that shut down in 2022, for four years.

Fowler brings more than 20 years of experience developing and executing successful technical strategies that align with business goals and objectives, according to Torc.

“Joining Torc at such a momentous time for the organization and industry is incredibly exciting,” Fowler said in a statement. “Since my early meetings with the team, Torc’s prioritization of safety and innovation has been clear. I look forward to collaborating with this deeply focused team on our mission to commercialize a hub-to-hub autonomous truck product safely and efficiently.”

Torc was founded as Torc Technologies in 2005 by a group of Virginia Tech robotics students and originally stood for Tele-Operated Robotic Controls. It has test facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico and engineering offices in Austin, Texas; Stuttgart, Germany, and Montreal, Canada. Daimler Truck acquired Torc in 2019. In 2022, Peter Vaughan Schmidt became its CEO.