CEO of leading transportation manufacturer Wabash to headline Presidential Lecture Series event in November

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The top executive at Lafayette-based transportation manufacturer Wabash will headline Purdue University’s next Presidential Lecture Series event for a conversation on how industry and higher education can collectively advance innovation in manufacturing.

Brent Yeagy, a Purdue alum who has been Wabash CEO since 2018, will join Purdue President Mung Chiang for the PLS event at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 6, at the Convergence Center for Innovation and Collaboration, 101 Foundry Drive, in Discovery Park District at Purdue. The event, titled “From Lab to Market: Unlocking Innovation Through Partnership,” is free and open to the public but a ticket is required. For tickets and more information, go here.

“A leader in creating the ‘Smart Crossroads of America,’ Brent Yeagy is a proven pioneer and Purdue alum who is taking Wabash to new levels in an extremely competitive global manufacturing landscape,” Chiang said. “What an honor it is to welcome him as our next PLS guest who represents a major Indiana company and a Purdue industry partner as we discuss ways that industry and higher education can deepen their collaborations to create jobs, workforce and innovation together.”

Yeagy is a manufacturing leader with more than 30 years of experience in the automotive and commercial transportation industries. As president and CEO of Wabash, a publicly traded company and leading provider of transportation and logistics solutions, he is responsible for setting the company’s strategic direction and overseeing its operations across North America.

Before his current appointment, Yeagy served as president and chief operating officer at Wabash from 2016-18. He joined Wabash in 2003 and has held a number of positions with increasing responsibility, including vice president of manufacturing, vice president and general manager of commercial trailer products, and senior vice president-group president of Wabash’s commercial trailer products.

Prior to joining Wabash, Yeagy held human resources, environmental engineering and safety management positions at Delco Remy International from 1999-2003. He also held various plant engineering roles at Rexnord Corp. from 1995-99 and served in the U.S. Navy from 1991-94.

Yeagy holds a bachelor’s degree (1995) and master’s degree (1999) from Purdue’s College of Health and Human Sciences with an industry focus on environmental engineering science and safety engineering, and an MBA in business management from Anderson University. He has also attended executive programs at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

He is a graduate of the U.S. Navy’s Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program and participated in the Navy’s Officer Candidate School. Yeagy serves on the boards for the National Association of Manufacturers and the Transportation and Supply Chain Institute at the University of Denver.

About the Presidential Lecture Series

Launched in 2014 by then-Purdue President Mitch Daniels and continued by President Mung Chiang, the Presidential Lecture Series exposes Purdue students and the broader community to inspiring ideas, courageous leadership, and models of civic engagement and civil discourse. The Presidential Lecture Series has had over 40 guests of many viewpoints and perspectives and hosted some of the great intellectual, business and civic leaders of our time. As one of the world’s premier centers of scholarly leadership, Purdue is — appropriately and necessarily — a regular venue for great thinkers across a wide variety of disciplines.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research university leading with excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities in the United States, Purdue discovers, disseminates and deploys knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 106,000 students study at Purdue across multiple campuses, locations and modalities, including more than 57,000 at our main campus locations in West Lafayette and Indianapolis. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its integrated, comprehensive Indianapolis urban expansion; the Mitch Daniels School of Business; Purdue Computes; and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.