Autonomous Trucking, Innovation and Fleet Data | with Matt McLelland of Covenant Logistics

**John Heinlein** (0:00)
Today in The Garage, we're recording live at ACT Expo 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Here at this hall, the show floor is filled with technologies of all kinds from fleets to fuel technologies and trucks and everything. And one of the things we're learning as we talk to more and more customers is the diversity of needs of different fleets and their operations.
We're seeing cases where fleets are interested to understand autonomous vehicles and autonomous technologies, how they're helping to optimize their operations. We're seeing how different drivetrains from electric to biodiesel to conventional diesel and everything in between can affect their sustainability and their operations. And we're seeing how fleets deal with different kinds of issues ranging from safety, driver behavior, anticipating breakdowns, even anticipating driver problems in the future.
To talk about that, we wanted to bring on a guest who's working with one of the leading fleets in the industry. And so our guest today is Matt McClelland, who runs innovation and sustainability at Covenant Logistics. Matt joined us to talk about their experience as a fleet, the technologies they care about and what they're looking to use in the future. And he tells some really interesting stories about practical uses of how technology can benefit fleets. It's a very interesting conversation.
Let's go!
Welcome to The Garage. I'm John Heinlein, Chief Marketing Officer with Sonatus. We're here at ACT Expo 2026 in Las Vegas and excited to be visiting with Matt. Matt, welcome to The Garage. Hey. Thanks for having me. I'm so excited to, to chat with you. We're appreciate you spending some time with us. Yeah. Can you start by telling us about you and your background? Sure. Yep. Matt McLelland. I do sustainability and innovation for Covenant Logistics. We are a, for those of you who don't know, a a third party logistics provider. We have warehousing, trucking, freight brokerage, managed transportation, but we have a lot of trucks. Right? And that's why I'm here. I'm here to look at alternative fuels. I'm here to look at all the things that I need to know about to present customers greener, cleaner, leaner solutions than what we're doing today. There's also some other things too that fall under the innovation umbrella, but for the most part, you know, I'm here for the trucks, and I'm here for the, actually, here for some of the AI. Okay. Yeah. Well, hopefully, talk all those things. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us about your background. What what did you do before? What's your background from? Oh, wow. You know, it's sort of funny. I was in IT for a long time, like our mutual friend Yeah. That introduced us in the first place. Lawrence was also on the podcast. Lawrence was on the podcast. Yeah. Go Lawrence. So, I was in IT for pretty much all my career. I ended up, running an innovation lab at a 3PL, a competitor to ours.
Well, the idea was we had ten thousand square feet to fill with the latest and greatest technologies that were going on in the warehouse, robots, drones that scanned inventory, like all these things that customers want were paying us millions of dollars a year to come in and and provide, you know, the best solutions available. They wanted to see all the stuff that was out there on the edge. I did that for this company, Kenco Logistics, for several years, ended up pivoting and going to Covenant.
And so Covenant's where I've been for the last eight years. I think I came in more of a innovation IT role, but it pivoted to be more sustainability probably back in, like, 2018/2019.
My career is the same. And I've I've I started out with one background, and I pivoted to adjacent things. And it's funny how your career path works. I didn't apply for this job. It evolved. In fact, one day, our CEO said, let's talk about your role, your KPIs. Like, let's talk about your title. And, you know, it's kind of a longer story, but at the time, there were lots of questions about autonomy. There were lots of questions about electric trucks. There were lots of questions about alternative fuels. There was a lot of that stuff, John, that we were already doing. Was a way just to kind form together and Put it together, put it under a title, put it under a department, and that's where we are today. It's it's fantastic. Well, gotta start by telling you gotta tell us a fun fact about you. We always like to get our know our guests. Oh, wow. Fun fact.
So I'm a really I fly hang gliders and dive with sharks once a month and everything, but I was in Antarctica in January And when was a National Geographic expedition ship. That's fantastic. Yeah. It was so cool. And how long was the trip for? We were there for twelve days. Took two days to get over the Drake Passage, five days there, and then two days to get to Drake Passage, six days there, and then two days to get back. Well, that's a pretty incredible story. Yeah. The Drake Passage is one of the most craziest, you know, crossings ever. It's where three oceans come together and there's these giant waves, and we actually didn't have bad weather. We had great weather. So it was a fantastic trip. That's incredible. I can't touch that at all. So I'll tell you a different one...It's not a competition. You mentioned diving. I'm a big scuba diver. Oh, good. Fantastic. Former scuba instructor. That's another story for another time. Fantastic. Lots of live-aboard scuba diving Me too. Which is great fun. Love it. There you go. My wife does it, my son does it, it's a family affair. There's our connection. Yeah. Fantastic. I knew I liked you. Alright. So we're here at the show, ACT. It's full of the most incredible, diverse Yep. Commercial vehicle technology of all shapes and sizes, electric and biofuels and trucks, big, small tractors, trailers. What what's the technology that's really exciting you right now, and what's on your mind right now? You know, it's interesting.