“It’s challenging,” Sayer says. “It’s like owning a small business. You’re always chasing after the next job. You constantly have to bring in new research contracts. … I just wanted to make a difference.”
The road less traveled should be renamed “Sayer’s Way.”
Because Jim Sayer has blazed fresh new trails in his 32-year exploration of mobility — an epic journey that ends Feb. 28, when he retires as Director of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI).
“It’s been an honor to work with Jim these past several years,” says Henry Liu, who will succeed Sayer, effective March 1. “He has been the PI on over $80M in research — research that serves as a foundation for the next decade of transportation.”
Of particular note, Liu adds, “Jim has always represented UMTRI faculty and staff with distinction, whether it’s with city officials, university leadership, or at the White House.”
While Sayer’s successes have followed a logical progression, the 62 year-old researcher/administrator’s career path has been anything but conventional.
A one-time woodworker, he made the seemingly counterintuitive leap to biopsychology, earning a degree from a school he was discouraged from attending — the University of Michigan.
As an undergrad, he elbowed his way onto research teams. And as a junior faculty member, Sayer and colleagues further challenged propriety when he led and won $25M Department of Transportation project that was all but lost.
“Jim was always about doing something that was right for UMTRI, not for himself,” observes longtime colleague Paul Green, Head of UMTRI’s Human Factors Group.
Also, he adds, Sayer “had a good sense of how things were made … I think that was a result of his woodworking knowledge.”
Sayer pursued woodworking as a teen, because his parents advised that trades were the surest way to success and happiness. “When you’re 15-16 you do, you know, what your parents recommend,” he says.
“While I was making reasonable money … it wasn’t what I wanted out of life,” Sayer adds. “You were also working with a bunch of materials that were known to be carcinogenic … So, yeah, I ultimately decided to go back to school.”
But not for engineering. Or design.
He chose to study psychology.
“While I was working, I was taking classes at Oakland Community College and I had a psychology class,” Sayer explains. “I got really interested in perception, vision, hearing.”
Each, of course, is a key element of the driving experience, an activity at the core of UMTRI’s mission to advance mobility and transportation.
“I also was told I couldn’t get into the University of Michigan,” he adds. “I don’t like being told I can’t do something.”
Accordingly …
“I did a lot of research as an undergrad, which at the time was fairly unusual,” Sayer says. “Now, there’s a very organized structure for undergrads to get engaged in research on campus. Back when I was doing it in the mid ’80s, I literally had to go around and knock on professors’ doors. So, I did.”
He remembers well the Department of Transportation proposal call with a $25 million price tag.
“We were on a team that included some vehicle manufacturers, and they dropped us very unceremoniously with about a month left before the proposal is due,” Sayer recalls. “I had worked on similar types of projects before, but they were always led by other faculty members and, quite frankly, we had some, say, more traditional engineers who didn’t think that somebody with my background really ought to lead.
“So, just before it wraps up I said, ‘Screw that. I’m gonna put together another team.’ And we won the project.”
The project explored passenger-vehicle and commercial-truck applications for now-ubiquitous driver-assist technologies such as lane-departure warning and blind-spot detection.
Adaptive cruise-control is another common feature that has Sayer’s fingerprints on it.
“It’s something that was one of the first projects I worked on here,” he says. “I wasn’t leading the project. We did a lot of the very early development.”
And while he studied vision and its implications for vehicle safety, Sayer also demonstrated it in the broader sense. Green credits him — along with former University of Michigan Dean of Engineering, Alec Gallimore — with moving UMTRI from the Office of Research to the College of Engineering.
Green further cites Sayer as a driving force to hire additional faculty.
But the most significant milestone of his legacy is likely the 2015 completion of Mcity, the celebrated autonomous and connected vehicle test facility.
“He was the architect behind Mcity,” Liu says. “His leadership was also critical during the pandemic, ensuring minimal disruption.”
Under Liu, the UMTRI and Mcity organizations will be fully consolidated.
Even Sayer’s personal tastes eschew convention. As an aficionado of single-malt Scotch, he prefers the Lowland varieties to the better-known Highland brands.
“Highland varieties are sweeter,” he says. “Where Lowlands have a wider variety of expressions from somewhat sweet to peaty”
But sweet is the best way to describe Sayer’s future, as he and his wife, Tina, plan to hit the road in a new custom-built travel trailer.
Sayer would probably need a trailer to haul all the hardware he’s accumulated over the years. The list includes prizes from the Society of Automotive Engineers, the Intelligent Transportation Society of America and a 2015 White House Transportation Champion of Change Award for “exemplary leadership” in promoting innovation.
Having spent almost every waking hour of his UMTRI tenure contemplating ways to make driving safer, Sayer confides he is sometimes frustrated by the behavior he sees on the road.
“The ones that rankle me the most are what we call secondary tasks, non-driving tasks,” he says. “I don’t have as much of a problem with cell phones, like people having conversations. But anything that requires manual and visual interaction.
“So, you know, eating a Wendy’s triple with stuff falling in your lap. I’ve seen people eating bowls of cereal while they drive!”
For these reasons, UMTRI will continue to be a pace-setter in transportation.
The institution “deserves more credit than it gets,” Sayer adds.
Asked to take stock of his contributions, including his nine years as UMTRI director, he offers a long pause. It’s as if, consistent with Green’s account of Sayer’s selflessness, he’s never pondered his personal impact.
“It’s challenging,” Sayer says. “It’s like owning a small business. You’re always chasing after the next job. You constantly have to bring in new research contracts. … I just wanted to make a difference.”